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Handout B: Vocabulary and Context Questions – John Adams (1735-1826)

VOCABULARY AND CONTEXT QUESTIONS

John Adams’s Letters to Abigail Adams, 1776

  1. Vocabulary: Use context clues to determine the meaning or significance of each of these words and write their definitions:
    1. dissenting
    2. impelled
    3. hitherto
    4. commencement
    5. controversy
    6. recollect
    7. folly
    8. sundered
    9. calamities
    10. affliction
    11. venality
    12. apprehensions
    13. Providence
    14. epoch
  2. Context: Answer the following questions.
    1. Who wrote these documents?
    2. When were these documents written?
    3. Who is the audience of these documents?
    4. Why were these documents written?