Practice Questions: Grade 7

Name Lawrence Walker     Section 7-A     

When I was eleven years old, my dad took me hunting for the first time. I have my own gun.  We went to our stand early when it was still dark. I didn't speak because I knew we had to be quiet. I knew the woods because they were behind our place. We live down by the creek.

We climbed into our stand and drank coffee that was hot and bitter.  My hands were cold but I held the coffee cup and blew across it.  I watched the stars go out and the sky changed from dark to gray.

We knew deer came past our stand. We'd scouted it.  There were tracks and scat, and it was fresh.  We were waiting for a deer that we knew would come. When the deer did come, I couldn't shoot straight. I didn't feel scared, but I didn't want to miss and my hand was shaking. I hurried. I held my gun pointing out at the path and fired. But it went a little wild and instead of taking the deer down, I shot it in the head. 

My dad leaned over me and with one shot, he killed the deer. It was like no time went by between shots. I'd made a mess of the deer. The top of its head was blown off. There was gray matter on the ground behind it. 

Lots of times I clean up animals that are killed by cars near our house. My mom can't stand to see dead animals in the road. If you clean them up right after they're killed it isn't too bad. That's how I thought it would be with the deer.

I was wrong about that. The deer was the biggest dead animal I've ever seen. It looked terrible with its eyes open and still shiny and wet looking.  I felt sick walking along the side of it. There was a terrible mess. I didn't know how to start. I looked at my dad and he told me everything was fine. 

He handed me his knife and told me not to look at its head.  There was work to do, I had another chance to do it right.

I can kill deer with one shot now like my dad did. I got two this year and our freezer is full of meat. I learned not to let a shot go wild. I learned how to finish a hard job.