English Help

Please put a lot of thought into it, don't just take the points. It's rude.


Read the following poem and respond with one of the following:

I think…

I notice…

I predict…

I infer…

I wonder

I understand…

I connect…

I am confused about…



SIMS: The Game



A popular computer game explained by a child


In some ways it’s Life Real Life

in some ways Yes in some ways No


You design the people they can be

outgoing nice playful active neat

but you can’t make them be everything

If they are neat they will clean up after themselves

(Charisma is when they talk to themselves

in front of a mirror)


Adults never get older & old people can do

anything young people can do


Adults don’t have to have jobs they can cheat:

push the rose bud & money appears


Job objects like pizza ovens earn you money

or you can be an extra in a movie a soldier

a doctor an astronaut a human guinea pig


Children get older slowly every day they get a report card

children can live in the house without adults

(a family is anyone who lives in the house with you)


Everyone gets skill points:

for chess painting playing the piano

gardening cooking swimming mechanics

(when you get points a circle above your head

fills up with blue)


& there are goals: not to run out of money not to die

& to buy more stuff for the house

(like a pool table or an Easy Double Sleeper Bed)


Adults can get married but it’s hard to get married

You tell them to propose but they can’t make the decision

on an empty stomach or they’ve just eaten

& are too tired


To have a Baby click Yes or No & a baby carriage

rolls up


Everyone has to eat sleep go to the bathroom etc.

if they live alone & don’t have friends

they get depressed & begin waving their arms


If you give them Free Will you don’t have to

keep track of them

but it’s strange what they’ll do:

once a player fell asleep under the stairs standing up


& sometimes they go into a bedroom that isn’t theirs

& sleep in the wrong bed then you have to tell them:

Wake up! That is not your bed!


If they are mad they stomp on each other or put each other

in wrestling holds but no one gets hurt


There are different ways to die:

you can drown in the pool if you swim laps for 24 hours

(the Disaster Family all drowned in the pool

except the little girl who kept going

to school after they died she was perfect)


& the stove or fireplace or grill

can set the house on fire:

once there was a fire in the kitchen

eight people rushed in

yelling Fire! Fire! & blocked the door

so the firemen couldn’t get through

(after that everyone had to study cooking

now there are less accidents)


If you have Free Will you can starve or drown yourself

then you wander around as a ghost

until another player agrees to resurrect you


In some ways it’s Life Real Life

in some ways Yes in some ways No


~ Elizabeth Spires