College and career words

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet - Building Confidence

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Task

   For Friday's literature seminar, explicate the final stanza of the assigned poem, working through it line by line so that a classmate who found it puzzling could follow every image.

2. 1.

   Jun reads a task on a college literature syllabus. What does the task ask for?

   • a list of the images in the final stanza, without saying what they mean
   • a detailed, line-by-line explanation of the poet's life and early career
   • a judgment of how well the final stanza works as an ending
   • a detailed, line-by-line explanation of what the final stanza means

3. Sentence

   After ten years of payments on the debt for their building, the owners of the Larkspur Bakery had built up enough equity in it to borrow against its value.

4. 2.

   Pia reads a sentence in a small-business course. What does equity mean here?

   • the ten years of payments the owners made
   • the building's value minus the debt still owed on it
   • the money the owners still owe on the building
   • fair and equal treatment of people

5. Line

   The internship agreement at Fernhill Design stipulates that interns work no more than twenty hours a week during the school year.

6. 3.

   Bo reads a line in an internship agreement. What does stipulates mean here?

   • describes the design work that interns do
   • guesses about what may happen later on
   • states it as a condition that must be met
   • leaves it open for each intern to decide

7. Direction

   In your lab report's discussion section, elucidate why the second trial ran faster than the first, so that a reader who skipped the methods section still understands the cause.

8. 4.

   Milo reads a direction in a college chemistry lab guide. What does elucidate ask the student to do?

   • make the steps in the methods section clear by explaining them
   • predict how fast a third trial of the same reaction would run
   • make the cause of the faster second trial clear by explaining it
   • state that the second trial ran faster than the first one did

9. Sentence

   The bookstore sells each new hardcover for $30 after paying the publisher $18, so its margin on a hardcover is $12 before wages and other costs are paid.

10. 5.

    Zee reads a sentence in a retail-management textbook. What does margin mean here?

    • the blank space along the edge of a printed page
    • the $18 the store pays the publisher for each book
    • the money left after wages and other costs are paid each month
    • the gap between an item's selling price and its cost

11. Line

    The job offer from the Alder County library is contingent on a background check, so the start date will be set only after the check comes back clear.

12. 6.

    Kira reads a line in a job offer letter. What does contingent mean here?

    • depending on something that must happen first
    • happening by chance, with no plan behind it
    • certain no matter what else happens
    • about the start date of the library job

13. Advice

    Before you cite the 1910 travel guide in your history paper, interrogate its claims: ask who wrote it, for what reader, and what the author had reason to leave out.

14. 7.

    Ren reads advice in a college history course guide. What does interrogate mean in this advice?

    • question the other students' papers closely and systematically
    • copy the guide's most useful claims into the paper
    • find out who wrote the 1910 travel guide
    • question the guide's claims closely and systematically

15. Sentence

    The delivery company pays a monthly premium to its insurer, and in return the insurer covers the cost if one of its vans is damaged in a storm.

16. 8.

    Esme reads a sentence in a business-insurance training guide. What does premium mean here?

    • the regular payment that keeps an insurance policy in force
    • the amount the company pays before the insurer covers the rest
    • the cost of repairing a van after a storm
    • a product of higher quality that costs more than usual

17. Sentence

    When the restaurant group missed six straight payments on the money it owed a bank, the bank declared the debt in default and began steps to recover the money.

18. 9.

    Luz reads a sentence in a business-law course. What does default mean here?

    • a lower interest rate a bank offers a borrower
    • failure to pay a debt that is owed
    • the six payments the restaurant group missed
    • the setting a computer uses unless told otherwise

19. Posting

    The listing for a summer lab assistant gives the remuneration as $16 an hour, plus a transit pass for the weeks of the program.

20. 10.

    Tala reads a summer job posting. What does remuneration mean here?

    • the pay given in return for work
    • the transit pass for the weeks of the program
    • money the assistant pays to join the program
    • a numbered list of the job's duties