Worksheet

Write about yourself for a reader who decides

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet

NameDate

Circle the best answer.

  1. Read this first

    Again, Slower (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

    [1] I have come to believe that the most valuable things I do are things I do badly, in front of others, for a long time. [2] I started the cello at fifteen, which is late, in a community orchestra that rehearses on Thursday evenings in a school cafeteria. [3] Most of the other players had studied for years, and some, like a retired dentist named Mr. Pruitt, could play passages I could barely read. [4] Each Thursday I sat in the last chair, nearest the vending machines, and moved my bow silently through the hard passages so nobody would hear my mistakes. [5] In November the conductor, Mrs. Vashti, had me play a scale alone to check my bow hold, and I managed it, although my bow skidded twice.

    [6] The real test came in February, when Mrs. Vashti stopped a rehearsal and asked the cellos to play the opening of the slow movement one at a time. [7] I watched the other bows and felt my face grow hot, because I knew I could not play the shift to the high note cleanly. [8] When my turn came, the high note came out flat and scratchy, and in the silence afterward Mrs. Vashti said only, "Again, slower." [9] I played it four more times while forty people waited, and on the fifth try the note was nearly in tune; Mr. Pruitt tapped his bow on his stand. [10] After rehearsal I packed up the cello and waited outside for my ride, still replaying the five attempts in my head.

    [11] What I understand now is that the silent bowing had protected me from embarrassment and from improvement at once, and that the two protections had always arrived together. [12] Since then I have played each passage aloud, wrong notes included, and my intonation improved more that spring than in the whole year before. [13] I still play badly much of the time, but now where people can hear, which is the surest way I know to play less badly next month. [14] I suspect the same is true of the essays and lab reports I am least sure of, and that improving at them means letting others hear the flat notes first.

  2. Ari is marking the scene strip. Which sentence begins the one specific moment that the whole essay is built on?

    • [2] I started the cello at fifteen, which is late, in a community orchestra that rehearses on Thursday evenings in a school cafeteria.
    • [6] The real test came in February, when Mrs. Vashti stopped a rehearsal and asked the cellos to play the opening of the slow movement one at a time.
    • [11] What I understand now is that the silent bowing had protected me from embarrassment and from improvement at once, and that the two protections had always arrived together.
    • [4] Each Thursday I sat in the last chair, nearest the vending machines, and moved my bow silently through the hard passages so nobody would hear my mistakes.

  3. Dinner at Six (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

    [1] Responsibility, I have found, rarely arrives as one dramatic test; it shows up weekly, at the same hour, ready or not. [2] When my mother began working late shifts two years ago, I took over Tuesday dinner for our household of six, including my grandfather and three younger cousins. [3] Before then I had cooked little beyond boxed pasta, so I learned from a stained cookbook and from my grandfather, who supervises from a chair. [4] Each Tuesday I start the rice at five and serve at six, because one cousin has swim practice at seven. [5] In my first month I salted a pot of lentils twice, and we ate toast and scrambled eggs at a quarter to seven.

    [6] The Tuesday I remember best came last winter, when I opened the cupboard at five o'clock and found that the black beans I had planned around were gone. [7] For a full minute I stood at the open cupboard in rising panic, because six people would sit down in an hour and nothing added up to a meal. [8] Then I lined up everything I could find on the counter: half a cabbage, four eggs, a bag of rice, two carrots, peanut butter and green onions. [9] With my grandfather calling suggestions, I made fried rice with cabbage and egg and a peanut sauce for the carrots, and we ate at five past six. [10] My cousins ate two helpings each, my grandfather said it needed ginger, and I washed the dishes and finished a history paper.

    [11] That evening changed how I plan, because I realized the plan had never been the point; the point was a meal at six, and there was more than one way to reach it. [12] I now keep a list inside a cabinet of five dinners I can make from whatever is left at the end of a week. [13] The habit has made me calmer elsewhere, since a ruined plan now looks less like a disaster than like an inventory waiting to be read. [14] I would like to bring that calm to college, where I expect many plans will need rebuilding at five o'clock from whatever is on the counter.

  4. Jun is marking the scene strip. Which sentence begins the one specific moment that the whole essay is built on?

    • [6] The Tuesday I remember best came last winter, when I opened the cupboard at five o'clock and found that the black beans I had planned around were gone.
    • [4] Each Tuesday I start the rice at five and serve at six, because one cousin has swim practice at seven.
    • [5] In my first month I salted a pot of lentils twice, and we ate toast and scrambled eggs at a quarter to seven.
    • [2] When my mother began working late shifts two years ago, I took over Tuesday dinner for our household of six, including my grandfather and three younger cousins.

  5. Kira is marking where reflection begins on the strip. At which sentence does the essay turn from the moment to reflecting on it?

    • [11] That evening changed how I plan, because I realized the plan had never been the point; the point was a meal at six, and there was more than one way to reach it.
    • [7] For a full minute I stood at the open cupboard in rising panic, because six people would sit down in an hour and nothing added up to a meal.
    • [10] My cousins ate two helpings each, my grandfather said it needed ginger, and I washed the dishes and finished a history paper.
    • [13] The habit has made me calmer elsewhere, since a ruined plan now looks less like a disaster than like an inventory waiting to be read.

  6. Luz is checking this essay for a college admissions reader. Which version of sentence [12] suits that reader best?

    • So now I have got this list of like five dinners stuck in a cabinet, which is pretty handy when stuff runs out.
    • I am now a far better cook than anyone else in my family and can make an excellent dinner out of absolutely anything.
    • I have subsequently instituted a comprehensive culinary contingency protocol comprising five meticulously curated emergency menus.
    • I now keep a list in a cabinet of five dinners I can make from leftovers, so a ruined plan feels more like a puzzle.

  7. Two Left Panels (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

    [1] I used to think that being capable meant following instructions perfectly, but several of my most useful lessons began where the instructions ran out. [2] Last spring my aunt gave me a flat-pack bookshelf, a tall unit in a long box with ninety-four parts, a bag of wooden dowels and a booklet of wordless diagrams. [3] My aunt had bought it at a moving sale, and the box had clearly been opened before, though the tape was carefully replaced. [4] Whenever I assemble anything, I sort the parts into rows on an old bedsheet first, and the rows make the job feel half finished before it starts. [5] Two weeks earlier I had built a desk chair in under an hour, so I expected the bookshelf to go smoothly.

    [6] At step eleven of twenty, I reached for the second long side panel and discovered that the box held two left panels and no right one. [7] I sat back against the bed with the diagram in my lap and felt my irritation turn into curiosity, because the kit was no longer sold and no replacement was coming. [8] I measured the extra panel and saw that it differed from a right panel only in where the holes for the shelf pins had been drilled. [9] I borrowed my uncle's drill, marked new holes on the blank face using the first panel as a template, and drilled them slowly. [10] The shelf was finished by dinner, and it has held my books for a year without leaning, although one row of holes now faces the wall unused.

    [11] What stayed with me was the moment the irritation turned into curiosity, because I realized that a problem without instructions is still a problem I can measure. [12] I still sort the parts into rows first, but I no longer expect the rows to tell me everything I will need. [13] I have noticed the same turn in chemistry lab, when a result the handout did not predict makes the useful question what the result actually is. [14] I want to study somewhere that turn happens often, because I suspect the best questions I meet in college will not arrive with a diagram.

  8. Milo is marking the scene strip. Which sentence begins the one specific moment that the whole essay is built on?

    • [11] What stayed with me was the moment the irritation turned into curiosity, because I realized that a problem without instructions is still a problem I can measure.
    • [3] My aunt had bought it at a moving sale, and the box had clearly been opened before, though the tape was carefully replaced.
    • [5] Two weeks earlier I had built a desk chair in under an hour, so I expected the bookshelf to go smoothly.
    • [6] At step eleven of twenty, I reached for the second long side panel and discovered that the box held two left panels and no right one.

  9. Noah is marking where reflection begins on the strip. At which sentence does the essay turn from the moment to reflecting on it?

    • [13] I have noticed the same turn in chemistry lab, when a result the handout did not predict makes the useful question what the result actually is.
    • [1] I used to think that being capable meant following instructions perfectly, but several of my most useful lessons began where the instructions ran out.
    • [7] I sat back against the bed with the diagram in my lap and felt my irritation turn into curiosity, because the kit was no longer sold and no replacement was coming.
    • [11] What stayed with me was the moment the irritation turned into curiosity, because I realized that a problem without instructions is still a problem I can measure.

  10. Pia is helping the writer reuse this moment in an application to assemble furniture for an invented moving company. Which sentence suits the hiring manager?

    • That afternoon taught me that a problem without instructions is still a problem I can measure, and I hope to meet more in my college classes.
    • When a kit arrived with two left panels, I measured the parts, drilled new holes from a template, and finished the shelf that day.
    • One time my bookshelf kit was totally messed up, but I just figured it out, so I am pretty good with this kind of stuff.
    • I can assemble any piece of furniture faster and better than anyone, however many parts are missing from the box.

  11. Twenty-Six Flavors (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

    [1] People often assume that summer jobs teach teenagers nothing beyond arriving on time, and I assumed the same until last July. [2] For two summers I have worked at the Frost Hollow Creamery, a walk-up window beside the town pool where hot afternoons bring lines to the parking lot. [3] The owner, Mr. Delacroix, trains each new scooper on one rule: the customer at the window is the only customer in the world until the cone is in hand. [4] On most afternoons I take orders, scoop, make change and wipe the counter in a rhythm that leaves little room for thought. [5] In June a customer dropped a fresh cone, and I passed a replacement through the window before anyone in line noticed.

    [6] The afternoon I remember came during a heat wave, when an elderly man reached the front of a forty-person line and could not choose among twenty-six flavors. [7] I could feel the line's impatience like heat from the pavement, and my own hurry rising, because I had been taught to keep the line moving. [8] He explained that his wife usually ordered for both of them but was home with a cold, and that in fifty years he had never chosen for himself. [9] I set out four tasting spoons, butter pecan, black cherry, maple walnut and vanilla, and asked him what he liked about each one. [10] He chose black cherry, dropped a dollar in the tip jar and left, and I served the next thirty-nine customers in under half an hour.

    [11] Looking back, I see that the rule was never about speed but about deciding who deserves full attention, which turns out to be whoever is in front of me. [12] I have tried to carry that rule into group projects and conversations with my younger cousins, where the person in front of me is easy to rush. [13] Attention is one of the few things I can give that costs only a minute, and the minute is rarely as expensive as the line suggests. [14] I hope to bring that habit to college, where there will often be a crowd waiting and one person who needs longer to decide.

  12. Ren is marking the scene strip. Which sentence begins the one specific moment that the whole essay is built on?

    • [5] In June a customer dropped a fresh cone, and I passed a replacement through the window before anyone in line noticed.
    • [6] The afternoon I remember came during a heat wave, when an elderly man reached the front of a forty-person line and could not choose among twenty-six flavors.
    • [11] Looking back, I see that the rule was never about speed but about deciding who deserves full attention, which turns out to be whoever is in front of me.
    • [4] On most afternoons I take orders, scoop, make change and wipe the counter in a rhythm that leaves little room for thought.

  13. Tala is marking where reflection begins on the strip. At which sentence does the essay turn from the moment to reflecting on it?

    • [10] He chose black cherry, dropped a dollar in the tip jar and left, and I served the next thirty-nine customers in under half an hour.
    • [1] People often assume that summer jobs teach teenagers nothing beyond arriving on time, and I assumed the same until last July.
    • [13] Attention is one of the few things I can give that costs only a minute, and the minute is rarely as expensive as the line suggests.
    • [11] Looking back, I see that the rule was never about speed but about deciding who deserves full attention, which turns out to be whoever is in front of me.

  14. Zee is checking this essay for a college admissions reader. Which version of sentence [13] suits that reader best?

    • I can serve forty customers in under half an hour while keeping the counter clean and making correct change.
    • Attention costs only a minute to give, and that afternoon showed me the minute is rarely as expensive as a long line suggests.
    • I am the most attentive person I know, and I give each person I meet my complete and undivided attention.
    • Attentiveness constitutes an extraordinarily economical interpersonal resource whose temporal cost impatient queues overestimate.
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Write about yourself for a reader who decides

Answer Key - Grade 11 Reading Worksheet

Circle the best answer.

  1. Read this first

    Again, Slower (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

    [1] I have come to believe that the most valuable things I do are things I do badly, in front of others, for a long time. [2] I started the cello at fifteen, which is late, in a community orchestra that rehearses on Thursday evenings in a school cafeteria. [3] Most of the other players had studied for years, and some, like a retired dentist named Mr. Pruitt, could play passages I could barely read. [4] Each Thursday I sat in the last chair, nearest the vending machines, and moved my bow silently through the hard passages so nobody would hear my mistakes. [5] In November the conductor, Mrs. Vashti, had me play a scale alone to check my bow hold, and I managed it, although my bow skidded twice.

    [6] The real test came in February, when Mrs. Vashti stopped a rehearsal and asked the cellos to play the opening of the slow movement one at a time. [7] I watched the other bows and felt my face grow hot, because I knew I could not play the shift to the high note cleanly. [8] When my turn came, the high note came out flat and scratchy, and in the silence afterward Mrs. Vashti said only, "Again, slower." [9] I played it four more times while forty people waited, and on the fifth try the note was nearly in tune; Mr. Pruitt tapped his bow on his stand. [10] After rehearsal I packed up the cello and waited outside for my ride, still replaying the five attempts in my head.

    [11] What I understand now is that the silent bowing had protected me from embarrassment and from improvement at once, and that the two protections had always arrived together. [12] Since then I have played each passage aloud, wrong notes included, and my intonation improved more that spring than in the whole year before. [13] I still play badly much of the time, but now where people can hear, which is the surest way I know to play less badly next month. [14] I suspect the same is true of the essays and lab reports I am least sure of, and that improving at them means letting others hear the flat notes first.

  2. Ari is marking the scene strip. Which sentence begins the one specific moment that the whole essay is built on?

    • [2] I started the cello at fifteen, which is late, in a community orchestra that rehearses on Thursday evenings in a school cafeteria.
    • [6] The real test came in February, when Mrs. Vashti stopped a rehearsal and asked the cellos to play the opening of the slow movement one at a time.
    • [11] What I understand now is that the silent bowing had protected me from embarrassment and from improvement at once, and that the two protections had always arrived together.
    • [4] Each Thursday I sat in the last chair, nearest the vending machines, and moved my bow silently through the hard passages so nobody would hear my mistakes.

  3. Dinner at Six (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

    [1] Responsibility, I have found, rarely arrives as one dramatic test; it shows up weekly, at the same hour, ready or not. [2] When my mother began working late shifts two years ago, I took over Tuesday dinner for our household of six, including my grandfather and three younger cousins. [3] Before then I had cooked little beyond boxed pasta, so I learned from a stained cookbook and from my grandfather, who supervises from a chair. [4] Each Tuesday I start the rice at five and serve at six, because one cousin has swim practice at seven. [5] In my first month I salted a pot of lentils twice, and we ate toast and scrambled eggs at a quarter to seven.

    [6] The Tuesday I remember best came last winter, when I opened the cupboard at five o'clock and found that the black beans I had planned around were gone. [7] For a full minute I stood at the open cupboard in rising panic, because six people would sit down in an hour and nothing added up to a meal. [8] Then I lined up everything I could find on the counter: half a cabbage, four eggs, a bag of rice, two carrots, peanut butter and green onions. [9] With my grandfather calling suggestions, I made fried rice with cabbage and egg and a peanut sauce for the carrots, and we ate at five past six. [10] My cousins ate two helpings each, my grandfather said it needed ginger, and I washed the dishes and finished a history paper.

    [11] That evening changed how I plan, because I realized the plan had never been the point; the point was a meal at six, and there was more than one way to reach it. [12] I now keep a list inside a cabinet of five dinners I can make from whatever is left at the end of a week. [13] The habit has made me calmer elsewhere, since a ruined plan now looks less like a disaster than like an inventory waiting to be read. [14] I would like to bring that calm to college, where I expect many plans will need rebuilding at five o'clock from whatever is on the counter.

  4. Jun is marking the scene strip. Which sentence begins the one specific moment that the whole essay is built on?

    • [6] The Tuesday I remember best came last winter, when I opened the cupboard at five o'clock and found that the black beans I had planned around were gone.
    • [4] Each Tuesday I start the rice at five and serve at six, because one cousin has swim practice at seven.
    • [5] In my first month I salted a pot of lentils twice, and we ate toast and scrambled eggs at a quarter to seven.
    • [2] When my mother began working late shifts two years ago, I took over Tuesday dinner for our household of six, including my grandfather and three younger cousins.

  5. Kira is marking where reflection begins on the strip. At which sentence does the essay turn from the moment to reflecting on it?

    • [11] That evening changed how I plan, because I realized the plan had never been the point; the point was a meal at six, and there was more than one way to reach it.
    • [7] For a full minute I stood at the open cupboard in rising panic, because six people would sit down in an hour and nothing added up to a meal.
    • [10] My cousins ate two helpings each, my grandfather said it needed ginger, and I washed the dishes and finished a history paper.
    • [13] The habit has made me calmer elsewhere, since a ruined plan now looks less like a disaster than like an inventory waiting to be read.

  6. Luz is checking this essay for a college admissions reader. Which version of sentence [12] suits that reader best?

    • So now I have got this list of like five dinners stuck in a cabinet, which is pretty handy when stuff runs out.
    • I am now a far better cook than anyone else in my family and can make an excellent dinner out of absolutely anything.
    • I have subsequently instituted a comprehensive culinary contingency protocol comprising five meticulously curated emergency menus.
    • I now keep a list in a cabinet of five dinners I can make from leftovers, so a ruined plan feels more like a puzzle.

  7. Two Left Panels (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

    [1] I used to think that being capable meant following instructions perfectly, but several of my most useful lessons began where the instructions ran out. [2] Last spring my aunt gave me a flat-pack bookshelf, a tall unit in a long box with ninety-four parts, a bag of wooden dowels and a booklet of wordless diagrams. [3] My aunt had bought it at a moving sale, and the box had clearly been opened before, though the tape was carefully replaced. [4] Whenever I assemble anything, I sort the parts into rows on an old bedsheet first, and the rows make the job feel half finished before it starts. [5] Two weeks earlier I had built a desk chair in under an hour, so I expected the bookshelf to go smoothly.

    [6] At step eleven of twenty, I reached for the second long side panel and discovered that the box held two left panels and no right one. [7] I sat back against the bed with the diagram in my lap and felt my irritation turn into curiosity, because the kit was no longer sold and no replacement was coming. [8] I measured the extra panel and saw that it differed from a right panel only in where the holes for the shelf pins had been drilled. [9] I borrowed my uncle's drill, marked new holes on the blank face using the first panel as a template, and drilled them slowly. [10] The shelf was finished by dinner, and it has held my books for a year without leaning, although one row of holes now faces the wall unused.

    [11] What stayed with me was the moment the irritation turned into curiosity, because I realized that a problem without instructions is still a problem I can measure. [12] I still sort the parts into rows first, but I no longer expect the rows to tell me everything I will need. [13] I have noticed the same turn in chemistry lab, when a result the handout did not predict makes the useful question what the result actually is. [14] I want to study somewhere that turn happens often, because I suspect the best questions I meet in college will not arrive with a diagram.

  8. Milo is marking the scene strip. Which sentence begins the one specific moment that the whole essay is built on?

    • [11] What stayed with me was the moment the irritation turned into curiosity, because I realized that a problem without instructions is still a problem I can measure.
    • [3] My aunt had bought it at a moving sale, and the box had clearly been opened before, though the tape was carefully replaced.
    • [5] Two weeks earlier I had built a desk chair in under an hour, so I expected the bookshelf to go smoothly.
    • [6] At step eleven of twenty, I reached for the second long side panel and discovered that the box held two left panels and no right one.

  9. Noah is marking where reflection begins on the strip. At which sentence does the essay turn from the moment to reflecting on it?

    • [13] I have noticed the same turn in chemistry lab, when a result the handout did not predict makes the useful question what the result actually is.
    • [1] I used to think that being capable meant following instructions perfectly, but several of my most useful lessons began where the instructions ran out.
    • [7] I sat back against the bed with the diagram in my lap and felt my irritation turn into curiosity, because the kit was no longer sold and no replacement was coming.
    • [11] What stayed with me was the moment the irritation turned into curiosity, because I realized that a problem without instructions is still a problem I can measure.

  10. Pia is helping the writer reuse this moment in an application to assemble furniture for an invented moving company. Which sentence suits the hiring manager?

    • That afternoon taught me that a problem without instructions is still a problem I can measure, and I hope to meet more in my college classes.
    • When a kit arrived with two left panels, I measured the parts, drilled new holes from a template, and finished the shelf that day.
    • One time my bookshelf kit was totally messed up, but I just figured it out, so I am pretty good with this kind of stuff.
    • I can assemble any piece of furniture faster and better than anyone, however many parts are missing from the box.

  11. Twenty-Six Flavors (sample college essay by an invented student (fictional))

    [1] People often assume that summer jobs teach teenagers nothing beyond arriving on time, and I assumed the same until last July. [2] For two summers I have worked at the Frost Hollow Creamery, a walk-up window beside the town pool where hot afternoons bring lines to the parking lot. [3] The owner, Mr. Delacroix, trains each new scooper on one rule: the customer at the window is the only customer in the world until the cone is in hand. [4] On most afternoons I take orders, scoop, make change and wipe the counter in a rhythm that leaves little room for thought. [5] In June a customer dropped a fresh cone, and I passed a replacement through the window before anyone in line noticed.

    [6] The afternoon I remember came during a heat wave, when an elderly man reached the front of a forty-person line and could not choose among twenty-six flavors. [7] I could feel the line's impatience like heat from the pavement, and my own hurry rising, because I had been taught to keep the line moving. [8] He explained that his wife usually ordered for both of them but was home with a cold, and that in fifty years he had never chosen for himself. [9] I set out four tasting spoons, butter pecan, black cherry, maple walnut and vanilla, and asked him what he liked about each one. [10] He chose black cherry, dropped a dollar in the tip jar and left, and I served the next thirty-nine customers in under half an hour.

    [11] Looking back, I see that the rule was never about speed but about deciding who deserves full attention, which turns out to be whoever is in front of me. [12] I have tried to carry that rule into group projects and conversations with my younger cousins, where the person in front of me is easy to rush. [13] Attention is one of the few things I can give that costs only a minute, and the minute is rarely as expensive as the line suggests. [14] I hope to bring that habit to college, where there will often be a crowd waiting and one person who needs longer to decide.

  12. Ren is marking the scene strip. Which sentence begins the one specific moment that the whole essay is built on?

    • [5] In June a customer dropped a fresh cone, and I passed a replacement through the window before anyone in line noticed.
    • [6] The afternoon I remember came during a heat wave, when an elderly man reached the front of a forty-person line and could not choose among twenty-six flavors.
    • [11] Looking back, I see that the rule was never about speed but about deciding who deserves full attention, which turns out to be whoever is in front of me.
    • [4] On most afternoons I take orders, scoop, make change and wipe the counter in a rhythm that leaves little room for thought.

  13. Tala is marking where reflection begins on the strip. At which sentence does the essay turn from the moment to reflecting on it?

    • [10] He chose black cherry, dropped a dollar in the tip jar and left, and I served the next thirty-nine customers in under half an hour.
    • [1] People often assume that summer jobs teach teenagers nothing beyond arriving on time, and I assumed the same until last July.
    • [13] Attention is one of the few things I can give that costs only a minute, and the minute is rarely as expensive as the line suggests.
    • [11] Looking back, I see that the rule was never about speed but about deciding who deserves full attention, which turns out to be whoever is in front of me.

  14. Zee is checking this essay for a college admissions reader. Which version of sentence [13] suits that reader best?

    • I can serve forty customers in under half an hour while keeping the counter clean and making correct change.
    • Attention costs only a minute to give, and that afternoon showed me the minute is rarely as expensive as a long line suggests.
    • I am the most attentive person I know, and I give each person I meet my complete and undivided attention.
    • Attentiveness constitutes an extraordinarily economical interpersonal resource whose temporal cost impatient queues overestimate.