Write about yourself for a reader who decides

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   The Ball Along the Bench (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

   [1] Last fall I volunteered as an assistant coach for the Westbury Parks under-eight soccer team, a group of fourteen six- and seven-year-olds who called themselves the Purple Comets. [2] The head coach, Mr. Achebe, was a quiet man who ran practice with a whistle he rarely blew, and my job was mostly setting out cones and retrieving balls from the creek. [3] I am a naturally patient and encouraging person. [4] Our practices were held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the Westbury Parks fields, on the field nearest the creek.

   [5] In the third week, one player refused to join any drill and sat on the bench with a jacket pulled over a small head, and Mr. Achebe asked me to sit nearby. [6] I sat at the far end of the bench without speaking, rolled a ball back and forth under my shoe, and every few minutes nudged it closer to the jacket. [7] After twenty minutes a sneaker came out and stopped the ball, then kicked it back to me, and we passed it between us until practice ended without a single word. [8] By the last game, that player was the first to the field and the loudest Comet in the huddle. [9] Mr. Achebe told me at the season's last picnic that he had watched the ball inch along the bench and decided not to interfere.

   [10] I had arrived that fall thinking that a coach's job was to explain, demonstrate and correct, and I had brought a notebook of drills I never used. [11] What I learned on the bench is that some people need to join a game before they can hear anything said about it, and that the joining can be very small. [12] I have since used the same approach as a peer tutor, beginning each session with one easy problem we solve together before I explain anything. [13] It does not work with everyone, but it works often enough that I now treat silence as an invitation to try something smaller rather than as a refusal. [14] In conclusion, coaching soccer taught me many lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

2. 1.

   Ari learns that the application allows fewer words, so one sentence must go. Which sentence does the least work in the essay?

   • [4] Our practices were held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the Westbury Parks fields, on the field nearest the creek.
   • [6] I sat at the far end of the bench without speaking, rolled a ball back and forth under my shoe, and every few minutes nudged it closer to the jacket.
   • [1] Last fall I volunteered as an assistant coach for the Westbury Parks under-eight soccer team, a group of fourteen six- and seven-year-olds who called themselves the Purple Comets.
   • [11] What I learned on the bench is that some people need to join a game before they can hear anything said about it, and that the joining can be very small.
3. 2.

   Bo sees that sentence [3] only names a quality. Which sentence should replace [3] to show that quality through an action, without naming it?

   • When one player kicked the ball into the creek four times in one drill, I waded in each time and set it back on the line without comment.
   • Before each practice I drew a diagram of each drill and taped copies to the cooler so the players knew where to stand.
   • When one player kicked the ball into the creek four times in one drill, I fetched it each time, which shows how patient I am as a teammate.
   • By staying late after each practice for a whole season, I single-handedly turned the Comets from a losing team into champions.
4. 3.

   Esme thinks the last sentence, [14], is weak. Which sentence should replace [14] so the essay ends by looking forward, in its own terms?

   • In the end, I know that with hard work and dedication, I can achieve anything I set my mind to.
   • That is why I volunteered as an assistant coach for the Purple Comets of Westbury Parks last fall.
   • I also hope to study marine biology in college, a field that has fascinated me since I first visited an aquarium.
   • Whatever I study next, I expect to keep a ball at the end of the bench, ready to roll it a little closer.

5. The Bottom Shelf (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

   [1] Two summers ago I built a book exchange box on a post outside our apartment building on Greer Avenue, using plywood from a neighbor's renovation and a cabinet door with a glass pane. [2] I stocked it with thirty paperbacks of my own and painted a sign asking people to take a book, leave a book, or borrow one and bring it back. [3] I have strong leadership skills and a gift for bringing people together. [4] Within a month the box was emptying and refilling twice a week, and I began logging what came and went on an index card taped inside the door. [5] The book exchange box on Greer Avenue was something I built myself, outside the apartment building where I live.

   [6] In August a note appeared inside a cookbook, written in careful pencil, asking for books in Tagalog, because the writer's mother was visiting from Manila and had nothing to read. [7] I had none and knew nobody who did, so I copied the note in large letters, taped it to the glass, and asked anyone who could help to leave books on the bottom shelf. [8] Over the next week, eleven books in Tagalog appeared, with two in Vietnamese and one in Amharic, each carrying a note from a stranger. [9] I had built the box thinking of it as my project, a small thing that I owned and managed for the street.

   [10] The week of the Tagalog books showed me that a project becomes most useful at the point where its builder stops being the person who decides what it holds. [11] Since then I have tried to start things that others can change, from a shared study guide for my history class to a sign-up sheet for rides to robotics practice. [12] I still check the card each Sunday, but I no longer stock the box myself, and it has not stood empty once all year. [13] Last month a note asked for large-print novels, and two days later a retired teacher left three, with a card explaining where to find more. [14] In the future, I hope to continue to make a difference in my community and in the world.

6. 4.

   Jun learns that the application allows fewer words, so one sentence must go. Which sentence does the least work in the essay?

   • [10] The week of the Tagalog books showed me that a project becomes most useful at the point where its builder stops being the person who decides what it holds.
   • [5] The book exchange box on Greer Avenue was something I built myself, outside the apartment building where I live.
   • [4] Within a month the box was emptying and refilling twice a week, and I began logging what came and went on an index card taped inside the door.
   • [7] I had none and knew nobody who did, so I copied the note in large letters, taped it to the glass, and asked anyone who could help to leave books on the bottom shelf.
7. 5.

   Kira sees that sentence [3] only names a quality. Which sentence should replace [3] to show that quality through an action, without naming it?

   • My neighbor in 3B, a retired printer, went door to door collecting books when the box first sat empty.
   • I sanded the plywood three times and sealed the post twice so the box would survive two winters of snow.
   • When the box sat empty in its first week, I knocked on six doors in our building and asked each neighbor for one book they had loved.
   • When the box sat empty in its first week, I knocked on six doors for books, which shows that I am a natural leader among my neighbors.
8. 6.

   Luz thinks the last sentence, [14], is weak. Which sentence should replace [14] so the essay ends by looking forward, in its own terms?

   • More than anything, this experience showed me that one person really can make a difference by believing in themselves.
   • Wherever I live next, I expect to build something with a bottom shelf that the neighbors fill.
   • I am certain that in college I will build projects that change the lives of thousands of people across the country.
   • That is how I came to build a book exchange box outside our apartment building on Greer Avenue two summers ago.

9. Notes in the Margin (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

   [1] My grandmother keeps her recipes on about two hundred index cards in a tin that once held tea, written over fifty years in a looping cursive that grows smaller toward the bottom of each card. [2] Last winter, when the small writing grew hard for her to read, she asked me to copy the cards into a large-print notebook so she could keep cooking from them. [3] I am an extremely curious person who loves the past. [4] I set up at her kitchen table on Sunday afternoons with a lamp, a magnifying glass and a stack of cards, while she sat across from me shelling peas or reading the paper. [5] Copying the recipes took many Sundays, and it was a long project that took a lot of time.

   [6] On the fortieth card, a recipe for plum cake, I found a line squeezed into the margin in a different color of ink: "Less sugar for Walter's teeth, 1979." [7] I asked her about it, and she laughed and told me that my grandfather had needed two fillings that year, and that she had never changed the recipe back. [8] After that I read the margins first, and I found a second history there: a cake doubled for a wedding, a soup thinned when money was short, a cookie renamed for a neighbor's dog. [9] I had expected the project to be a matter of accurate copying, a chore I could finish while listening to music.

   [10] Instead I realized that the cards were not instructions so much as a record of who had been at the table and what each of them had needed. [11] I now copy each margin note into a box beside its recipe, and my grandmother has started adding new notes to the large-print notebook in her own hand. [12] In my history classes I have begun to look for the same kind of evidence, the small corrections people leave when they assume no one will read them. [13] Those corrections often reveal more about a period than the official record, because they show what people changed when life required it. [14] This experience changed my life forever, and I will never forget it.

10. 7.

    Milo learns that the application allows fewer words, so one sentence must go. Which sentence does the least work in the essay?

    • [4] I set up at her kitchen table on Sunday afternoons with a lamp, a magnifying glass and a stack of cards, while she sat across from me shelling peas or reading the paper.
    • [5] Copying the recipes took many Sundays, and it was a long project that took a lot of time.
    • [6] On the fortieth card, a recipe for plum cake, I found a line squeezed into the margin in a different color of ink: "Less sugar for Walter's teeth, 1979."
    • [2] Last winter, when the small writing grew hard for her to read, she asked me to copy the cards into a large-print notebook so she could keep cooking from them.
11. 8.

    Noah sees that sentence [3] only names a quality. Which sentence should replace [3] to show that quality through an action, without naming it?

    • Over one winter I traced each recipe back two hundred years and wrote a book about my family's whole history.
    • Before we began, I asked my grandmother the year she wrote each of the first ten cards, and I penciled the dates on their backs.
    • Before we began, I asked my grandmother when she wrote the first ten cards, which shows how curious I am about history.
    • My grandmother would stop shelling peas to tell me the story behind each card before I copied it.
12. 9.

    Pia thinks the last sentence, [14], is weak. Which sentence should replace [14] so the essay ends by looking forward, in its own terms?

    • Looking back, I realize that family is the most important thing in life, and I will cherish it forever.
    • I know that my study of small corrections will one day rewrite the history books for future generations.
    • I suspect I will keep reading the margins first, in archives and in lab notebooks, wherever people leave small corrections behind.
    • In college I also plan to join the debate team and to study abroad in Spain during my junior year.

13. Eight Seconds (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

    [1] For two winters I have run the scoreboard and game clock at home basketball games for Calder Middle School, at a folding table at half court with a control box and a printed scorebook. [2] The job pays nothing, but it earns me a front-row seat and the privilege of being glared at by both coaches whenever the clock starts a second late. [3] I am a very fair and honest person. [4] The scoreboard at Calder Middle School is the one I operate during home games in the winter.

    [5] Last February, in a tied game, the home team's center shot from the elbow with three seconds showing, and the ball rolled around the rim for what felt like a full second before dropping in. [6] In the noise that followed, I realized I had started the clock on the previous inbound pass well before any player touched the ball. [7] Nobody else had noticed, and the home crowd was already on its feet, but I knew the visiting team had lost eight seconds it should have had. [8] My hands were shaking as I signaled the referee, Mrs. Ferrante, and explained my mistake while the home coach stood behind her shaking his head. [9] She checked with the other official, reset the clock and gave the visitors the ball; they missed a long shot at the buzzer, and the home team still won by two.

    [10] I had thought a scorekeeper's job was simply to be accurate, and that an error was a private failure to fix quietly if possible. [11] That night I understood that accuracy is not the same as honesty, because honesty includes reporting your own mistakes when it would be easier and more popular to stay silent. [12] I have since applied the same rule to lab group reports and to my part-time job, where admitting an error early has usually cost less than I feared. [13] I still make mistakes at the scorer's table, but I now say so out loud the moment I notice them, and both coaches glare less. [14] Basketball is a great sport, and being involved in it has been a wonderful experience for me.

14. 10.

    Tala sees that sentence [3] only names a quality. Which sentence should replace [3] to show that quality through an action, without naming it?

    • I arrive forty minutes before each game to test the horn, the clock and the spare batteries in the control box.
    • Mrs. Ferrante once stopped a game to correct her own call, and both benches applauded her honesty.
    • When the visiting coach once questioned the foul count, I turned the scorebook around so that he could check each mark himself.
    • In two winters I have kept a perfect record, and both coaches trust me more than they trust the referees.