What one sentence does for the whole paragraph
Grade 8 Reading Worksheet - Building Confidence
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
Seeing With Sound (article)
[1] Flying at night, a bat swoops through the dark and plucks a moth from the air without ever touching a branch. [2] Bats are not blind, as the old saying suggests, but in the dark their eyes can supply very little information. [3] Instead, many species depend on a remarkable form of navigation called echolocation.
[4] A bat using echolocation sends out a rapid series of sounds, most of them too high-pitched for human ears to detect. [5] When those sounds strike an object, such as a tree trunk or a flying insect, part of the sound bounces back toward the bat as an echo. [6] The bat's brain then measures how long each echo took to return, and that delay tells the animal how far away the object is. [7] Differences between the echoes arriving at the bat's two ears reveal the direction of the object, and even tiny changes in pitch show whether it is moving. [8] As the bat closes in on a target, it calls faster and faster, which refreshes its picture of the prey many times each second. [9] Combined, these measurements give the bat a detailed sound-based map of the space ahead.
[10] Echolocation is not limited to bats, since dolphins use similar clicks to find fish in murky water. [11] Engineers have borrowed the same principle for sonar systems, which let ships measure the depth of the sea beneath them. [12] Even so, the bat remains the model that inventors study most closely, because few machines extract as much detail from sound alone. Map: Paragraph 2 map: [4] the sounds a bat sends out; [5] an echo comes back; [6] the delay; [7] the two ears and the pitch; [8] faster calls near prey; [9] the sound-based map.
Ari reads the bat article. Choose the job the sentence does, not just what it says. What job does sentence [6] do in paragraph 2?
- It shows that a bat judges distance more accurately than the sonar on a ship can.
- It shows what the bat learns from the returning echo in [5]: how far away the object is.
- It explains why engineers copy the bat's method, which is the point of paragraph 3.
- It shows what the bat learns by comparing the echoes at its two ears in [7]: which way the object lies.
Esme wants the sentence that shows a bat's picture of its prey being renewed again and again. Which sentence is it?
- [8] The bat calls faster as it nears its prey, refreshing its picture many times a second.
- [7] The echoes reaching the two ears reveal direction, and changes in pitch show movement.
- [11] Ship sonar uses the same principle to measure the depth of the sea below.
- [4] The bat sends out a rapid series of sounds, most of them too high for human ears.
Why the Sky Looks Blue (article)
[1] On a clear afternoon the sky looks blue, yet sunlight itself appears white. [2] That contrast puzzles many people, since the Sun's light seems to change color somewhere on its journey through the atmosphere. [3] The explanation lies in what happens when sunlight meets the gases of the atmosphere.
[4] Sunlight is a mixture of colors, and each color travels as a wave of a different length. [5] When light strikes the tiny molecules of air, it is scattered in every direction, and shorter waves are scattered far more strongly than longer ones. [6] Blue light has a much shorter wavelength than red light, so blue is bounced around the sky while red passes almost straight through. [7] Wherever you look overhead, some of that scattered blue light is heading toward your eyes. [8] Violet light is scattered even more strongly than blue, yet the sky does not look violet. [9] The Sun gives off less violet than blue, the upper atmosphere absorbs some of it, and human eyes respond weakly to violet in any case. [10] The blue we see is therefore the mixture that the Sun, the air and our eyes produce together.
[11] At sunrise and sunset the light must cross a much thicker layer of air before reaching you. [12] Most of the blue has been scattered out of the beam by then, which leaves the reds and oranges that color the horizon. [13] The same scattering that makes the daytime sky blue therefore helps to make the evening sky red. Map: Paragraph 2 map: [4] sunlight as waves of different lengths; [5] scattering by air; [6] blue against red; [7] light reaching your eyes; [8] violet; [9] three reasons; [10] the result.
Jun reads the sky article. What job does sentence [9] do for the problem raised in sentence [8]?
- It answers the problem by giving three reasons the violet light does not turn the sky violet.
- It repeats in new words why blue light is scattered more than red light, as [6] already did.
- It tells readers that the Sun gives off less violet light than it gives off blue light.
- It adds a second problem for the explanation in [6], which sentence [10] then has to solve.
Kira looks at the word "yet" in sentence [8]. What does it show about the two parts of that sentence?
- It shows that the explanation in [6] is wrong, because blue should not be scattered by air.
- It shows a conflict: violet should make the sky look violet, but the sky does not.
- It shows an example: violet light is one case of the blue light discussed in [7].
- It shows a cause: violet is scattered strongly because the sky does not look violet.
Luz wants the sentence that links the scattered blue light to what a person on the ground actually sees. Which sentence is it?
- [5] Air molecules scatter light in many directions, and short waves much more than long ones.
- [12] By sunset most of the blue has been scattered out of the beam, leaving reds and oranges.
- [6] Blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light, so blue is bounced around the sky.
- [7] Wherever you look overhead, some scattered blue light is heading toward your eyes.
Gutenberg and the Press (article)
[1] Until about 1450, every book in Europe was copied by hand, and a single volume could keep a scribe busy for months. [2] Books were therefore rare and costly, and most families never owned one. [3] That began to change with the work of Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith who built a printing press in the city of Mainz.
[4] Gutenberg did not invent printing itself, since printers in China and Korea had used movable type for centuries. [5] His achievement was to combine several older ideas into one system that suited the European alphabet. [6] He cast each letter as a separate piece of metal, so a page could be assembled quickly and the same letters reused for the next one. [7] He developed an oil-based ink that clung to metal type, where the water-based inks of scribes would have run. [8] He also adapted a screw press, of the kind already used for pressing grapes and olives, to push paper firmly against the inked letters. [9] Taken together, these changes let one workshop produce hundreds of matching pages in the time a scribe needed for one copy.
[10] Within a few decades, printing shops had opened in cities across Europe. [11] Prices fell, books multiplied, and ideas began to travel faster than any messenger could carry them. [12] In time, reading spread beyond churches and royal courts, because books were at last cheap enough for ordinary families to buy. Map: Paragraph 2 map: [4] Gutenberg did not invent printing; [5] his real contribution; [6] metal letters; [7] oil-based ink; [8] the screw press; [9] the combined effect.
Milo reads the printing article. What job does sentence [4] do for the idea about Gutenberg in sentence [3]?
- It corrects an idea a reader might take from [3], so that [5] can name what he really added.
- It names the three improvements, metal letters, ink and a press, that made his system work.
- It tells readers that printers in China and Korea used movable type for centuries.
- It shows that his work mattered less than the work of the earlier printers in China and Korea.
Pia asks which sentence gives the reason a page could be put together quickly. Which sentence is it?
- [7] An oil-based ink clung to the metal type, where the scribes' water-based inks would have run.
- [11] Prices fell and books multiplied as printing shops opened across Europe.
- [6] Each letter was cast as a separate metal piece, so pages could be assembled and letters reused.
- [9] One workshop could produce hundreds of matching pages in the time a scribe needed for one.
The Bee That Gives Directions (article)
[1] A honeybee that discovers a rich patch of flowers faces a problem, because the patch may lie a mile or more from the hive. [2] The bee cannot carry the whole patch home, and it cannot describe the place in words. [3] Even so, within an hour dozens of its nest mates may arrive at exactly the right spot.
[4] The explanation, worked out by the Austrian scientist Karl von Frisch, is a movement known as the waggle dance. [5] Back on the vertical surface of the honeycomb, the scout traces a figure eight, and in the straight middle section of the figure it shakes its body from side to side. [6] The angle of that straight run, measured against straight up, matches the angle between the Sun and the flowers as the bees would see it outside the hive. [7] The longer the bee keeps waggling, the farther away the food is. [8] Other workers crowd close and touch the dancer, which lets them sense the pattern in the dark of the hive. [9] They then leave, fly in the indicated direction for the indicated distance, and search the area for blossoms. [10] In this way a single successful scout can recruit a whole crew of foragers.
[11] Von Frisch shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this discovery, which showed that insects can pass information to one another in a precise, symbolic form. [12] Later researchers have added to his work, but the main findings of his experiments have held up. Map: Paragraph 2 map: [4] von Frisch names the dance; [5] the figure-eight and the waggle; [6] the angle of the run; [7] the length of the waggle; [8] nest mates follow; [9] they fly out; [10] the result.
Ren reads the bee article. What job does sentence [7] do for the code described in sentence [6]?
- It adds a second piece of information to the code: after direction in [6], how far away the food is.
- It shows how the other workers sense the dance in the dark of the hive.
- It tells readers that a bee waggles for a longer time or for a shorter time.
- It shows that the direction in [6] matters less to the other bees than the distance does.
Tala looks at the phrase "In this way" at the start of sentence [10]. What does it tell the reader?
- It presents the recruiting of foragers as the reason the scout began to dance in [5].
- It presents the recruiting of foragers as the reason von Frisch won the prize mentioned in [11].
- It presents the recruiting of foragers as the result of the whole process described in [4] to [9].
- It presents the recruiting of foragers as a different method from the dance in [4] to [9].
Zee wants the sentence that shows how the other bees receive the dancer's message. Which sentence is it?
- [8] Other workers crowd close and touch the dancer to sense the pattern in the dark.
- [5] The scout traces a figure eight and shakes its body from side to side.
- [11] Von Frisch shared the 1973 Nobel Prize for this discovery about the dance.
- [9] The workers leave, fly in the indicated direction for the indicated distance and search.