HOW TO ANSWER AN ESSAY QUESTION - HONORS

By Ms. Earhart

In “The Most Dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell, General Zaroff explains to Rainsford that he wants the ideal animal to hunt, which must have the attributes of an ideal quarry (prey). Zaroff explains, “It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason,” (Connell 12).

In a clear and concise paragraph, analyze how Rainsford proves to be the ideal quarry (prey), displaying courage, cunning, and reason.

Highlight the focus of the question Brainstorm (qualities) Write reasons (proof from text) Create topic sentence from the

question or prompt Put ideas in a logical order

(parallelism) Use transition words (first, next, then) Write a concluding sentence

In a clear and concise paragraph, analyze how Rainsford proves to be the ideal quarry (prey), displaying courage, cunning, and reason.

Brainstorming

Courageous – defends his thought that hunting ppl is wrong; won’t hunt even tho Z wants him to; decides to “play” Z’s game instead of Ivan’s; jumps off the cliff; goes back to Z’s house to win the game

Cunning – creates traps (loops his footprints, Malay man-catcher, Burmese tiger pit, knife trap)

Reasoning – realizes that “straight flight was futile,” so he made the trail; didn’t jump on Z when he could have (saw gun); realized Z was playing w/him; figured out how to use the island to his advantage w/his trap; decided to jump when the dogs were after him

Topic Sentence

Student Ex:The story, The Most Dangerous game is about

a man who wants a quarry who has the qualities of courage, cunning, and reason and a man named Rainsford displays all of those qualities.

In a clear and concise paragraph, analyze how Rainsford proves to be the ideal quarry (prey), displaying courage, cunning, and reason.

Topic Sentence

Teacher Ex:Because Rainsford was an extremely

experienced hunter, he proves to be the ideal quarry for Zaroff, who forces Rainsford into being hunted, by displaying courage, cunning, and reason.

Logical Order

First, Rainsford was courageous because he played the game to start with. Then, courage is shown when he took a chance with his life and jumped off a cliff into the sea and convinced Zaroff that he was dead.

He is cunning because he makes a malay man catcher that he learned in malaka in order to display his skills in defeatingZaroff and kill Zaroff. Rainsford started walking around in the forest making different paths for Zaroff to follow to try to confuse him so he can get farther into the forest.

Finally, Rainsford shows he has reason when he decided to jump off the cliff. Rainsford uses reason when he tried to keep his nerve and not get afraid by Zaroff and set up elaborate traps.

Transitions

FirstThenFinally

Concluding Sentence

Student Ex:1. Rainsford may have been more ideal than

what Zaroff wanted because Rainsford had defeated Zaroff.

2. Rainsford had more courage, cunning, and reason than Zaroff thought.

3. In the end, Rainsford showed that he had courage, cunning, and reason and he may have had more than Zaroff expected.

Concluding Sentence

Teacher Ex:Throughout the short story, Rainsford

was challenged by Zaroff’s skills, but in the end, he wins the game because he had the courage, cunning, and reason to do so.