College and career words

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Sentence

   Rather than relying on the old claim that the river froze every winter, the class gathered empirical data, measuring the ice at three spots each morning for two months.

2. 1.

   Jun reads a sentence from a college environmental-science report. What does empirical mean here?

   • based on reasoning and theory alone
   • drawn from people's stories about past winters
   • based on observation and measurement
   • about the river ice at three spots

3. Glossary entry

   Culture (noun) 1. Anthropology: the beliefs, customs and arts of a group of people. 2. Biology: a growth of cells or microorganisms kept in a nutrient medium. Sentence (microbiology lab manual): Label each culture with the date and keep it at 37 °C until the colonies appear.

4. 2.

   Pia reads the glossary entry and the lab-manual sentence above. Which meaning of culture fits the sentence?

   • an interest in the arts, such as music
   • the date written on each lab label
   • a growth of microorganisms kept in a lab
   • the beliefs and customs of a group of people

5. Line

   Students who audit a course attend the lectures and may join discussions, but they take no exams and receive no credit on their transcripts.

6. 3.

   Bo reads a line from a college catalog. What does audit mean here?

   • take a course for full credit and a grade each term
   • check a company's financial records
   • attend a course without working for credit
   • join the discussions in a lecture course

7. Sentence

   The support for the new study method is anecdotal: three students said it helped them, but no one compared their grades with those of students who studied the usual way.

8. 4.

   Milo reads a sentence from a peer review in a psychology course. What does anecdotal mean here?

   • based on a controlled comparison of two groups
   • based on a few personal reports, not careful study
   • based on careful measurement of what can be observed
   • about a new method for studying

9. Glossary entry

   Conservation (noun) 1. Ecology: the protection and careful management of natural resources. 2. Physics: the principle that a quantity, such as energy, stays the same in total during a change. Sentence (physics textbook): If friction is ignored, conservation of energy lets you find the ball's speed at the bottom of the ramp from the height it started at.

10. 5.

    Zee reads the glossary entry and the textbook sentence above. Which meaning of conservation fits the sentence?

    • using less of something to save it for later
    • the height at which the ball starts on the ramp
    • the protection of forests, rivers and wildlife
    • a total amount that stays the same during a change

11. Glossary entry

    Capital (noun) 1. Civics: the city where a state's or country's government meets. 2. Economics: wealth, such as money, tools and buildings, used to produce more wealth. Sentence (economics course): A bakery that buys a second oven is investing capital so it can bake and sell more bread each day.

12. 6.

    Esme reads the glossary entry and the course sentence above. Which meaning of capital fits the sentence?

    • the city where a government meets
    • wealth used to produce more goods and income
    • the bread that the bakery sells each day
    • a large letter at the start of a sentence

13. Line

    Admitted students who win a year-long service fellowship may defer enrollment, keeping their place in the class that starts the following fall.

14. 7.

    Noah reads a line in a college admissions letter. What does defer mean here?

    • give way to someone else's judgment
    • win a year-long service fellowship
    • put off until a later time
    • begin right away, ahead of the usual date

15. Sentence

    Before the journal would publish the finding, a second lab tried to replicate the experiment, following the same steps with new samples to see whether the result held.

16. 8.

    Ari reads a sentence in a college biology lecture summary. What does replicate mean here?

    • repeat an experiment to check that its result holds
    • review a paper's writing before a journal prints it
    • reject an experiment's result without testing it again
    • decide whether a journal should publish a finding

17. Glossary entry

    Plasma (noun) 1. Biology: the yellowish liquid part of blood that carries the cells. 2. Physics: matter made of charged particles, formed when atoms lose electrons. Sentence (astronomy unit): The sun is made mostly of plasma, and the sun's magnetic fields push its charged particles into loops and arcs.

18. 9.

    Luz reads the glossary entry and the astronomy sentence above. Which meaning of plasma fits the sentence?

    • the liquid part of blood that carries cells
    • matter made of charged particles, like the sun's
    • a kind of flat television screen
    • the magnetic fields at the sun's surface

19. Line

    Credits transfer only from accredited colleges; a school that has not passed the agency's review cannot send credits that count here.

20. 10.

    Tala reads a line in a college transfer guide. What does accredited mean here?

    • not yet reviewed by any agency
    • sending credits to a student's next college each year
    • given credit for an idea or a discovery
    • officially approved as meeting set standards