Link the parts with varied transitions and syntax

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   The Crowd That Moved the Bridge (explanatory essay draft about the London Millennium Bridge)

   [1] When the Millennium Bridge opened across the Thames in London on June 10, 2000, thousands of people crossed it on the first morning, and within minutes many of them felt the deck begin to sway from side to side. [2] The bridge was closed after two days and reopened only in 2002, and it has been remembered ever since less as an engineering triumph than as a lesson in how a structure and the people on it can change each other.

   [3] The designers had checked the bridge against the forces that engineers of that period expected, among them wind, the weight of a crowd and the rhythm of walkers moving forward. [4] Footsteps do push a bridge sideways as well, but only slightly, and standard calculations treated that sideways push as too small to matter on a deck designed to be low and slender. [5] Nothing in the codes the team had used warned of what a crowd could do to a shallow deck hung from cables strung at the level of its edges.

   (A) ______

   [6] ______, walkers on a swaying surface steady themselves by widening their stance and shifting their weight in time with the deck. [7] On the first morning a few steps fell into time with the early sway, and each step that matched it pushed the deck a little further. [8] The more the deck moved, the more walkers matched it, and the more they matched it, the more it moved. [9] This was not a choice that anyone on the bridge had made, and several of the people interviewed afterward said that they had only been trying to stay upright.

   (B) ______

   [10] The engineers who studied the bridge found no weakness in its materials, and they did not rebuild the deck. [11] ______, they added dampers, devices that soak up motion the way a shock absorber does, beneath the deck and at its supports. [12] They tested this with volunteers who walked in time with the bridge, and the deck stayed nearly still. [13] The lesson they drew is now taught in design courses: a crowd is not a load that sits on a structure but a force that answers it. [14] That answer, which no calculation had foreseen, is the reason that designers of footbridges now check for sideways motion before a bridge is opened to the public.

2. 1.

   Kira writes the bridge for gap (A), between the section on the designers' checks and the section on the walkers. Which sentence works best?

   • Because that calculation was sound for one walker on firm ground, the designers could fairly treat a crowd as a heavier version of that walker.
   • The designers had treated the sideways push of one footstep as too small to matter, and the codes they followed told them the same thing.
   • That calculation was sound for one walker on firm ground, but a crowd on a moving deck could add its steps together in a way the codes never described.
   • The next section explains how walkers on a swaying deck come to match its motion, and why that matched motion grows on the first morning.
3. 2.

   Milo fills the blank that opens sentence 6. The writer wants to grant that the calculation is sound for a walker on firm ground, then turn to a swaying deck. Which opening clause does that?

   • Although that calculation holds for a walker on a steady surface,
   • Even if that calculation holds for a walker on a steady surface,
   • After that calculation was applied to a walker on a steady surface,
   • Because that calculation holds for a walker on a steady surface,
4. 3.

   Noah writes the bridge for gap (B), between the section on the walkers and the section on the repair. Which sentence works best?

   • Because the sway came from the crowd's answer to the bridge and not from weak steel, the repair had to change how the bridge answered motion.
   • Because the sway came from the crowd's answer to the bridge, the designers had been careless to rely on codes written for older bridges.
   • The sway came from the crowd's answer to the bridge, and for that reason the engineers could do nothing to remedy it afterward.
   • The engineers who were called in to study the bridge then decided what should be done about the swaying of the deck.
5. 4.

   Pia checks pointing words and key terms in the draft. Which one sentence leaves a first-time reader unsure what it refers to?

   • [14] That answer, which no calculation had foreseen, is the reason that designers of footbridges now check for sideways motion before a bridge is opened
   • [3] The designers had checked the bridge against the forces that engineers of that period expected
   • [12] They tested this with volunteers who walked in time with the bridge
   • [10] The engineers who studied the bridge found no weakness in its materials, and they did not rebuild the deck
6. 5.

   Ren fills the blank that opens sentence 11. The writer wants it to say what the engineers did in place of rebuilding the deck. Which opening works?

   • Because they could not stiffen the deck against the sway,
   • Rather than stiffen the deck against the sway,
   • After they had measured the sway in several tests,
   • If they stiffened the deck against the sway,

7. Use this

   The Crossing at Fenner Road (argument draft to an invented city council, about an invented crossing): [1] The Fenner Road crossing, where nearly two hundred children cross to Eastgate Elementary each morning, has been staffed by a guard since 1994, and the city council's budget proposal would end that arrangement next September. [2] The council should keep the guard, because the savings the proposal promises are small beside the risk it creates, and because the money for the post can be found in the same budget without cutting any service that residents use.

   [3] The case for ending the post rests on a single count taken by city staff last spring, and the whole proposal depends on how that count is read. [4] City staff recorded fourteen children crossing without a guard during a week in which the guard was out sick, and none of them was hurt. [5] The proposal treats that count as evidence that the crossing is safe, and its authors are right that no child was injured.

   (A) ______

   [6] ______, the week of the count was the lightest of the year on Fenner Road, since the high school was closed for testing and the commuter lot stood empty. [7] Drivers who ordinarily slow for a crossing guard's vest, which can be seen from two blocks away, still slowed out of habit, and the children, who had been taught to wait at the curb for the vest, waited anyway. [8] This is why a count made without the guard measures the habits that the guard had taught, and says nothing about how long those habits will last.

   (B) ______

   [9] The post costs the city $38,000 a year, a figure the proposal describes as unsustainable without ever setting it beside the other items in the same budget. [10] The same budget, however, sets aside $52,000 for repaving the Eastgate parking lot, a project that the school board has postponed twice without complaint. [11] ______, the council could pay for the guard through that year and the next, and the repaving would lose only time. [12] A child struck at the crossing could lose far more, and that is a loss no later budget can make good.

   [13] The council's proposal asks whether the crossing is safe now, as though safety were a condition that, once found, could be left to take care of itself. [14] The better question is whether the program will stay effective once the people who made the crossing safe are gone, and on that question the council's own count has nothing to say.

8. 6.

   Tala writes the bridge for gap (A), between the section on the council's count and the section on the week it covered. Which sentence works best?

   • The count is accurate, and it therefore shows how safe the crossing would be once the guard has gone for good.
   • The count recorded fourteen children crossing in a week without a guard, and no child was hurt, as the proposal reports it.
   • The count is accurate, but it measures what the guard's years had already taught, so it cannot show how safe the crossing would be without one.
   • The count is accurate, but the city staff chose that week on purpose so that the guard would appear unnecessary to the council.
9. 7.

   Zee checks pointing words and key terms in the draft. Which one sentence leaves a first-time reader unsure what it refers to?

   • [9] The post costs the city $38,000 a year, a figure the proposal describes as unsustainable without ever setting it beside the other items in the same budget
   • [10] The same budget, however, sets aside $52,000 for repaving the Eastgate parking lot, a project that the school board has postponed twice without complaint
   • [5] The proposal treats that count as evidence that the crossing is safe, and its authors are right that no child was injured
   • [8] This is why a count made without the guard measures the habits that the guard had taught
10. 8.

    Ari fills the blank that opens sentence 6. The writer wants to grant that the count is accurate, then turn to the week it covered. Which opening clause does that?

    • Whereas the count itself is accurate,
    • Once the count had been taken and reported,
    • Although the count itself is accurate,
    • If the count itself is accurate,
11. 9.

    Kira checks pointing words and key terms in the draft. Which one sentence leaves a first-time reader unsure what it refers to?

    • [12] A child struck at the crossing could lose far more, and that is a loss no later budget can make good
    • [13] The council's proposal asks whether the crossing is safe now, as though safety were a condition that, once found, could be left to take care of itself
    • [14] The better question is whether the program will stay effective once the people who made the crossing safe are gone
    • [3] The case for ending the post rests on a single count taken by city staff last spring, and the whole proposal depends on how that count is read
12. 10.

    Pia fills the blank that opens sentence 11. The writer offers the council a trade it could choose, not one already made. Which opening clause does that?

    • Because the parking lot waits one more year,
    • Although the parking lot waits one more year,
    • If the parking lot waits one more year,
    • After the parking lot has waited one more year,