What the text leaves open, and what it settles
Grade 11 Reading Worksheet
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
The Withdrawal (story)
[1] For two years Noah had talked about playing Algernon in the school's spring production of The Importance of Being Earnest, and had memorized several of the character's speeches long before auditions were announced. [2] Ari, who was new to the drama club that year, had also signed up to audition for the role, though Ari had never acted in a full-length play. [3] On the Tuesday before auditions, Noah stayed late in the empty auditorium, running the same speech over and over while the custodian stacked chairs. [4] At the first read-through, Noah's hands shook so badly that the script pages rattled, and Noah stopped twice to start a line again. [5] That same afternoon, Noah overheard Ari telling a friend in the hallway that the part would be the first thing Ari had tried out for since moving to town.
[6] On Thursday morning, Noah emailed Ms. Lindqvist, the director, to withdraw from the audition and asked to work on the lighting crew instead. [7] Ms. Lindqvist wrote back that she was surprised, that she had expected a strong audition, and that the door would stay open until Friday. [8] Noah did not reply to that message, and the cast list posted the next Monday named Ari as Algernon. [9] When Ari thanked Noah for helping with lines during rehearsals, Noah said only that the part had found the right person. [10] Noah's uncle, who had acted in college, said at dinner that stage fright usually faded after opening night.
[11] Noah ran the lighting board for all four performances and kept a copy of the script on the console, its margins full of Algernon's lines in Noah's handwriting. [12] On closing night, Ms. Lindqvist asked Noah whether the choice had been about nerves, and Noah answered that it was complicated. [13] The following week, Noah signed up for the fall improvisation workshop, which met every Thursday after school. [14] Ari, meanwhile, told the school paper that the role had made Ari feel at home for the first time since the move.
Bo checks a reader's claim. Claim: “Noah withdrew because Noah was afraid of the stage.” Does the text settle it, leave it open, rule it out, or not address it?
- Not addressed: sentence 12 comes closest, but it does not answer it.
- Settled: sentence 4 says so.
- Left open: sentences 4 and 5 point different ways.
- Ruled out: sentence 7 says otherwise.
The Crossed-Out Line (story)
[1] When Grandma Ines moved into a smaller apartment, Kira was given the family's tin box of recipe cards, most of them written in the same slanting blue ink. [2] The card for the family's walnut bread listed nine ingredients, but the fifth, two spoonfuls of honey, had been crossed out with a single firm line. [3] Beside the crossed-out line, in pencil rather than ink, someone had written the word "better," underlined twice. [4] The card was dated 1974 in the top corner, the year Grandma Ines opened a small bakery on Linden Avenue.
[5] Kira asked Aunt Sofia, who had worked at the bakery as a teenager, about the crossed-out honey. [6] Aunt Sofia said that she had never once written on the cards, which her mother had always treated as private. [7] Aunt Sofia also remembered that honey had been scarce and expensive during the bakery's first few years, when every cost had to be watched closely. [8] The bakery's walnut bread, on the other hand, had won a ribbon at the county fair in 1976, and Grandma Ines still spoke about that loaf with pride.
[9] Kira baked two loaves on Saturday, one with the honey and one without, and asked three friends to taste both without knowing which was which. [10] Two friends preferred the loaf without honey, saying that it tasted more of walnuts, and one preferred the sweeter loaf. [11] Kira finally showed the card to Grandma Ines, who smiled at the word "better" and said only that bread had always been a matter of taste. [12] Grandma Ines did not say who had crossed out the honey or when, and Kira decided not to ask a second time.
[13] Kira copied the recipe onto a new card for the family, writing both versions side by side. [14] At the next family dinner, Kira served the loaf without honey, and nobody at the table asked about the change.
Ari checks a reader's claim. Claim: “Aunt Sofia crossed out the honey.” Does the text settle it, leave it open, rule it out, or not address it?
- Ruled out: sentence 6 says otherwise.
- Not addressed: sentence 12 comes closest, but it does not answer it.
- Left open: sentences 5 and 7 point different ways.
- Settled: sentence 3 says so.
Luz splits a question into two parts. Question: When was the card written, and why was the honey crossed out? Which choice says which part the text settles and which it leaves open?
- Settled: when (sentence 4). Settled: why (sentence 7).
- Left open: when (sentences 4 and 8). Settled: why (sentence 3).
- Settled: when (sentence 4). Not addressed: why (sentence 12 comes closest).
- Settled: when (sentence 4). Left open: why (sentences 3 and 7).
Milo fills the left-open box. Question: Why was the honey crossed out? Reading 1: Honey cost too much in the bakery's early years. Reading 2: The bread tasted better without it. Which sentences are the clue for each reading?
- Reading 1: sentence 13. Reading 2: sentence 3.
- Reading 1: sentence 7. Reading 2: sentence 14.
- Reading 1: sentence 7. Reading 2: sentence 3.
- Reading 1: sentence 3. Reading 2: sentence 7.
Two Scripts from Crete (article)
[1] In 1900 the British archaeologist Arthur Evans began digging at Knossos, on the island of Crete, and soon found thousands of clay tablets covered in an unknown script. [2] Evans named the script Linear B, to separate it from an older and rarer script on the island that he called Linear A. [3] The tablets had been made of unbaked clay, and they survived only because fires that swept through the palace buildings baked them hard.
[4] For half a century no one could read either script, and most scholars, Evans among them, assumed that Linear B recorded a language unrelated to Greek. [5] In 1952 Michael Ventris, an architect who had been fascinated by the tablets since hearing Evans speak when Ventris was fourteen, showed that Linear B was an early form of Greek. [6] Ventris built on patterns of word endings that the American scholar Alice Kober had found, and he had at first expected the language to be related to Etruscan. [7] Working with the language scholar John Chadwick, he showed that the tablets were almost entirely records: lists of grain, oil, livestock, chariot wheels and workers. [8] No poem, letter or story has been found among them.
[9] Linear A has resisted every attempt at decipherment, even though many of its signs look like Linear B signs and probably stood for similar sounds. [10] Read with those sound values, however, Linear A words match no known language, so scholars still do not know what language the earlier Cretans spoke. [11] Some researchers link it to languages once spoken in nearby Anatolia, pointing to a few word endings that look similar. [12] Others argue that it belonged to a language family that left no other trace, since none of its common words can be matched anywhere. [13] More Linear A inscriptions would help, but fewer than two thousand are known, and most of them are very short.
[14] In 1953 a newly read tablet from Pylos listed three-legged cooking pots, and its words matched the small drawings of pots beside them, which convinced many doubters. [15] Today the tablets fill museum drawers in Crete and mainland Greece, and the older script is still waiting for its reader.
Kira checks a reader's claim. Claim: “Linear A recorded a language related to those of ancient Anatolia.” Does the text settle it, leave it open, rule it out, or not address it?
- Left open: sentences 11 and 12 point different ways.
- Ruled out: sentence 8 says otherwise.
- Settled: sentence 11 says so.
- Not addressed: sentence 10 comes closest, but it does not answer it.
Noah splits a question into two parts. Question: What language does each of the two scripts record? Which choice says which part the text settles and which it leaves open?
- Settled: Linear B (sentence 5). Not addressed: Linear A (sentence 15 comes closest).
- Left open: Linear B (sentences 4 and 5). Settled: Linear A (sentence 11).
- Settled: Linear B (sentence 5). Settled: Linear A (sentence 12).
- Settled: Linear B (sentence 5). Left open: Linear A (sentences 11 and 12).
Pia fills the left-open box. Question: What family did the language of Linear A belong to? Reading 1: It was related to languages of Anatolia. Reading 2: It belonged to a family that left no other trace. Which sentences are the clue for each reading?
- Reading 1: sentence 11. Reading 2: sentence 12.
- Reading 1: sentence 12. Reading 2: sentence 11.
- Reading 1: sentence 11. Reading 2: sentence 6.
- Reading 1: sentence 3. Reading 2: sentence 12.
The Letter Behind the Chalkboard (feature story about an invented town)
[1] When workers removed an old chalkboard from the Millford schoolhouse during renovations last summer, they discovered a folded letter tucked into a narrow gap in the plaster behind it. [2] The letter was dated May 1958, signed with the initials R. T., and addressed simply "To whoever finds this." [3] The writer described the classroom in careful detail: the iron stove, the map of the forty-eight states, and the smell of chalk dust on Friday afternoons. [4] It also mentioned "the new student from the city," who was "faster at long division than anyone, even Miss Hale."
[5] Miss Hale, according to the town's employment records, taught in the schoolhouse from 1951 until it finally closed in 1962. [6] The 1958 class list in the town archive includes two students with the initials R. T.: Ruth Tolliver and Raymond Teague. [7] Ruth Tolliver later became the town's librarian, and her family still owns a shelf of her notebooks, written in a similar slanted hand. [8] Raymond Teague moved away in 1960, and the archive holds no later record of him.
[9] The letter ends with a line that local historians read in two ways: "I hope this is still a school when you read it, and I hope you are happier here than I was." [10] Some read the line as a sad confession, pointing to a passage in which the writer calls recess "the longest part of the day." [11] Others read it as gentle humor, noting that the same letter calls the stove "the only warm friend in the building, apart from everyone." [12] The paper had been folded into a tiny square and pushed so deep into the gap that no one could have seen it without taking down the board.
[13] The schoolhouse is now the town's history museum, and the letter hangs in a protective frame beside the restored chalkboard. [14] The museum has asked anyone with memories of the 1958 class to come forward, but so far nobody has responded.
Ren checks a reader's claim. Claim: “Miss Hale wrote the letter herself.” Does the text settle it, leave it open, rule it out, or not address it?
- Ruled out: sentence 2 says otherwise.
- Not addressed: sentence 5 comes closest, but it does not answer it.
- Settled: sentence 7 says so.
- Left open: sentences 4 and 5 point different ways.
Tala splits a question into two parts. Question: When was the letter written, and was it meant to be found? Which choice says which part the text settles and which it leaves open?
- Left open: when (sentences 2 and 5). Settled: whether it was meant to be found (sentence 9).
- Settled: when (sentence 2). Not addressed: whether it was meant to be found (sentence 13 comes closest).
- Settled: when (sentence 2). Settled: whether it was meant to be found (sentence 12).
- Settled: when (sentence 2). Left open: whether it was meant to be found (sentences 9 and 12).
Zee fills the left-open box. Question: How should the last line of the letter be read? Reading 1: The line is a sad confession. Reading 2: The line is gentle humor. Which sentences are the clue for each reading?
- Reading 1: sentence 5. Reading 2: sentence 11.
- Reading 1: sentence 11. Reading 2: sentence 10.
- Reading 1: sentence 10. Reading 2: sentence 11.
- Reading 1: sentence 10. Reading 2: sentence 7.