Answer a question from an article, a chart and a table

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   Source line: News release from the Harcourt Transportation Department, October 14, 2026. The chart comes from the police department's collision reports; the table combines the department's bicycle counters and the regional hospital's injury records.

   [1] Collisions involving bicycles in Harcourt fell 18 percent between 2022 and 2025, the city's transportation department announced this week, and its director said that the protected bike lanes opened in 2023 are the reason. [2] Director Imani Brewer said the city built 14 miles of lanes along its busiest streets at a cost of $9 million, much of it from a state grant, and that the project had been planned for a decade. [3] "We said the lanes would make cycling safer, and the numbers are in," Brewer said at a news conference held beside one of the new lanes. [4] The department counted 70 bicycle collisions in 2022 and 57 in 2025, according to police reports, and Brewer said the decline shows that the lanes are working. [5] City council members will vote next month on a proposal to add another 9 miles of lanes in the south and west of the city. [6] A neighborhood group opposing the extension said that the first lanes removed parking and slowed deliveries to local shops. [7] Brewer said the department has also recorded a rise in the number of people who bicycle, though she did not give a figure. [8] She said the department would publish its full safety analysis in the winter, and that the state grant requires the city to report collisions for five years.

3. 1.

   The article says collisions fell 18 percent. The table says serious injuries stayed at 14. Ari asks which explanation fits both cards.

   • The hospital also treated injuries from the 2021 collisions, which kept its 2025 count at the same level of 14.
   • The cards come from different organizations, so they cannot be compared and the gap does not need explaining.
   • Police count all collisions and the hospital only serious injuries, so fewer minor ones can leave 14 unchanged.
   • The hospital's count must be wrong, since fewer collisions should always produce fewer serious injuries too.
4. 2.

   The article reports an 18 percent fall in collisions. The table reports that collisions per 1,000 riders fell by more than half. Bo asks why the two numbers differ so much.

   Use the picture in question 1.

   • Police counted collisions differently in 2025 than in 2022, which lowered the rate more than the plain count.
   • A rate and a count measure the same thing in different units, so one of the two numbers must be mistaken.
   • The department chose the 18 percent figure for the news release because it is the number that sounds most impressive.
   • Riders rose from 5,200 to 8,900 a weekday, so fewer collisions among many more riders is a much lower rate per rider.
5. 3.

   Esme writes one claim from the article, the chart and the table together. Which claim does the set support best?

   Use the picture in question 1.

   • The lanes made cycling safer for each rider in Harcourt, since both collisions and the rate per rider fell.
   • Collisions and per-rider rates fell, but serious injuries held at 14 and nothing shows the lanes caused it.
   • The lanes caused the drop in collisions, because collisions began falling in 2023, the year the lanes first opened.
   • Cycling got safer between 2022 and 2025, since the chart shows collisions falling from 70 to 57 in those years.
6. 4.

   Kira wants to know whether collisions were already falling before the lanes opened. Which two cards, used together, give the best evidence?

   Use the picture in question 1.

   • The table and the article: the table gives rates per rider and the article says the lanes cut collisions.
   • The chart and the article: yearly counts from 2021, and the date the lanes opened in 2023.
   • The table alone, since its rates to the tenth of a collision per 1,000 riders are the most exact numbers.
   • The table and the chart: the table gives rider counts and the chart gives collisions for each year.
7. 5.

   Luz wants to check the article's claim that more people bicycle (sentence 7). Which two cards, used together, give the best evidence?

   Use the picture in question 1.

   • The chart and the table: the chart gives collisions for each year and the table gives rates per 1,000 riders.
   • The article and the table: the article reports a rise without a figure, and the table supplies the counts.
   • The article and the chart: the article reports the rise and the chart shows the collisions that followed it.
   • The article and the table: the article is independent, so its claim of a rise needs no check against the counters.

8. Use this

   Source line: Letter from the Tamsin Valley Growers Association to the county water board, October 20, 2026. The chart and the table were made by the county water agency from its rain gauges and monitoring wells.

   [1] Groundwater in the Tamsin Valley fell an average of 12 feet in the past year, the Tamsin Valley Growers Association told the county water board this week, and the group asked the board to limit new wells until the aquifer recovers. [2] The association's chair, Lucinda Ferrante, said the decline puts the valley's 300 farms at risk and shows that the aquifer is being drained faster than rain can refill it. [3] "Twelve feet in one year is not a dry spell," Ferrante said, "it is a warning." [4] The figure comes from the county water agency's network of twelve monitoring wells, which the agency measures each October, and Ferrante said she had averaged all twelve readings. [5] The association proposes that the board pause permits for new wells deeper than 100 feet, which the group says are the ones that drain the aquifer. [6] Several large growers who operate deep wells oppose the pause, saying that they invested in the wells after the last drought and that a pause would cost them their next crop. [7] The water agency's director, Dr. Hollis Marrow, said the agency stands by its measurements but has not yet analyzed what they mean for the valley as a whole. [8] The board will take up the request at its December meeting, and growers on both sides have said they will attend. [9] The valley received 9.1 inches of rain over the past year, the least in nine years, according to the agency's rain gauges.

10. 6.

    The article says groundwater fell 12 feet. The table says shallow wells fell 2 feet. Milo asks which explanation fits both.

    • A larger number means a higher water table, so the shallow wells rose while the deep wells fell by 32 feet.
    • The article's figure must be wrong, since the agency's data show that the wells in the shallow layer fell only 2 feet.
    • The 12 feet averages all twelve wells, and the four deep wells fell 32 feet, pulling the average up.
    • The shallow wells were measured in a different month than the deep wells, which makes their changes smaller.
11. 7.

    Ferrante calls 12 feet a warning for the valley's aquifer. The agency's director has not analyzed what the numbers mean. Noah asks how to read the 12-foot average.

    Use the picture in question 6.

    • The director has not yet analyzed the data, so no one can say what the 12 feet means until that is done.
    • An average of twelve wells gives each acre of the valley equal weight, so it describes the whole valley fairly.
    • As an average of wells, not land: deep wells carry a third of its weight and the shallow layer is hidden.
    • Ferrante averaged the wrong numbers, since a correct average would give 2 feet, the figure for most wells.
12. 8.

    Pia writes one claim from the letter, the chart and the table together. Which claim does the set support best?

    Use the picture in question 6.

    • Deep wells drain the aquifer, so pausing new permits for wells over 100 feet will stop the decline.
    • Groundwater fell 12 feet across the valley, as the table's row for the twelve wells shows.
    • Deep wells fell far more than shallow ones in a dry year, but nothing shows new wells caused it.
    • The dry year alone explains the 12-foot fall, since 2026 had the least rain of the nine years charted.
13. 9.

    Ren writes a claim about rainfall and the shallow wells from the chart and the table. Which claim do they support best?

    Use the picture in question 6.

    • A wet year will raise the shallow wells by about 2 feet, since a dry year lowered them by that much.
    • In the driest year of nine, shallow wells fell only 2 feet, so one dry year did not empty the shallow layer.
    • Rainfall controls the shallow wells directly, since the driest year was followed by a drop in their water level.
    • Shallow wells are not affected by dry years, since they fell by only 2 feet when rainfall was at its lowest.
14. 10.

    A grower with a 160-foot well wants to know whether the 12-foot figure describes her kind of well. Which two cards, used together, give the best evidence?

    Use the picture in question 6.

    • The chart and the article: the chart shows the dry year and the article gives the 12-foot average for the valley.
    • The article alone, because the growers' association sets the standard for how deep wells should be measured.
    • The chart and the table: the chart gives nine years of rainfall and the table gives October depths in feet.
    • The table and the article: the table splits deep wells (32 feet) from the article's 12-foot average.