What a section or feature does for the whole article

Grade 9 Reading Worksheet - Building Confidence

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   How Sourdough Rises (article with headings and a sidebar)

   [1] Sourdough bread is one of the oldest kinds of leavened bread, and it rises without any packet of yeast from a store. [2] Instead, bakers rely on a starter, a mixture of flour and water that has been left out long enough to attract the microbes that live naturally on grain and in the air.

   A Living Starter
   [3] Within a few days of mixing, tiny wild yeasts and bacteria begin to feed on the sugars in the flour, and the mixture bubbles and grows. [4] Bakers feed the starter fresh flour and water every day, discarding some each time, so that the colony stays healthy and does not use up its food. [5] A starter that is cared for in this way can stay active for years, and some are passed down through families.

   The Slow Rise
   [6] When a baker mixes some of the starter into a dough, the yeasts in it produce carbon dioxide gas as they feed. [7] The gas gets trapped inside the stretchy network that forms when flour and water are kneaded together, and the dough swells. [8] Because wild yeasts work much more slowly than the yeast sold in packets, the dough may need eight hours or more to double in size. [9] During that time, the bacteria in the dough are working too.

   Sidebar: Why It Tastes Sour
   [10] The bacteria in a starter produce lactic acid and acetic acid, which are the same kinds of acids found in yogurt and vinegar. [11] The longer the dough rests, the more acid builds up, and the tangier the finished loaf tastes. [12] Bakers who want a milder loaf can shorten the rise.

2. 1.

   Ari is filling in the section map for this article. What does the section "A Living Starter" (sentences 3–5) do for the whole article?

   • It is about flour, water, wild yeasts, bacteria and the families that pass starters down.
   • It explains that bakers discard some starter each day to keep the colony healthy.
   • It explains why the gas from the yeasts makes the dough swell, using the dough's stretchy network.
   • It explains what a starter is and how it stays alive, the base for the rest of the process.
3. 2.

   Bo wants to tag the section "The Slow Rise" (sentences 6–9) on the map. Which structure does the section use, and what signals it?

   • Cause and effect: gas from the yeasts, trapped in the dough, makes it swell, and slow yeasts mean a long wait.
   • Sequence: the starter is mixed, fed daily and kept alive for years, with time words to signal the order.
   • Cause and effect: the swelling of the dough makes the yeasts produce gas, which explains the long wait.
   • Comparison and contrast: the section lines up wild yeast against packet yeast, and that comparison is the whole section.
4. 3.

   Esme reaches the sidebar "Why It Tastes Sour" (sentences 10–12). What does this sidebar add to the article?

   • It is about lactic acid, acetic acid, yogurt, vinegar and a milder loaf.
   • It explains where the sour taste comes from, which the main sections never mention, and how a baker can change it.
   • It repeats that the dough rises slowly because wild yeasts work more slowly than packet yeast.
   • It shows that sourdough is healthier than bread made with packet yeast.
5. 4.

   Jun is filling in the section map for this article. What does the section "The Slow Rise" (sentences 6–9) do for the whole article?

   • It shows that the bacteria are more important than the yeasts to each loaf of sourdough.
   • It is about carbon dioxide, a stretchy network, packet yeast and bacteria working in the dough.
   • It shows how the starter turns dough into a risen loaf, and why wild yeasts make that slow.
   • It explains how a baker feeds and keeps the starter alive so that it lasts for years.

6. The Honeybee's Waggle Dance (article with headings and a sidebar)

   [1] When a honeybee returns from a good patch of flowers, she does not simply tell the hive that food is somewhere outside. [2] She performs a dance on the vertical surface of the comb, and her sisters crowd around to read it.

   Two Kinds of Dance
   [3] If the food is close, within about fifty meters of the hive, the bee runs in a small circle first one way and then the other. [4] If the food is farther away, she switches to the waggle dance, a figure-eight with a straight run through the middle during which her body shakes from side to side. [5] The two dances give the hive different information, but both depend on movements that the other bees follow closely in the dark.

   Reading the Waggle
   [6] The straight run of the figure-eight points the way, but bees cannot see the sun inside the hive, so the dance uses gravity as a stand-in. [7] A run straight up the comb means the food lies in the same direction as the sun, while a run tilted twenty degrees to the right means the food lies twenty degrees to the right of the sun. [8] The length of the waggle tells the distance, and the longer the bee shakes, the farther away the flowers are. [9] Followers who read the dance fly out in that direction and search for the flowers by scent.

   Sidebar: How We Know
   [10] The Austrian scientist Karl von Frisch spent decades testing this idea, and in 1973 he shared a Nobel Prize for his work. [11] In one experiment, he moved a feeding dish to new places and watched the dances change. [12] Other researchers have since used tiny radar trackers on bees to confirm that followers really do fly where the dance points.

7. 5.

   Kira is filling in the section map for this article. What does the section "Reading the Waggle" (sentences 6–9) do for the whole article?

   • It describes the circle dance that a bee performs when the food is close to the hive.
   • It explains how the dance carries direction and distance, the information that sends the hive to the flowers.
   • It explains that the length of the waggle tells how far away the flowers are.
   • It is about a figure-eight, the sun, gravity, a tilted run and the scent of flowers.
8. 6.

   Luz wants to tag the section "Two Kinds of Dance" (sentences 3–5) on the map. Which structure does the section use, and what signals it?

   • Comparison and contrast: one dance for close food, another for far food, signaled by two "if" clauses.
   • Cause and effect: the bee's circle makes the hive notice the food, and that cause explains the whole section.
   • Comparison and contrast: the waggle dance is for close food and the circle dance is for far food.
   • Problem and solution: bees cannot see the sun inside the hive, so the dance uses gravity as a stand-in.

9. How Bridges Carry Weight (article with headings, a sidebar and a caption)

   [1] Every bridge has the same job, which is to carry weight across a gap, but different bridges handle that weight in very different ways. [2] Engineers sort bridges by how the forces move through them, and two forces matter most: compression, which squeezes a material, and tension, which pulls it.

   Beams: Bending Under Load
   [3] The simplest bridge is a beam resting on two supports, like a plank laid across a stream. [4] When a load presses down on the middle, the top of the beam is squeezed and the bottom is stretched, and a long or heavy beam sags. [5] For this reason, plain beam bridges work best over short gaps, and builders add supports in the middle when the gap is long.

   Arches: Pushing Outward
   [6] An arch turns the downward weight of the bridge into a push that travels along its curve to the ground at each end. [7] Because the stones or concrete are squeezed together, an arch can carry heavy loads using materials that resist squeezing well. [8] The ends of an arch push outward as well as down, so they must rest on solid rock or on strong abutments that hold them in place.

   Sidebar: Suspension Bridges
   [9] A suspension bridge hangs its road from steel cables, and the cables pass over tall towers and are anchored at each end. [10] The cables are in tension, pulled tight by the weight below them, and the towers are in compression. [11] Because steel cable is very strong when it is pulled, suspension bridges can cross gaps of more than a mile.
   Caption: The Golden Gate Bridge
   [12] The Golden Gate Bridge has a main span of 4,200 feet between its towers.

10. 7.

    Pia is filling in the section map for this article. What does the section "Arches: Pushing Outward" (sentences 6–8) do for the whole article?

    • It explains how an arch carries weight by squeezing, and what that requires of the supports.
    • It is about stones, concrete, curves, abutments and solid rock.
    • It explains that the ends of an arch push outward as well as down.
    • It explains why a beam sags when a load presses on its middle, and why long beams need supports.
11. 8.

    Ren wants to tag the section "Beams: Bending Under Load" (sentences 3–5) on the map. Which structure does the section use, and what signals it?

    • Comparison and contrast: the section sets beams against arches and shows which is stronger.
    • Cause and effect: a load on the middle squeezes and stretches the beam, so a long beam sags.
    • Cause and effect: a sagging beam presses down on its load, so the supports in the middle become necessary.
    • List of facts: the section names a plank, a stream, supports and the middle of the beam.
12. 9.

    Tala reaches the sidebar "Suspension Bridges" (sentences 9–11). What does this sidebar add to the article?

    • It explains how stones and concrete resist squeezing, so that an arch can carry heavy loads.
    • It shows that suspension bridges are stronger than arches in any situation.
    • It repeats that bridges carry weight across a gap in different ways.
    • It adds a third way to carry weight, tension in cables, that the earlier sections left out.
13. 10.

    Zee reaches the caption "The Golden Gate Bridge" (sentence 12). What does this caption add to the article?

    • It shows that the Golden Gate Bridge is the longest bridge in the world.
    • It gives one real bridge and its span, so a reader can picture how far cables reach.
    • It is about the Golden Gate Bridge, its main span and the distance between its towers.
    • It repeats that suspension bridges hang a road from steel cables over tall towers.