Saying one thing and meaning another
Grade 9 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
Welcome to Trimwell (mock guidebook entry)
[1] No visit to the town of Trimwell is complete without a stroll past its lawns, which residents have kept at exactly one and a half inches since the town was founded. [2] Each Sunday at dawn, the Lawn Committee walks the streets with silver rulers, and any blade found standing taller than the rest is trimmed by hand with a pair of tiny scissors. [3] Visitors will notice that no one in Trimwell actually walks on the grass, since the town’s most cherished law forbids feet, balls, blankets and picnics on any lawn at any hour. [4] This law is widely considered the town’s greatest kindness to its grass, which has not been stepped on since 1952 and is said to be very grateful.
[5] Children in Trimwell play tag in the parking lot of the hardware store, where the asphalt is pleasantly hot in summer and wonderfully hard in winter. [6] Families who wish to sit on grass may visit the Trimwell Grass Museum, where a small square of lawn is displayed under glass beside a sign that reads “Admire, Do Not Touch.” [7] The museum shop sells postcards of the lawns, which many visitors say are almost as green as the real thing and far easier to sit on. [8] Each July the town holds its famous Lawn Festival, at which residents gather on the sidewalks to watch the grass for an entire afternoon.
[9] Last year’s winner of the Golden Ruler, the town’s highest honor, was a lawn on Maple Court that no person had seen up close in forty years. [10] Its owner accepted the prize from the sidewalk, as the rules of the festival require. [11] Some visitors have asked what the lawns are for, a question that Trimwell residents find puzzling and slightly rude. [12] The answer, printed on the back of the town map, is simple: the lawns are for looking at, and the people are for keeping them that way.
Ren reads the guidebook entry as satire. Which habit does it make look foolish, and what does it suggest instead?
- It is about the lawns of Trimwell, which a committee keeps at one and a half inches with silver rulers.
- It mocks the owner of the lawn on Maple Court for accepting a prize from the sidewalk.
- It mocks caring more about how lawns look than about people, and suggests that towns pave their lawns into parking lots.
- It mocks caring more about how lawns look than about people using them, and suggests that grass is for people to enjoy.
Tala looks at how the guidebook uses mock praise. How does that mock praise make the lawn law look foolish?
- It states plainly that the lawn law is foolish and asks the town council to change it.
- It praises the law as the town’s “greatest kindness to its grass” while children are left to play tag on hot asphalt.
- It says that the Lawn Committee walks the streets each Sunday at dawn with silver rulers.
- It praises the law warmly and at length so that visitors will want to copy Trimwell’s rules back in their own towns.
Zee marks the irony in sentence 12, the town’s answer about the lawns. How does that irony deliver the satire’s point?
- It uses dramatic irony, since the residents know a secret about the lawns that visitors do not.
- It flips the expected order, so people serve the lawns, showing how a custom can forget what it was for.
- It shows that the people of Trimwell are happiest when they keep their lawns exactly the way the town law says they should.
- It shows that keeping a town neat and tidy takes careful work from the people who live there.
Committee for Shorter Meetings Meets Again (mock news report)
[1] The Oakvale Committee for Shorter Meetings gathered on Tuesday evening for its longest meeting yet, a session that began at six o’clock and ended, by most accounts, shortly before breakfast. [2] The committee was formed last spring after residents complained that town meetings ran so late that people had started bringing pillows. [3] Its first act was to appoint a subcommittee to study how long meetings should be, and the subcommittee’s report, delivered on Tuesday, ran to three hundred pages.
[4] Chairman Fenwick Doyle opened the evening by reading the report aloud, a task he described as “a quick overview” and which took until half past ten. [5] Members then spent two hours debating whether the word “shorter” in the committee’s name should be changed to “briefer,” which several members felt sounded more efficient. [6] A motion to limit each speaker to five minutes was discussed by fourteen speakers, each of whom spoke for about twenty minutes. [7] At three in the morning, a member proposed that the committee simply end the meeting, but the motion was set aside so that it could be studied more carefully. [8] Esme, a student reporter for the Oakvale Middle School paper, attended the session for a class project and left at midnight with nine pages of notes and no decisions to report.
[9] By sunrise, the committee had passed a single measure, which was to hold another meeting next Tuesday to continue the discussion. [10] Chairman Doyle called the session “a great step forward” and said that he expected the next one to be “fairly short.” [11] Asked how long the next meeting might last, he said that the question would be referred to the subcommittee. [12] The committee’s work is expected to continue for some time.
Noah looks at the report’s straight-faced tone. How does that calm, flat reporting make the committee look foolish?
- It tells readers directly, in its own words, that the committee is wasting the town’s time and should be shut down at once.
- It mocks Chairman Doyle’s looks and voice so that readers will laugh at him personally.
- It calmly reports absurd facts, such as a three-hundred-page report on shorter meetings, and never points out the joke.
- It calmly reports the facts so that readers can see how hard the committee works for the town.
Pia marks the irony in sentence 9, the committee’s one decision. How does that irony deliver the satire’s point?
- A committee formed to shorten meetings decides to hold another one, showing that endless talk can replace action.
- A committee formed to shorten meetings decides just to hold another meeting on the next Tuesday.
- It shows that a town committee needs a strong chairman who can keep the members on schedule and stop long speeches.
- It uses dramatic irony, since the reader knows the next meeting will be short while the members do not.
The Sunset Nobody Saw (mock news report)
[1] More than three thousand residents gathered on Bayview Beach on Saturday evening for the town’s annual Sunset Festival, and by all accounts the sunset was magnificent. [2] Hardly any of the residents, however, saw it directly. [3] At the first touch of orange on the water, three thousand phones rose into the air, forming a wall of glowing screens so tall and so tightly packed that it hid the horizon from the beach. [4] Each resident watched the sunset on a screen, and most of the screens showed the back of another resident’s phone.
[5] Festival organizer Marla Quist called it “the most recorded sunset in the history of the coast” and said that the town’s videos from the evening would take nine years to watch. [6] The two people known to have seen the sunset with their own eyes were Pia and Bo, who had left their phones at home and climbed onto the empty lifeguard stand to see over the crowd. [7] Pia later described the sunset as red, then gold, then a deep violet that spread across the bay like spilled ink. [8] When the residents lowered their phones, the sun had set, the sky was dark, and many of them agreed that it had been a lovely evening, judging by the footage.
[9] On Monday the town council voted to improve next year’s festival by building a giant screen on the beach, so that residents could enjoy the sunset without the trouble of looking at it. [10] According to the plan, the screen will face the crowd and stand between the crowd and the water. [11] Bo asked at the meeting whether the town might simply try looking at the sky. [12] The council thanked Bo for the idea and asked for it in writing, preferably as a video.
Milo reads the sunset report as satire. Which habit does it make look foolish, and what does it suggest instead?
- It mocks the habit of recording an event instead of seeing it, and suggests that people watch with their own eyes.
- It admires the town for recording the sunset and suggests that more towns film their festivals.
- It is about the Sunset Festival on Bayview Beach, which more than three thousand residents attended.
- It mocks the organizer, Marla Quist, for boasting that the town’s videos of the evening would take nine years to watch.
Noah looks at how the report uses exaggeration. How does that exaggeration make the habit look foolish?
- It calls the residents foolish names so that readers will laugh at the people on the beach.
- It stretches the phones into a wall of screens so tall that it hides the very sunset the crowd came to see.
- It describes the crowd’s phones in detail to show how proud the town is of its modern festival and its glowing screens.
- It says that Pia described the sunset as red, then gold, then violet, like spilled ink.
A Speech to the Society of Very Busy People (mock speech)
[1] Members of the Society of Very Busy People, thank you for squeezing this annual dinner between your other three dinners tonight. [2] I am proud to report that this has been our busiest year so far, and that not a single member has had a free afternoon since March. [3] Our membership has grown to four hundred, although nine of you were able to fit tonight into your schedules, which is exactly the kind of commitment that makes this society great. [4] Last year we set a goal of finishing one book each, and I am delighted to say that we have instead started more than two thousand. [5] Our treasurer has double-booked each meeting since June, a record that will be hard to beat, and our secretary answered four hundred emails during her own birthday party.
[6] We have also grown our youth program, and our youngest members, Ari and Kira, now attend eleven after-school activities each, with a short rest on alternate Thursdays. [7] Some people outside the society have suggested that we slow down, take a walk, or sit in a park and watch the ducks. [8] To them I say: we would love to, if only we could find the time to put it on the calendar. [9] Our new motto, chosen by a committee that met for four minutes between other committees, is “Always Doing, Never Done.” [10] It will be printed on our new planners, which are so full that there is no room left in them for the motto.
[11] Before I close, I want to thank the members who could not attend tonight, because their absence shows how busy they truly are. [12] And now, if you will excuse me, I must leave my own speech early, since I am expected at a meeting about making more time.
Pia reads the speech as satire. Which habit does it make look foolish, and what does it suggest instead?
- It mocks treating a crowded schedule as an achievement, and suggests that people quit their clubs and activities for good.
- It mocks the treasurer personally for double-booking each meeting since the month of June.
- It admires the society’s hard work and suggests that listeners fill their own calendars just as full.
- It mocks treating a crowded schedule as an achievement, and suggests that people make time to finish and enjoy things.
Tala looks at how the speech reverses failure and success. How does that reversal make busyness look foolish?
- It boasts that members started two thousand books instead of finishing one, as if failing the goal were a win.
- It makes fun of the treasurer and the secretary by calling them lazy and careless.
- It has the speaker admit openly that being so busy has made the members tired and unhappy.
- It mentions that some people outside the society suggested a walk or watching the ducks.
Zee marks the irony in the speech’s last sentence. How does that irony deliver the satire’s point?
- The speaker leaves early for a meeting about making more time, showing that busyness uses up the time it claims to want.
- It shows that a club needs a clear calendar so its members do not double-book their meetings.
- The speaker leaves the speech early because of a meeting about making more time for the members.
- It shows that a truly busy leader cannot waste time on a speech when there is work to do.