What one sentence does for the whole paragraph
Grade 8 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
A Journey No One Finishes (article)
[1] Every autumn, monarch butterflies that weigh less than a paperclip begin a journey of more than two thousand miles, from Canada and the northern United States to a few mountain forests in central Mexico. [2] Geese, whales and many other travelers make the trip out and back within their own lifetimes. [3] The monarch's migration works in a very different way.
[4] The butterflies that leave in autumn belong to a special generation, born late in the summer, and unlike their parents they do not breed right away. [5] Instead they feed heavily, store fat and survive for as long as eight months, while ordinary summer monarchs live only a few weeks. [6] In spring, the survivors fly north as far as Texas, lay eggs on milkweed and then end their short lives. [7] Their offspring continue north, and over the next three or four generations their descendants spread across the continent. [8] Hence no single butterfly ever makes the full round trip. [9] The migration is completed by a chain of insects, each of which inherits a route it has never flown. [10] Scientists still cannot fully explain how those descendants find the same Mexican forests, although experiments point to a sun compass and a magnetic sense.
[11] This discovery matters beyond curiosity, because conservationists must protect habitat at every stage of the chain, not just at the destination. [12] Milkweed along the northern routes and the fir forests of Mexico are equally essential to the butterflies. [13] If either link weakens, the whole migration can fail. [14] A plan that guards only the winter forests would therefore leave the chain broken at its start.
Ari reads the monarch article. Sentence [8] begins with "Hence." What does it turn the paragraph from, and toward?
- From the generation-by-generation story in [4] to [7] toward the conclusion that the migration is a relay.
- From an account of how monarchs breed toward a claim that scientists can now explain their route.
- From the monarch's long trip described in paragraph 1 toward the conservation plans that paragraph 3 describes.
- From the conclusion that the trip is a relay toward the generation-by-generation story that explains it.
Bo imagines moving sentence [8] to the very start of paragraph 2, before sentence [4]. What would happen?
- Nothing important would change, because paragraph 1 has already told the reader that the monarch's trip is unusual and unlike other migrations.
- The paragraph would open with a bold claim, and the evidence in [4] to [7] would become unnecessary.
- "Hence" would point back to reasoning the reader has not read yet, so the conclusion would come before its evidence.
- "Hence" would still make sense, because it would point forward to the question about navigation in [10].
The Summer London Held Its Nose (article)
[1] In the summer of 1858, the smell from the River Thames grew so bad that Parliament, which sat beside the river, considered leaving its own building. [2] Londoners called the episode the Great Stink. [3] Yet the smell mattered less than the question it forced officials to face: what was making the city's people sick?
[4] Earlier outbreaks of cholera had taken the lives of thousands of Londoners, and many doctors blamed miasma, a supposed poison carried in foul air. [5] In 1854, a doctor named John Snow had challenged that view. [6] He mapped cholera deaths in one district and showed that they clustered around a single public water pump. [7] His evidence was strong, yet many authorities were not convinced, because he could not explain how a disease might travel through water. [8] The Great Stink handed the miasma theory an unexpected victory, since foul air now seemed truly dangerous. [9] It pushed Parliament to act within weeks. [10] The engineer Joseph Bazalgette was told to build sewers that carried waste miles downstream, away from the city's drinking water. [11] Ironically, a plan meant to fight bad air ended up fighting bad water, and deaths from cholera in London fell sharply.
[12] The episode shows that a good action can rest on a mistaken theory. [13] It also shows how slowly a better explanation can win acceptance, even when the evidence for it is already on the table. [14] Only later, once the germs that cause cholera were identified, did Snow's argument become the accepted account.
Jun reads the London article. Sentence [8] says the Great Stink "handed the miasma theory an unexpected victory." What does it turn the paragraph from, and toward?
- From Snow's strong but unaccepted evidence in [5] to [7] toward a decision driven by the older, mistaken theory.
- From doubt about the miasma theory toward evidence that foul air really does cause cholera.
- From the smell described in paragraph 1 toward the lessons about theories drawn in paragraph 3.
- From a decision driven by the mistaken theory toward Snow's strong evidence about the cholera deaths around the water pump.
Kira imagines moving sentence [11], which begins "Ironically," to just after sentence [4]. What would break?
- The lessons about mistaken theories in paragraph 3 would lose the example that supports them.
- Nothing would break, because sentence [11] merely repeats the smell from the Great Stink in paragraph 1.
- "Ironically" would have nothing to contrast with, because the plan to fight bad air would not be described yet.
- The paragraph would lose any mention of the sewers, because sentence [11] is the sentence that names them.
The Animal That Held the Forest Up (article)
[1] Along the Pacific coast, forests of giant kelp rise from the sea floor like underwater trees, sheltering fish, crabs and young seals. [2] In the nineteenth century, hunters nearly wiped out the sea otters that lived in these waters, prizing the animals for their thick fur. [3] The consequences were not obvious at first, because otters seem to have little to do with seaweed.
[4] Otters, however, eat sea urchins, and urchins eat kelp. [5] With the otters gone, the urchin population grew unchecked, and the hungry urchins grazed the kelp down to bare stubs, creating what divers call urchin barrens. [6] A barren supports far fewer species than a forest, so the loss of one predator quietly emptied large stretches of coast. [7] In places where otters later returned, the pattern reversed: urchins declined, kelp regrew, and fish and other animals came back. [8] Ecologists use the term keystone species for an animal whose effect on its community is far larger than its numbers would suggest. [9] The sea otter fits the term because removing a single link changed the whole chain.
[10] The lesson reaches beyond the Pacific. [11] Conservation plans that protect a famous habitat but ignore the animals that hold it together may fail. [12] Protecting the kelp, therefore, may begin with protecting the otter. [13] Scientists who study other coasts now ask a similar question about every ecosystem they hope to save. [14] They look first for the one species whose absence would unravel the rest.
Milo reads the sea otter article. Sentence [8] turns paragraph 2. What does it turn the reader from, and toward?
- From the effects of the fur trade in paragraph 1 toward the conservation advice in paragraph 3.
- From a description of one coast toward a claim that predators in any ecosystem are keystone species.
- From the story of otters, urchins and kelp in [4] to [7] toward a general term for the pattern.
- From a general term for the pattern toward the story of otters, urchins and kelp that illustrates it.
Noah imagines moving sentence [9], "The sea otter fits the term because removing a single link changed the whole chain," to just before sentence [8]. What would break?
- Nothing would break, because sentence [9] already explains the chain of otters, urchins and kelp by itself.
- "The term" would refer to a name the reader has not been given yet, because it is defined only in [8].
- The conservation lesson in paragraph 3 would come before the evidence that supports it.
- The paragraph would no longer say which animals eat kelp, since [9] is the only sentence that names them.
Pia traces how paragraph 2 develops its idea. Which path names every stage in order?
- A predator is removed, its prey multiplies, and the habitat recovers on its own without the predator returning.
- A predator is lost, its prey ruins the habitat, the predator returns, the habitat recovers, and the animal is named for its role.
- A predator is removed, its prey multiplies and ruins the habitat, and the animal is then given a name for its important role.
- A habitat is ruined, its prey multiplies, a predator is removed, and the animal is named for its role.
A Map Built for Sailors (article)
[1] Look at a classroom wall map of the world and Greenland appears roughly as large as Africa. [2] In reality Africa is about fourteen times larger. [3] The distortion is not a mistake in the usual sense, and the reason has to do with a sixteenth-century sailor's problem.
[4] In 1569, the Flemish mapmaker Gerardus Mercator published a world map designed for sailors. [5] A captain crossing an ocean wants to steer by one steady compass direction, and on Mercator's map such a course appears as a straight line. [6] To achieve this, Mercator stretched the map more and more as it moved away from the equator, so that angles on the map matched angles on the sea. [7] The price of that convenience was area: the stretching grows steeper near the poles, making northern lands swell far beyond their true size. [8] For a navigator, the trade was a bargain, since direction was the only thing that mattered. [9] The same map misleads, however, when it is used for a different purpose, such as comparing the sizes of countries. [10] The map is therefore not wrong so much as specialized, an accurate tool whose accuracy depends on the question being asked.
[11] Mapmakers today have dozens of ways to flatten the globe, each of which keeps some properties true and gives up others. [12] No flat map can keep distances, angles and areas all correct at once, because a sphere cannot be flattened without stretching. [13] Choosing a map, in other words, means choosing what to get wrong.
Ren reads the map article. Sentence [9] begins "The same map misleads, however." What does it turn the paragraph from, and toward?
- From the map's failure when comparing countries toward its success at a sailor's task.
- From praise for Mercator toward the claim that the map was a mistake from the start.
- From the map's success at a sailor's task in [4] to [8] toward its failure for a different purpose.
- From the 1569 map toward the modern ways of flattening the globe that mapmakers use, described in paragraph 3.
Tala imagines moving sentence [7], "The price of that convenience was area...," to just after sentence [8]. What would break?
- The conclusion in paragraph 3 that no flat map is perfect would no longer follow from paragraph 2.
- Nothing would break, because sentence [8] already says direction was what mattered to a navigator.
- "The trade" in [8] would refer to a cost the reader has not met yet, because the cost is named in [7].
- The paragraph would claim that Mercator wanted the polar lands to look larger than they are.
Zee traces how paragraph 2 develops its idea. Which path names every stage in order?
- A purpose, a feature built for it, its cost, the trade judged a bargain, a limit for other uses, a specialized tool.
- A purpose, a limit for other uses, a feature built to fix it, the trade judged, and a specialized tool.
- A purpose, a feature built for it, its cost, and a final verdict that the map is simply wrong for sailors and other users.
- A purpose, a feature built for it, the trade judged a bargain, and a specialized tool.
