What the text says, and what it only suggests

Grade 9 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Second Place (story)

   [1] When the student council results were read over the loudspeaker, I clapped as hard as anyone for Esme, who had beaten me by eleven votes, and told everyone nearby that I was honestly relieved to skip the extra meetings. [2] I had spent three weekends on my posters, but I explained that posters were the easy part and that the job itself would have eaten every lunch period until June. [3] That afternoon I took the posters down, rolled them carefully with rubber bands, and slid them under my bed, where they still are.

   [4] Esme asked me the next morning to help plan the spring fundraiser, and I said I would think about it, which in our house always means no. [5] My father noticed I was quiet at dinner and asked whether I was disappointed; I told him the vote was fair and there was nothing to be disappointed about. [6] The vote had been fair; I had counted the ballots alongside the teacher, and each one was clear.

   [7] Two weeks later I went to the first council meeting anyway, sitting in the back row of the library because, I told Esme, I had a book to return. [8] I returned the book in under a minute, then stayed the entire hour and wrote four pages of notes about the fundraiser. [9] When Esme proposed holding it in the gym, I pointed out that the gym was booked every Friday in April, which I had looked up during my campaign. [10] Esme thanked me, moved the fundraiser to the courtyard, and asked me to run the sign-up table. [11] I said yes before I had finished deciding, which surprised both of us.

   [12] I still tell people that losing was a relief, and on most days I believe it, though I notice I have not thrown away the posters. [13] The next election is in March, and I have already started a list of people who might help me make better ones.

2. 1.

   Bo infers from sentence 6 alone: “The narrator has made peace with losing to Esme.” Which revision fits the whole story best?

   • Esme doubts the count, although the narrator has fully accepted it.
   • The narrator accepts the count as fair but still wants the job Esme won.
   • The narrator plans to challenge the count before next year's election.
   • The narrator accepts the count and has lost interest in serving on the council.
3. 2.

   Esme reads sentence 2 beside sentence 8. What do the two, read together, imply?

   • The narrator means to take Esme's place on the council this spring.
   • The narrator truly dreaded the hours that the council would take.
   • Esme, not the narrator, was the one who worried that council work would eat lunch periods.
   • The narrator's worry about lost lunch periods was an excuse, not a real objection.
4. 3.

   Jun tests an idea built across the story: “Esme's first request got a polite no, and the narrator half admits that the relief story is shaky.” Which two sentences, together, support both parts?

   • [3] That afternoon I took the posters down, rolled them carefully with rubber bands, and slid them under my bed, where they still are. [12] I still tell people that losing was a relief, and on most days I believe it, though I notice I have not thrown away the posters.
   • [1] When the student council results were read over the loudspeaker, I clapped as hard as anyone for Esme, who had beaten me by eleven votes, and told everyone nearby that I was honestly relieved to skip the extra meetings. [4] Esme asked me the next morning to help plan the spring fundraiser, and I said I would think about it, which in our house always means no.
   • [4] Esme asked me the next morning to help plan the spring fundraiser, and I said I would think about it, which in our house always means no. [12] I still tell people that losing was a relief, and on most days I believe it, though I notice I have not thrown away the posters.
   • [4] Esme asked me the next morning to help plan the spring fundraiser, and I said I would think about it, which in our house always means no. [11] I said yes before I had finished deciding, which surprised both of us.

5. Smooth in the Wrong Shape (article)

   [1] When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in April 1990, astronomers expected the sharpest views of distant space that anyone had ever recorded. [2] Within weeks, however, the first test images came back blurred, with each bright star wrapped in a hazy halo. [3] The fault lay in the main mirror, which had been polished to the wrong shape: near its edge it was too flat by about one-fiftieth of the thickness of a sheet of paper.

   [4] The polishing had been guided by a testing device in which one lens sat slightly more than a millimeter out of place, so the mirror was shaped to match a faulty guide. [5] Before launch, two simpler tests had given results that disagreed with that device, but the team trusted the more advanced instrument and set the other results aside. [6] The finished telescope was never tested as a whole on the ground, a step that would have been costly and slow. [7] A review panel later criticized the checking procedures at the company that had made the mirror.

   [8] Because the mirror could not be brought home, engineers designed small corrective mirrors, a kind of eyeglasses for the telescope, to cancel the error. [9] Oddly, the faulty device helped: because it had preserved the exact mistake, engineers could calculate the correction with confidence. [10] In December 1993, astronauts installed the fixes during a series of spacewalks. [11] The first sharp images arrived within weeks, and Hubble went on to become one of the most productive instruments in the history of astronomy. [12] The mirror itself had never been rough or careless work; it was among the smoothest large mirrors ever made, simply smooth in the wrong shape.

6. 4.

   Luz infers from sentence 7 alone: “The company's workers did sloppy work on the mirror.” Which revision fits the whole article best?

   • The panel blamed the mirror company alone and cleared NASA's own team of any fault.
   • The company's checks were sound, but its polishing was rough work.
   • The company's checks failed, though its polishing itself was highly skilled.
   • The company's workers polished the mirror carelessly and checked it poorly.
7. 5.

   Milo reads sentence 4 beside sentence 9. What do the two, read together, imply?

   • The device that caused the flaw also made its exact correction possible.
   • The mirror's faulty shape was what pushed the device's lens out of place.
   • Once its lens was found out of place, the device was of no further use.
   • Engineers set the lens out of place on purpose to test the mirror.
8. 6.

   Noah tests an idea built across the article: “Saving money and time shaped a risky choice before launch, and the source of the error later guided its repair.” Which two sentences, together, support both parts?

   • [4] The polishing had been guided by a testing device in which one lens sat slightly more than a millimeter out of place, so the mirror was shaped to match a faulty guide. [9] Oddly, the faulty device helped: because it had preserved the exact mistake, engineers could calculate the correction with confidence.
   • [6] The finished telescope was never tested as a whole on the ground, a step that would have been costly and slow. [7] A review panel later criticized the checking procedures at the company that had made the mirror.
   • [6] The finished telescope was never tested as a whole on the ground, a step that would have been costly and slow. [8] Because the mirror could not be brought home, engineers designed small corrective mirrors, a kind of eyeglasses for the telescope, to cancel the error.
   • [6] The finished telescope was never tested as a whole on the ground, a step that would have been costly and slow. [9] Oddly, the faulty device helped: because it had preserved the exact mistake, engineers could calculate the correction with confidence.

9. The Clockmaker and the Board (article)

   [1] In 1714 the British Parliament offered a prize of up to twenty thousand pounds for a practical way to find a ship's longitude, its east-west position, at sea. [2] The problem was really one of time: a navigator who knew both the exact time at the home port and the local time aboard could work out how far east or west the ship had sailed. [3] John Harrison, a carpenter with little formal schooling, spent decades building clocks that kept accurate time on a rolling ship. [4] His fourth timekeeper, a large pocket watch, is reported to have lost only about five seconds on a voyage of more than eighty days to Jamaica in 1761 and 1762.

   [5] The Board of Longitude, which judged the prize, agreed that the result was striking but argued that one voyage might have been luck, and asked for a second trial. [6] After a second trial in 1764 also succeeded, the Board required Harrison to explain his design in full and to show that other makers could copy it. [7] Some astronomers tied to the Board favored a rival method, which used careful sightings of the moon and printed tables that took hours to work through. [8] The astronomer Nevil Maskelyne, a leading champion of that method, became Astronomer Royal and a member of the Board in 1765, and he later published the tables that made it practical. [9] Harrison, by then in his seventies, complained bitterly that the rules seemed to change each time he met them.

   [10] In 1773, after Harrison asked King George III for help, Parliament granted him a large sum, though the Board never formally gave him the prize. [11] Within a few decades, ships' clocks built on his ideas were becoming common, though navigators often kept using lunar tables beside them as a check. [12] Historians still argue over whether the Board was simply guarding public money or a method that some of its members had spent their careers on.

10. 7.

    Pia infers from sentence 5 alone: “The Board was set on denying Harrison the prize.” Which revision fits the whole article best?

    • The Board demanded a second trial to give Maskelyne time to copy the watch.
    • The Board's caution was fair, and not one of its members had any stake in another method.
    • The Board gave a fair reason, though some members may have had a rival interest.
    • Harrison asked for a second trial because he doubted his own first result.
11. 8.

    Ren reads sentence 2 beside sentence 4. What do the two, read together, imply?

    • The watch found the ship's position, from which sailors worked out the time.
    • The watch kept home-port time closely enough to find longitude at sea.
    • The watch was accurate, but accuracy had little to do with longitude.
    • The watch let sailors find their position at sea to within a few feet.
12. 9.

    Tala reads sentence 6 beside sentence 8. What do the two, read together, imply?

    • New demands came at about the time a champion of the rival method joined the Board.
    • Maskelyne himself wrote the new demands in order to keep Harrison from winning the prize.
    • Harrison made new demands of the Board soon after Maskelyne joined it.
    • The new demands came from a Board with no stake in either method.
13. 10.

    Zee infers from sentence 9 alone: “The Board kept changing its rules only to cheat Harrison.” Which revision fits the whole article best?

    • The Board kept changing its rules so that Maskelyne could claim the prize himself.
    • The demands did grow after each success, but the text leaves the motive open.
    • The Board set its conditions at the start, so Harrison was simply mistaken.
    • Harrison kept changing his design each time he met with the Board.