Answer the other side fairly, for this reader

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   A Tool Shelf for the Calder Public Library (letter to a library board about an invented town)

   [1] To the Trustees of the Calder Public Library: I propose a lending shelf of sixty donated hand tools, to be kept in the room that holds the retired microfilm readers. [2] The board has long held that the library should put useful things in residents' hands, and last spring it welcomed a seed exchange that asked for one drawer, a clipboard and no new staff time. [3] In 2022, however, the board ended a loan program for game consoles after fourteen of its thirty were never returned, and the minutes record that two trustees did not want a rental shop. [4] Most of the trustees have careers in law and insurance, and they know the library's circulation rules and liability policy better than the staff.

   [5] The shelf would hold hammers, screwdrivers, tape measures and clamps, with no power tools, and each item would carry a barcode and a one-week loan period. [6] A borrower would leave a library card at the desk until the tool came back, so no tool would leave without a card behind it. [7] About 41 percent of Calder's households rent, and renters often own no tools and cannot justify a $140 starter set for one repair. [8] The Fenwick Library, which serves 21,000 residents against Calder's 9,000, began the same kind of shelf eighteen months ago and has recorded 1,100 loans, with nine tools unreturned and no injury claim. [9] Its insurer added no charge to the policy, and its staff spend about ten minutes a day on returned tools.

   [10] At the October meeting, the chair, Ms. Harcourt, observed that the console program had lost almost half its stock and asked what would keep a hammer from vanishing too. [11] Mr. Pryor, a retired claims adjuster, asked what the library would owe a borrower hurt by a tool, and Ms. Osei, who supervises circulation, said her staff were already stretched. [12] Another trustee said that the microfilm room is the quietest in the building and valued it for study. [13] The donors have offered to pay for the barcodes and shelving, so the library would spend nothing to open the shelf. [14] I ask the board to approve the shelf as a one-year pilot beginning in January.

2. 1.

   Kira is answering Mr. Pryor's question in sentence [11] about injuries. Which rebuttal speaks to what these trustees have shown they value?

   • In 1,100 loans of hand tools, Fenwick had no injury claim and its insurer added no charge, and our shelf would hold no power tools at all.
   • The board's concern for the library's exposure is fully shared, and the shelf would be run so that the library stays protected.
   • Renters, who are about 41 percent of Calder's households, would save the $140 a starter set costs, and many of them badly need that help.
   • A tool shelf would let neighbors enjoy the pride of fixing a porch step themselves, a spirit of self-reliance that this town has long prized.
3. 2.

   Ren is rewriting the sentence that explains a tool loan. Which sentence fits what these trustees already know and still need?

   • Each tool would be listed by drive size and torque rating, with a loan tag clipped to the handle until it passes the inspection bench.
   • The tools would be lent in a simple, sensible way that the circulation staff would find easy to manage, as they do with books.
   • A tool would check out like a book, by barcode for one week, but the borrower's library card would stay at the desk until it returns.
   • Stone hammers are among the oldest tools that people have made, with examples that are more than two million years old and still found today.
4. 3.

   Bo wants to admit one honest limit in the writer's own evidence, one the proposal survives. Which sentence does that?

   • The board's fear of lost tools rests on a single program, the game consoles, which were costly, easy to resell and hard to track.
   • Fenwick serves more than twice as many residents as Calder, so Calder's loan counts may run lower, though the unreturned rate should hold.
   • The one drawback of the shelf is that it may become so popular that the library will soon need a larger room and more volunteers.
   • Fenwick is so much larger that its results may not apply to Calder, so the board has no evidence the shelf would work here.
5. 4.

   Milo is answering Ms. Harcourt's question in sentence [10] about vanishing tools. Which rebuttal speaks to what these trustees have shown they value?

   • The trustees' sharp memory of the console program shows the kind of watchfulness that a tool shelf will need and receive from the staff.
   • A few lost tools would be a small price for the thrift and neighborly spirit that a shared shelf brings to a town like ours.
   • Fenwick has lost nine of 1,100 tools, under one percent, and ours would keep each borrower's card at the desk until the tool returns.
   • The board's concern for lent property is well founded, and the shelf would be run with that concern firmly in mind from the first day.

6. Sunday Afternoons at the Ellory Museum (letter to a museum board about an invented town)

   [1] To the Board of the Ellory Museum of Local History: I ask the board to open the museum's ground-floor galleries on Sunday afternoons from one to five, beginning this spring. [2] The museum now closes on Sundays and Mondays, and most of the 6,200 visitors it welcomed last year came on weekdays, when many working families cannot visit. [3] In 2019 the board declined a proposal for evening hours because added light and handling might wear the fragile quilts in the textile gallery, and two years later it spent $64,000 on a climate-control system that steadies the galleries' humidity. [4] Most of the trustees are historians, archivists or retired curators, and they read humidity charts and light readings with a fluency that most visitors lack.

   [5] On Sundays the textile gallery on the second floor would stay locked, and visitors would see only the ground-floor galleries, whose objects are iron tools, stoneware crocks and printing presses. [6] The Harbor City museum, which has a similar system and about three times Ellory's population, began opening on Sunday afternoons three years ago, and its attendance rose by eighteen percent and its memberships by nine percent. [7] Its logged humidity readings on Sundays stayed within the range of its weekday readings, and its Sunday afternoons now average sixty-one visitors. [8] Two guides and a security officer would cost about $396 for the four hours, so at nine dollars a ticket the museum would need forty-four visitors to cover each Sunday.

   [9] At the November meeting, the conservator, Dr. Weiss, observed that visitors add moisture to the air and that the 2021 system was sized for six hundred visitors a week. [10] The treasurer, Mr. Dunne, asked who would make up the difference if a Sunday drew fewer than forty-four visitors. [11] Ms. Aldous, a volunteer docent, said that Sunday afternoon is the one time her group keeps free. [12] The board will vote at its January meeting, and the guides could be hired in February. [13] I have enclosed the Harbor City records and the museum's own weekly visitor counts, which have averaged about 120. [14] I ask the board to approve a one-season trial of Sunday afternoons, to be reviewed in June.

7. 5.

   Tala is answering Dr. Weiss in sentence [9]. Which rebuttal speaks to what these trustees have shown they value?

   • A museum that is closed on the afternoon when most people are free is failing at the main job of a museum, which is to be visited.
   • The board's careful stewardship of the quilts is the reason it can open on Sundays with confidence, and the reason the town trusts it.
   • The 2021 system was sized for six hundred visitors a week; a Sunday like Harbor City's would lift Ellory's count from about 120 to 180.
   • Working families who cannot come on weekdays would at last see their own town's history, and many have asked the museum for Sunday hours.
8. 6.

   Ari is adding a sentence to meet Dr. Weiss's point. Which sentence fits what these trustees already know and still need?

   • Visitors breathe out moisture, so a climate system is rated in visitors a week, and the 2021 rating of six hundred is five times today's count.
   • Occupancy raises the latent load in each air-handling zone, so the system's sensible capacity sets a ceiling on weekly footfall for the galleries.
   • Early museums were often private cabinets of curiosities that a collector showed to friends, long before anyone measured humidity.
   • Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air, and a climate-control system keeps it from rising or falling too far for the objects it protects.
9. 7.

   Zee wants one honest limit in the writer's own evidence, one the proposal survives. Which sentence supplies it?

   • Harbor City is about three times Ellory's size, so Ellory may draw fewer than sixty-one visitors, though forty-four would cover the cost.
   • Harbor City is so much bigger that its Sunday record says nothing about Ellory, so the board has no basis for even a one-season trial.
   • The one drawback is that Sundays may become so popular that the museum will need to hire more guides and open more rooms on Sundays.
   • As with any new schedule, some difficulties may appear that the board will want to watch for as the first season goes on.

10. A Peer-Tutoring Desk for the Garrick College Library (letter to a college council about an invented town)

    [1] To the Academic Council of Garrick Community College: I propose a peer-tutoring desk in the college library, staffed by second-year students who have earned an A or a B-plus in the course they tutor. [2] In 2021 the council ended a contract with an outside writing-help company after faculty found three papers containing passages the company's editors had written, and since then it has asked of each new service whether it strengthens students' own work. [3] Council members teach in the disciplines and design the college's learning outcomes, and several have served on assessment committees for a decade. [4] Each tutor would complete a six-hour training session and sign a code that forbids writing, correcting or retyping any part of an assignment.

    [5] The desk would be open twenty hours a week, and a tutor would meet each student for twenty-five minutes to work on questions the student brings. [6] Penrose College, which enrolls about 6,000 students against Garrick's 2,100, opened such a desk three years ago, and students who visited it at least four times in a term earned grades 0.4 points higher than students with the same prior grades who did not. [7] Penrose's tutors reported two cases of copied work to the dean in three years, and the faculty there have filed no complaint about tutors writing students' text. [8] The desk would cost the college about $18,500 a year, nearly all of it tutors' wages, and the library has offered table space in the east reading room free.

    [9] At the March meeting, Dr. Marsh, who chairs the English department, said that a tutor's help can slide into doing the work and that the 2021 episode showed how easily that line blurs. [10] Dr. Okoye, who leads the mathematics faculty, asked whether $18,500 could be found without cutting the faculty-development fund. [11] Another member said that students already have faculty office hours and ought to use them. [12] The council's May agenda includes a vote on pilot programs. [13] I have enclosed the Penrose records, the training outline and the tutors' code. [14] I ask the council to approve a one-year pilot, with a June report on grades and on any complaint about tutors' writing.

11. 8.

    Noah is answering Dr. Marsh in sentence [9]. Which rebuttal speaks to what this council has shown it values?

    • Second-year students who tutor would earn wages and a line on their résumés, a benefit that many of them badly need to stay in school.
    • Tutors would sign a code against writing a student's text, and Penrose's tutors reported two cases of copied work to the dean in three years.
    • The council's concern for honest work is shared, and the desk would be designed to protect the integrity of each student's paper from the start.
    • The council's alertness to the 2021 episode is exactly why it can be trusted to see that the desk will stay honest and well run for years to come.
12. 9.

    Jun wants one honest limit in the writer's own evidence, one the pilot survives. Which sentence supplies it?

    • Dr. Marsh's worry that tutoring slides into doing the work rests on a single episode in 2021 involving an outside company, not student tutors.
    • The one drawback is that students may love the desk so much that the college will want a second one in the science building and another in the library annex.
    • Penrose's visitors earned higher grades, but students who choose to visit may be more motivated, so the gain may be under 0.4 points.
    • Like any pilot, the desk may have some limits that will show up once it begins, and the council should watch for them throughout the year.
13. 10.

    Luz wants a second honest limit, about the desk's reach. Which sentence names one the plan survives?

    • The desk might not reach as many students as hoped, and the council should keep that in mind when it weighs the pilot's size and its cost.
    • A twenty-hour week offers about forty-eight twenty-five-minute sessions for 2,100 students, though the pilot would show whether to add hours.
    • The member who wants students to use office hours overlooks that faculty already carry full teaching loads and meet few students.
    • Forty-eight sessions a week is so few that the desk cannot make a difference to Garrick's students, so the pilot should not be run.