Why the author set it here, ordered it so and introduced characters this way

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Fourth Place (story)

   [1] The ribbon for fourth place was yellow, which Ottilie Brandt had always said was the color of things that are nearly good, and she pinned it to her cardigan before anyone could offer to hold it. [2] The Tarn County Fair held its baking contest in the old roller rink, where the judges' table stood on the exact spot where the snack bar used to be, and the smell of cinnamon competed with a faint, permanent smell of floor wax. [3] Along the walls hung banners from forty earlier fairs, each one stitched with the winning pie, so that the room seemed to be watching the new entries with the patience of a jury that had already voted.

   [4] Ottilie had arrived that morning with a plum tart in a dented tin and a pocketful of measuring spoons she never used, because, she told the steward, she had measured by feel since before he was born. [5] Her granddaughter Mireille, carrying the tin, noticed that every other contestant had printed a card with the recipe and the name of the farm where the plums were grown. [6] Ottilie's card said only "plums," in pencil, and she had propped it against the tin without apology.

   [7] The winner, announced at noon, was a lattice pie from the Verhoeven family, whose entry card ran to two paragraphs and a map of their orchard. [8] The judges praised its "clarity of provenance," a phrase that Mireille wrote on her palm so she could look it up later. [9] Her grandmother, who had taught her to roll pastry on a cold marble slab, stood with the yellow ribbon and said that clarity was a fine quality in a window.

   [10] On the drive home Mireille asked why Ottilie had never printed a card, and Ottilie answered that a recipe written down becomes a rule, and a rule is what you hand to someone who has stopped paying attention. [11] They stopped for gasoline at a station with a single pump, where the attendant, seeing the ribbon, asked what place it was. [12] "Fourth," said Ottilie, "which means three people liked something better and everyone else liked this almost as much," and she handed Mireille the tin to hold on the seat between them. [13] That night, in the kitchen, Mireille found the plum tart's recipe taped inside the cupboard door, written in her grandmother's pencil, with every amount crossed out and rewritten many times over many years. [14] She sat on the stool beneath it for a while, then took the pencil from the jar and, under the last crossed-out amount, added a smaller number of her own.

2. 1.

   Suppose the contest were held in a plain school cafeteria instead of the old roller rink (sentences 2 and 3). What would Ari say the story loses?

   • The smell of cinnamon and floor wax, which gives the scene its vivid, old-fashioned feeling and makes the fair seem real.
   • Nothing important, since any busy room would let Ottilie keep her own way of baking.
   • Ottilie's whole disagreement with the judges, which exists only because of the rink.
   • The banners and judges' table that make the room a jury already decided, which Ottilie answers only quietly.
3. 2.

   Suppose the story began with the recipe taped inside the cupboard (sentence 13) and then told the day at the fair. What would Bo say the story loses?

   • The order of the events, since the fair would then happen after the kitchen scene.
   • The reversal at the end, when the recipe Ottilie calls a rule turns out to be one she was changing all along.
   • All of Ottilie's character, which depends on the reader not knowing the recipe exists until the very end.
   • The bittersweet mood that builds as the day at the fair goes badly for her and her granddaughter.
4. 3.

   Suppose Ottilie first appeared described flatly: "Ottilie Brandt, a retired baker, entered a plum tart." Instead, sentences 1 and 4 show her through the ribbon and the unused spoons. What would Esme say is lost?

   • Her way of judging by feel, which the ribbon and the spoons show all at once, before anyone labels her.
   • The reader's reason to like her at all, since her entrance is the only place she is charming.
   • The reader's sense of how old Ottilie is, which the story signals mainly by her cardigan and her pocketful of spoons.
   • Nothing, because the flat label would still lead the reader to the same view of her.

5. Eight Minutes Slow (story)

   [1] By the time Priya Raman had worked three weeks as the new assistant at Calder Harbor, she knew that the clock on the customs house ran eight minutes slow, and that nobody in town intended to fix it. [2] The harbor sat in a bowl of gray rock that held the tide for exactly as long as the ferries needed, so the clock's error had been absorbed into every schedule and appointment until it was no longer an error at all, only the local hour. [3] Visitors checked their watches against it, frowned, and then, within a day, stopped frowning.

   [4] The harbor master, a broad, unhurried man named Casimir Dunne, was introduced to her on her first morning by his boots, which stood by the office door filled with sand, while he himself was somewhere on the quay arguing amiably with a gull. [5] When he finally came in, he asked her no questions about her qualifications and instead handed her the ferry log, a ledger so water-stained that its columns had drifted into one another like the lines of a river map. [6] For three weeks she copied the day's crossings into a clean book, correcting the times without being told, until one evening Dunne turned the pages and said in his quiet way that the log was now very accurate and that he could no longer find anyone's ferry in it.

   [7] The trouble was that the ferries had never run to the clock but to the tide, and the people who boarded them had always known to arrive when the water looked right, a skill no table could hold. [8] Priya, who had come from a city where a lateness of two minutes was a reportable event, felt her own correction go slack in her hands. [9] She had made the harbor legible to strangers, she realized, by making it unreadable to the people who lived there. [10] She sat for a while with the two books side by side, the clean one and the drifting one, and could not say which was the better record.

   [11] The next morning she took the clean book back to the office, opened the old ledger on top of it and wrote above its heading the single word "Tide." [12] Dunne, watching from the doorway with a mug in both hands, said nothing, but the following Saturday he asked her to climb the customs house stairs and show a visiting inspector how to read the clock correctly, which meant adding eight minutes in her head, aloud, and without apology. [13] The inspector wrote it down. [14] The clock was never fixed.

6. 4.

   Suppose sentence 7, which explains that ferries run to the tide, came before Dunne's remark about the log in sentence 6. What would Kira say the story loses?

   • Nothing, since explaining the tide first would still show that the clean log is a mistake.
   • The quiet humor of Dunne's understatement, which is the main thing the order protects.
   • The order of Priya's corrections, since the tide would be explained before she began the clean book.
   • The puzzle in Dunne's remark, which lets the reader find the tide with Priya instead of being told.
7. 5.

   Instead of meeting Dunne through his sand-filled boots (sentence 4), suppose the story first described his face and age. What would Luz say is lost?

   • The signs that Dunne is gentle, because his face is where his gentleness would be seen by the reader.
   • A hint that the office is in disrepair, which the boots by the door suggest more than anything else.
   • A harbor master known by his habits, whose sandy boots show unhurried ease before he speaks.
   • Nothing, since describing his face would still show a calm, patient man.

8. Fourth Place (story)

   [1] The ribbon for fourth place was yellow, which Ottilie Brandt had always said was the color of things that are nearly good, and she pinned it to her cardigan before anyone could offer to hold it. [2] The Tarn County Fair held its baking contest in the old roller rink, where the judges' table stood on the exact spot where the snack bar used to be, and the smell of cinnamon competed with a faint, permanent smell of floor wax. [3] Along the walls hung banners from forty earlier fairs, each one stitched with the winning pie, so that the room seemed to be watching the new entries with the patience of a jury that had already voted.

   [4] Ottilie had arrived that morning with a plum tart in a dented tin and a pocketful of measuring spoons she never used, because, she told the steward, she had measured by feel since before he was born. [5] Her granddaughter Mireille, carrying the tin, noticed that every other contestant had printed a card with the recipe and the name of the farm where the plums were grown. [6] Ottilie's card said only "plums," in pencil, and she had propped it against the tin without apology.

   [7] The winner, announced at noon, was a lattice pie from the Verhoeven family, whose entry card ran to two paragraphs and a map of their orchard. [8] The judges praised its "clarity of provenance," a phrase that Mireille wrote on her palm so she could look it up later. [9] Her grandmother, who had taught her to roll pastry on a cold marble slab, stood with the yellow ribbon and said that clarity was a fine quality in a window.

   [10] On the drive home Mireille asked why Ottilie had never printed a card, and Ottilie answered that a recipe written down becomes a rule, and a rule is what you hand to someone who has stopped paying attention. [11] They stopped for gasoline at a station with a single pump, where the attendant, seeing the ribbon, asked what place it was. [12] "Fourth," said Ottilie, "which means three people liked something better and everyone else liked this almost as much," and she handed Mireille the tin to hold on the seat between them. [13] That night, in the kitchen, Mireille found the plum tart's recipe taped inside the cupboard door, written in her grandmother's pencil, with every amount crossed out and rewritten many times over many years. [14] She sat on the stool beneath it for a while, then took the pencil from the jar and, under the last crossed-out amount, added a smaller number of her own.

9. 6.

   Suppose Ottilie and Mireille stopped for gasoline at a busy highway plaza instead of a station "with a single pump" (sentence 11). What would Milo say the story loses?

   • Nothing, since a plaza attendant could just as easily ask about the ribbon.
   • A small stop where an attendant can ask about the ribbon and draw out her view of fourth place.
   • The sleepy, country feeling of the trip home, which the single pump gives, along with a slower pace of life.
   • Ottilie's whole view of fourth place, which would not come out anywhere else.
10. 7.

    Suppose Ottilie's remark about fourth place (sentence 12) came right after the winner's announcement, before the drive home. What would Noah say the story loses?

    • The calm after the day, since her remark in the car turns the loss into a considered view.
    • A mood of quiet comfort that fills the car with the tin between them.
    • The events of the drive, because the attendant's question would no longer happen once her remark moved earlier.
    • Ottilie's pride in fourth place, which depends on the delay and cannot be shown any other way.
11. 8.

    Mireille first appears carrying the tin and noticing the other contestants' cards (sentence 5). Suppose instead the story first said she was "a shy teenager." What would Pia say is lost?

    • A granddaughter who learns by watching, whose noticing of the cards prepares her to read the recipe.
    • Nothing, because the label shy would still show a quiet girl who watches.
    • Her age, which the story shows by her carrying the tin and following her grandmother through the contest hall.
    • Mireille's role in the plot, which depends entirely on the way she first appears.

12. Eight Minutes Slow (story)

    [1] By the time Priya Raman had worked three weeks as the new assistant at Calder Harbor, she knew that the clock on the customs house ran eight minutes slow, and that nobody in town intended to fix it. [2] The harbor sat in a bowl of gray rock that held the tide for exactly as long as the ferries needed, so the clock's error had been absorbed into every schedule and appointment until it was no longer an error at all, only the local hour. [3] Visitors checked their watches against it, frowned, and then, within a day, stopped frowning.

    [4] The harbor master, a broad, unhurried man named Casimir Dunne, was introduced to her on her first morning by his boots, which stood by the office door filled with sand, while he himself was somewhere on the quay arguing amiably with a gull. [5] When he finally came in, he asked her no questions about her qualifications and instead handed her the ferry log, a ledger so water-stained that its columns had drifted into one another like the lines of a river map. [6] For three weeks she copied the day's crossings into a clean book, correcting the times without being told, until one evening Dunne turned the pages and said in his quiet way that the log was now very accurate and that he could no longer find anyone's ferry in it.

    [7] The trouble was that the ferries had never run to the clock but to the tide, and the people who boarded them had always known to arrive when the water looked right, a skill no table could hold. [8] Priya, who had come from a city where a lateness of two minutes was a reportable event, felt her own correction go slack in her hands. [9] She had made the harbor legible to strangers, she realized, by making it unreadable to the people who lived there. [10] She sat for a while with the two books side by side, the clean one and the drifting one, and could not say which was the better record.

    [11] The next morning she took the clean book back to the office, opened the old ledger on top of it and wrote above its heading the single word "Tide." [12] Dunne, watching from the doorway with a mug in both hands, said nothing, but the following Saturday he asked her to climb the customs house stairs and show a visiting inspector how to read the clock correctly, which meant adding eight minutes in her head, aloud, and without apology. [13] The inspector wrote it down. [14] The clock was never fixed.

13. 9.

    The inspector hears the time read in "the customs house" (sentence 12). Suppose the clock stood in a modern office tower instead. What would Ren say the story loses?

    • Priya's whole change of mind, which could only happen at the customs house.
    • A public landmark whose error everyone shares, so adding eight minutes aloud is a shared habit.
    • The old-world feeling of a customs house, which gives the ending its charm and its sense of a working harbor.
    • Nothing, since a clock in any building could be read eight minutes fast.
14. 10.

    Priya first appears already knowing the clock runs slow and that nobody will fix it (sentence 1). Suppose she first appeared stepping off a train, unaware. What would Zee say is lost?

    • An outsider who knows the custom, so her correcting the log is a choice against what she knows.
    • Her sense of being new in town, which her arrival by train would show.
    • Her whole later regret, since a knowing Priya alone could regret the clean book.
    • Nothing, because an unaware Priya would still try to correct the log, and the story would run the same way.