1. Assurance contains sur, which sounds similar to sure, a word you use often (sentence 12). Based on what you know about this word, what can you infer about the meaning of the word “assurance”?

2. What is another word in the sure word family that is connected with companies such as All State or Progressive?

3. Like you, Frederick Douglass guesses or makes an inference based on what he knows (sentence 13). He guesses that if the conductor had looked closely at his papers and seen that he was not the sailor described in the document, it could have been “fatal” for him. Several phrases in the surrounding context reinforce the meaning of fatal as “something that brings ruin or causes death.” Click on one of the phrases that Douglass uses to remind readers that this was an intense, life-or-death situation.

4. An analogy or parallel relationship in sentence 18 helps to explain the word “prey” (sentences 17–19). Douglass writes, “The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry hounds on his trail in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily than did mine.” If “fox and deer are the prey of hungry hounds,” who are the prey of slave-catchers?

5. Douglass explains how nerve-racking it was to be questioned or interrogated by an acquaintance who might reveal that he was not a sailor and betray him to officials (sentence 20). Next, Douglass describes the last point of “imminent danger.” Based on the overall context of “My Escape from Slavery,” “imminent” danger is
something—

6. “Apprehended” is a word used in crime stories (e.g., “The police apprehended the criminal.”) (sentence 22). In this passage, Douglass uses this word in a different way. Which definition from Merriam-Webster Online does the writer intend?