Practice Your Inferencing Skills With This Worksheet

How are your inferencing skills? Need some inference practice? Of course, you do! The reading comprehension portions of many standardized exams will ask inference questions – those that ask you to infer, or make an educated guess, about the content of the passage – along with the standard questions about main idea, authors purpose, and vocabulary in context. Teachers, feel free to print the following PDFs for easy practice in the classroom:Inference Practice 3  Worksheet | Inference Practice 3  Answer Key On Being Found Guilty of Treason Robert Emmet Born in 1778, died in 1803; became a leader of the United Irishmen, and in 1803 led an unsuccessful rising in Dublin; escaping to the mountains he returned to Dublin to take leave of his fiancà ©e, Sarah Curran, daughter of an orator, and was captured and hanged. MY LORDS:What have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me according to law? I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and I must abide by. But I have that to say which interests me more than life, and which you have labored (as was necessarily), your office in the present circumstances of this oppressed country) to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it. I do not imagine that, seated where you are, your minds can be so free from impurity as to receive the least impression from what I am going to utterI have no hopes that I can anchor my character in the breast of a court constituted and trammeled as this isI only wish, and it is the utmost I expect, that your lordships may suffer it to float down your memories untainted by the fou l breath of prejudice, until it finds some more hospitable harbor to shelter it from the storm by which it is at present buffeted. 1 Was I only to suffer death after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but the sentence of law which delivers my body to the executioner, will, through the ministry of that law, labor in its own vindication to consign my character to obloquyfor there must be guilt somewhere: whether in the sentence of the court or in the catastrophe, posterity must determine. A man in my situation, my lords, has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune, and the force of power over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the difficulties of established prejudice: the dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their bloo d on the scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and of virtue, this is my hope: I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most Highwhich displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forestwhich sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand in the name of God against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or a little less than the government standarda government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows which it has made. 2 I appeal to the immaculate GodI swear by the throne of Heaven, before which I must shortly appearby the blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before methat my conduct has been through all this peril and all my purposes, governed only by the convictions which I have uttered, and by no other view, than that. of their cure, and the emancipation of my country from the super inhuman oppression under which she has so long and too patiently travailed; and that I confidently and assuredly hope that, wild and chimerical as it may appear, there is still union and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noble enterprise. Of this I speak with the confidence of intimate knowledge, and with the consolation that appertains to that confidence. Think not, my lords, I say this for the petty gratification of giving you a transitory uneasiness; a man who never yet raised his voice to assert a lie, will not hazard his character with posterity by asserting a falsehood on a subject so important to h is country, and on an occasion like this. Yes, my lords, a man who does not wish to have his epitaph written until his country is liberated, will not leave a weapon in the power of envy; nor a pretense to impeach the probity which he means to preserve even in the grave to which tyranny consigns him. 3 Again I say, that what I have spoken, was not intended for your lordship, whose situation I commiserate rather than envymy expressions were for my countrymen; if there is a true Irishman present, let my last words cheer him in the hour of his affliction. 4 I have always understood it to be the duty of a judge when a prisoner has been convicted, to pronounce the sentence of the law; I have also understood that judges sometimes think it their duty to hear with patience, and to speak with humanity; to exhort the victim of the laws, and to offer with tender benignity his opinions of the motives by which he was actuated in the crime, of which he had been adjudged guilty: that a judge has thought it his duty so to have done, I have no doubtbut where is the boasted freedom of your institutions, where is the vaunted impartiality, clemency, and mildness of your courts of justice, if an unfortunate prisoner, whom your policy, and not pure justice, is about to deliver into the hands of the executioner, is not suffered to explain his motives sincerely and truly, and to vindicate the principles by which he was actuated? 5 My lords, it may be a part of the system of angry justice, to bow a mans mind by humiliation to the purposed ignominy of the scaffold; but worse to me than the purposed shame, or the scaffolds terrors, would be the shame of such unfounded imputations as have been laid against me in this court: you, my lord [Lord Norbury], are a judge, I am the supposed culprit; I am a man, you are a man also; by a revolution of power, we might change places, tho we never could change characters; if I stand at the bar of this court, and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice? If I stand at this bar and dare not vindicate my character, how dare you calumniate it? Does the sentence of death which your unhallowed policy inflicts on my body, also condemn my tongue to silence and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence, but while I exist I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and motives from your aspersions; and as a man to whom fam e is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honor and love, and for whom I am proud to perish. As men, my lord, we must appear at the great day at one common tribunal, and it will then remain for the searcher of all hearts to show a collective universe who was engaged in the most virtuous actions, or actuated by the purest motivesmy countrys oppressors or I? 6 I am charged with being an emissary of France! An emissary of France! And for what end? It is alleged that I wished to sell the independence of my country! And for what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No, I am no emissary; and my ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my countrynot in power, nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement! Sell my countrys independence to France! And for what? Was it for a change of masters? No! But for ambition! O my country, was it personal ambition that could influence me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself among the proudest of my oppressors? My country was my idol; to it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it, I now offer up my life. O God! No, my lord; I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a domestic faction, which is its joint partner and perpetrator in the parricide, for the ignominy of existing with an exterior of splendor and of conscious depravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my country from this doubly riveted despotism. 7 I wished to place her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth; I wished to exalt you to that proud station in the world. 9 I wished to procure for my country the guarantee which Washington procured for America. To procure an aid, which, by its example, would be as important as its valor, disciplined, gallant, pregnant with science and experience; which would perceive the good, and polish the rough points of our character. They would come to us as strangers, and leave us as friends, after sharing in our perils and elevating our destiny. These were my objectsnot to receive new taskmasters, but to expel old tyrants; these were my views, and these only became Irishmen. It was for these ends I sought aid from France; because France, even as an enemy, could not be more implacable than the enemy already in the bosom of my country. 10 Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my countrys liberty and independence; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. The proclamation of the provisional government speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad; I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor for the same reason that I would resist the foreign and domestic oppressor; in the dignity of freedom I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her indepe ndence, and am I to be loaded with calumny, and not suffered to resent or repel itno, God forbid! 11 If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory lifeoh, ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son; and see if I have even for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind, and for which I am now to offer up my life! 12 My lords, you are impatient for the sacrificethe blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled, through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous, that they cry to heaven. Be yet patient! I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave: my lamp of life is nearly extinguished: my race is run: the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom! I have but one request to ask at my departure from this worldit is the charity of its silence! Let no man write my epitaph: for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character; when my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done. 1. Which of the following statements about Robert Emmet is best supported by the passage? A. He was a patriot, willing to die for his cause. B. He was a traitor, dishonoring his country. C. He was a liar, vilifying noblemen. D. He was a hero, ambitious for glory. Answer and Explanation 2. Based on the information in paragraph two, one could infer that the government in Robert Emmets time was: A. weakening. B. disorganized. C. oppressive. D. permissive. Answer and Explanation 3. It can be reasonably inferred from Robert Emmets speech that he is most concerned about this after his death: A. not finishing the task of finding freedom for Ireland. B. leaving behind a young wife and small child to fend for themselves. C. being characterized as a villain by people who didnt understand his motives. D. a poorly written epitaph about the role he played in the downfall of the United Irishmen. Answer and Explanation 4. It can be reasonably inferred from the passage that the Robert Emmet believed a partnership with France could: A. help gain control of the government to benefit Emmet. B. overthrow Irelands tyrannical rulers to free Ireland.    C. undo all the work he had done to free Ireland. D. sentence him to death for treason. Answer and Explanation 5. Based on the information in the passage, Robert Emmets tone could best be characterized as: A. quarrelsome. B. offensive. C. angry. D. passionate. Answer and Explanation