A hard choice, and views that clash
Grade 11 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
Six O’Clock (story)
[1] We have sounded the steam whistle at Harlan Mill at six every morning since 1884, and no one among us can remember a day on which it failed, though old Mrs. Carrow swears that there was a Tuesday in 1961 when the valve froze. [2] When the apartments went up behind the mill yard, we wrote the new residents a letter of welcome that mentioned the whistle in its third paragraph, between the parking arrangements and the recycling schedule. [3] Most of the new residents wrote back to say that they enjoyed it. [4] One, a nurse named Dalia Hurwitz who works the night shift at the county hospital and rarely reaches her own bed before five, wrote to say that she did not, and we were sorry to hear it.
[5] We pointed out, gently, that six o'clock is not an unreasonable hour for a town to wake, and that most of the building would be up by seven. [6] She replied that her day ended at five in the morning, and that six o'clock was the hour at which she was asleep for the first time in a week.
[7] We took her letter to the trustees. [8] The trustees spent an hour on it, which is a long time for trustees, and in the end voted to keep the whistle exactly as it was, with a note of regret to be sent in the spring. [9] The note was a good one; Mr. Penn wrote it. [10] Mrs. Carrow, who is ninety-one and has volunteered at the mill since it was a working one, was the only member who asked what the whistle was for, and we were glad to tell her: it is for the hour.
[11] In March a notice appeared on the mill gate, in a hand we did not know, announcing that the apartments' residents would hold a quiet-hours meeting in the lobby at ten past six one Friday morning, an hour chosen so that night workers could attend, and that all were welcome, including the trustees. [12] We discussed whether to go. [13] Mr. Penn thought that attending would look like conceding, and Mrs. Carrow thought that not attending would look like deafness.
[14] On the Friday morning we watched from the office window as the whistle sounded at six, as it does, and we noticed that Ms. Hurwitz, walking home from the hospital, stopped on the pavement with her hands in her pockets until it ended, and then went in to the meeting.
Noah asks what the way the trustees settle their dilemma suggests about keeping a tradition. Which statement states that idea best?
- A heritage society’s trustees can vote to keep sounding the mill whistle after a nurse who works nights writes to object to the sound.
- A tradition can be kept courteously and still cost the person who was never asked to agree to it.
- A newcomer’s right to sleep outweighs any society’s habit, so the whistle should have been silenced at six.
- A long custom outweighs a newcomer’s sleep, so the trustees were right to keep the whistle exactly as it was.
Zee asks where the story itself stands. Which statement says where it stands and what shows it?
- It lets the society’s “we” speak but shows what “we” leaves out: Ms. Hurwitz reaches us only as a reply and a silent figure.
- It favors the society, because the story is told in “we” and ends with the whistle sounding at six just as it always does.
- It holds both views level, because the trustees and Ms. Hurwitz each argue at equal length and neither one is answered in the end.
- It favors Ms. Hurwitz, because the last sentence shows her standing silent on the pavement until the whistle finally stops sounding.
Letters About the Halcyon (story)
[1] Dear Papa, the buyer in Gloucester has raised his offer for the Halcyon to forty-one thousand dollars, which is eleven thousand more than the surveyor believes she is worth, and he has informed me that he will hold the offer open until the fifteenth. [2] I have gone through the accounts the way you taught me to go through a tide table, line by line and without hoping, and I find that the boat earned nineteen thousand dollars last year and cost twenty-three thousand to keep. [3] I am not telling you what to do; I am telling you the numbers, because you have not asked for them, and because Dr. Ames says that the new treatment will not wait for the end of the fishing season.
[4] My dear girl, thank you for the figures; your mother always said that you could make a ledger sing. [5] I will say only that the engine is sound, having been rebuilt in April, as it is every April, and that the hull has taken no water worth mentioning since the storm. [6] Your grandfather bought her in 1952 with money borrowed from a man he disliked, and spent nine years repaying it, which he said was the cheapest education a fisherman could buy. [7] I took the Halcyon out on the second of May, as I always do, and the cod were where they have always been, and the sea was kind enough to forget that I was alone on it. [8] Do not trouble yourself about the treatment; the hospital is an honest institution and will send its bills at its own pace. [9] I have not said yes to the man in Gloucester, and I have not said no.
[10] Papa, I have read your letter four times, and I notice that you do not mention the nineteen thousand or the twenty-three thousand, or that the fifteenth is Thursday. [11] I have telephoned the buyer and asked him to hold the offer until the twentieth, which he has agreed to do, though only out of courtesy, and I would not count on a second favor. [12] I will come on Saturday and go out with you on the Halcyon, and you can show me the sound engine. [13] I will bring the ledger, and I will also bring the lunch.
Milo asks what the pairing of the first two letters suggests about how people care for each other. Which statement states that idea best?
- A boat holds a family’s history that no number can measure, so selling it would betray the grandfather who bought it in 1952.
- A daughter writes to her father about selling the family boat before a buyer’s offer ends, and he answers with a story.
- Figures must beat feelings when a life-saving treatment is at stake, so Papa should simply sell the boat to the buyer in Gloucester.
- Care can arrive as figures or as stories, and neither writer can help the other until each meets the other’s way of saying it.
Jun asks what Papa’s answers in sentences 4 to 9 suggest about how people argue for what they fear to say. Which statement says it best?
- A person may defend a loss by praising what is not in question, so the argument shows its fear by what it avoids.
- People who love a thing should refuse to count its cost, so Papa is right to answer with stories rather than numbers.
- Papa tells his daughter that the engine is sound, that his grandfather bought the boat, and that he has not said yes or no.
- Papa is simply being dishonest with his daughter, hiding the truth about the boat’s costs and his health.
Pia fills the cost cell for selling and for keeping the Halcyon. Which statement gives both costs the letters support?
- Selling costs nothing but a boat, since forty-one thousand dollars exceeds the survey value and the offer can be extended for a short time.
- Selling costs Papa his work and his grandfather’s long payment (letter 2); keeping costs the treatment’s timing (letter 1).
- Selling costs Marguerite her inheritance, and keeping costs the buyer in Gloucester his chance.
- Selling costs Papa his work, but keeping costs nothing, since the hull has taken no water and the engine is sound.
Luz asks where the story stands. Which statement says where it stands and what shows it?
- It leans toward Marguerite with the last letter and a plan, yet grants Papa’s evasions as grief; the extra days are a courtesy, not a verdict.
- It favors Papa, because his is the longest letter and the one that describes the sea, the engine and the boat’s long history.
- It decides for selling, because Marguerite’s request that the buyer wait until the twentieth shows that the sale is already coming.
- It sides fully with Marguerite, treating Papa’s stories as an excuse and her deadline as the one real clock that matters in the story.
The Offer (story)
[1] The offer from the observatory in Chile arrived on a Tuesday, in an envelope so thin that Ilse Brandt assumed it was a rejection and set it unopened beside her coffee. [2] Her mother, who had lived in the back bedroom for two winters and who now identified most of the house by its smell, remarked that the paper sounded expensive. [3] Ilse read the letter aloud: five years, a telescope she had drawn on napkins as a student, and a salary nearly twice her mother's pension. [4] Her mother said that it was lovely, and asked whether she had remembered to turn off the oven, which had been off since morning.
[5] In the department that afternoon the chair, Professor Odell, shut his door, which he did only for resignations and for good news. [6] He said that the observatory had telephoned him for a reference and that he had told them the truth, which was that she was the best student he had ever lost to patience. [7] He asked whether she had decided, and she said that she had until the first of the month, to which he replied, "That is not an answer, but it is a date."
[8] He told her about the year he had declined a chair in Edinburgh in order to stay with his wife through her illness, and about the dinner afterward at which no one mentioned Edinburgh, and the one the following spring at which everyone did. [9] He did not say whether he regretted it, and she noticed that he did not say.
[10] On the drive home she passed the long field where she had learned the names of the stars, which was now planted with houses. [11] At the kitchen table her mother had laid two places, one with the napkin folded into a triangle, the way Ilse's father used to fold it, and she said that she had thought Ilse might be hungry after all that deciding. [12] Ilse sat down and unfolded the napkin, and the pen in her pocket pressed against her ribs, and she did not take it out.
Tala asks what the story’s two scenes together suggest about a choice between duty and ambition. Which statement states that idea best?
- Duty to a parent outweighs a career, so the right choice is for her to stay and to leave the pen in her pocket for good.
- A scientist receives a job offer abroad, visits her department chair, and returns to a kitchen table where her mother has set two places.
- Each option is already present in the other’s small gestures, the folded napkin and the chair’s silence, so weighing alone cannot settle it.
- An ambitious scientist owes herself the telescope she drew as a student, so care for a parent should not hold her back.
Bo fills the cost cell for going and for staying. Which statement gives both costs the story supports?
- Going costs her mother’s company, but staying costs nothing, since Odell’s story shows that a life given to duty brings lasting peace.
- Going costs nothing, since the salary would more than pay for her mother’s care, and staying costs just a short delay in her career.
- Going costs her mother’s company and the kitchen’s small rituals; staying costs the telescope and perhaps a regret like Odell’s, unnamed.
- Going costs her the department’s respect and her chair’s goodwill, and staying costs her the reference that Professor Odell has already given.
Ren reads Odell’s story in sentence 8. What does it add to the costs of staying?
- It shows that staying costs only the chair in Edinburgh, so the cost is professional and ends there with the decision itself.
- It shows that staying costs money for an illness, since Odell turned down the chair in order to pay for his wife’s medical care.
- It shows that staying costs nothing once the illness has passed, since the first dinner went quietly and no one spoke of Edinburgh.
- Staying can be chosen out of love and still leave a mark: the dinner where everyone mentioned Edinburgh is a cost he never names.
Esme asks where the story stands. Which statement says where it stands and what shows it?
- It favors Ilse’s ambition, because the story follows her closely and ends inside her thoughts.
- It favors staying: the kitchen scene is warmer than the department scene, so the story invites the reader to wish she would stay.
- It favors leaving, because the pen in her pocket presses against her ribs as a reminder of her real choice.
- It stands with the difficulty: it ends before the pen is used and gives each option a tender detail, so it favors neither.