How a sentence or paragraph fits the whole article
Grade 6 Reading Worksheet - Building Confidence
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
How a Honeybee Gives Directions (article)
[1] A honeybee that discovers a patch of flowers far from the hive has a problem to solve. [2] She must tell her sisters where the food is, and she cannot speak or point.
[3] Back inside the dark hive, she climbs onto the honeycomb and dances in a figure-eight pattern. [4] In the middle of the figure she waggles her body, and the other bees gather closely to feel the vibrations.
[5] The angle of the waggle, measured from straight up, matches the angle between the sun and the flowers. [6] A longer waggle means that the flowers are farther from the hive.
[7] Soon the watching bees fly out in the direction she has shown and find the patch. [8] When they return with nectar, some of them dance too, and more bees follow the same path.
Ari reads the honeybee article. What job does sentence [2] do for the article as a whole?
- It explains why bees dance inside a dark hive instead of in the open air near the flowers.
- It sums up the whole article by telling how bees share the place where food can be found.
- It states exactly what the bee must do, which sets up the dance as her way of doing it.
- It shows the dance itself, describing how the bee moves once she is back on the honeycomb.
Esme wants the sentence that shows what the dance first made the watching bees do. Which sentence is it?
- Sentence [2]
- Sentence [7]
- Sentence [8]
- Sentence [6]
How a Canal Lock Lifts a Boat (article)
[1] A canal is a waterway dug across land, but land is rarely flat. [2] When one stretch of a canal lies higher than the next, boats need a way to climb or descend.
[3] A lock solves this problem with a long chamber that has a gate at each end. [4] A boat heading uphill enters the chamber while the lower gate is open and the upper gate is shut.
[5] After the lower gate closes, workers open small paddles that let water flow in from the higher stretch. [6] The water level rises inside the chamber, and the boat rises with it.
[7] When the level matches the upper canal, the upper gate swings open and the boat sails on. [8] Going downhill follows the same steps in reverse, with water drained out of the chamber instead of let in.
Jun reads the canal lock article. What does the second paragraph, sentences [3] and [4], do for the article as a whole?
- It introduces the lock as the answer to the problem and shows how a boat enters it.
- It describes a boat's complete trip through a lock, from the first gate to the last.
- It explains why canal builders chose gates instead of ramps to move boats uphill.
- It explains how the water level is raised so the boat can climb to the upper canal.
Kira looks at the last sentence, [8]. What job does it do for the article as a whole?
- It repeats the filling steps from the third paragraph in different words for the reader.
- It points out that draining a chamber takes less time than filling one, so downhill trips are quicker.
- It introduces the problem of uneven land that canal builders needed a lock to solve.
- It shows that a lock works in both directions, since the same steps run in reverse downhill.
Luz needs the sentence that tells what happens to the boat once water flows into the chamber. Which sentence is it?
- Sentence [1]
- Sentence [6]
- Sentence [4]
- Sentence [5]
A Backup Vault for Seeds (article)
[1] Crops can be lost to floods, droughts, plant diseases, or a broken freezer at a faraway seed bank. [2] Because of such risks, farmers and scientists wanted a safe backup place to keep seeds for the future.
[3] They found a suitable place on a mountain in Svalbard, an island group in the Arctic Ocean north of Norway. [4] The vault is a tunnel cut deep into the rock, where the ground stays frozen all year.
[5] Seed banks around the world mail boxes of seeds to the vault, and each bank still owns what it sends. [6] The seeds wait in sealed packages inside a cold room kept at about eighteen degrees Celsius below zero.
[7] If a collection is ever lost at home, its bank can ask for the seeds back. [8] This backup plan makes it less likely that the plants people depend on for food will disappear.
Milo reads the seed vault article. What does the first paragraph, sentences [1] and [2], do for the article as a whole?
- It explains how the vault works, from the first shipment of seeds to the last request.
- It names the danger of losing seed collections, which explains why a backup place was wanted.
- It shows how the vault has already saved crops that were lost in other places.
- It describes the cold tunnel where the seeds are stored and why the rock keeps them frozen.
Noah wants the sentence that explains why the Arctic site suits a vault for seeds. Which sentence is it?
- Sentence [3]
- Sentence [5]
- Sentence [4]
- Sentence [8]
Pia looks at sentence [7]. What job does it do for the article as a whole?
- It explains how a bank shows that it owns the seeds when it asks for them back.
- It shows the backup doing its job, because a bank that loses seeds can get them back.
- It shows where the seeds first come from, as banks around the world mail boxes to the vault.
- It repeats the point that each seed bank owns the seeds it sends, which the fifth sentence already made.
Louis Braille and the Six-Dot Code (article)
[1] Before the 1820s, many blind students had to read books printed with large raised letters. [2] These books were heavy and slow to read, and the students could not write with them.
[3] As a teenager, Louis Braille studied a code of raised dots that army officers used to send messages in the dark. [4] That code was too hard to read, because each letter used up to twelve dots and one fingertip could not feel them all at once.
[5] Louis cut the pattern down to six dots arranged in two columns of three. [6] Each letter, number and punctuation mark got its own mix of raised dots, so one fingertip could read a whole letter at a touch.
[7] By 1829 Louis had published his system, and it could be used for music as well as for words. [8] Today readers in many countries use braille, and people can write it with a simple tool or a keyboard.
Ren studies sentence [4]. What job does it do for the article as a whole?
- It tells how Louis fixed the dot code, by cutting the pattern down to six dots.
- It explains that the army stopped using the code because fingertips read too slowly.
- It sums up the problems with reading methods for blind people, including the large raised letters.
- It names a flaw in the earlier dot code, which explains why Louis needed to change it.
Tala reads the article about Louis Braille. What does the final paragraph, sentences [7] and [8], do for the article as a whole?
- It tells when Louis published his system and what it could be used for at first.
- It explains how Louis changed the old code into one that fingertips could read.
- It shows how far the six-dot system has spread, from its first publication to today.
- It argues that braille has replaced printed books for most blind readers around the world.