How ideas are ordered and linked

Grade 9 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Edison, Swan and the Light Bulb (article)

   [1] Electric light was not new in 1879. [2] Arc lamps, which make light from a spark jumping between two rods, had been known for decades and were beginning to light streets and large halls, but they were far too bright, hot and noisy for a living room. [3] Inventors wanted a small, gentle lamp, and the most promising design was a thin thread, or filament, that glowed when electricity passed through it. [4] The trouble was that a glowing filament quickly burned up in ordinary air.

   [5] The answer was to take the air away. [6] In England, the chemist Joseph Swan showed a lamp with a carbon filament inside a glass bulb early in 1879, after years of experiments. [7] In New Jersey, Thomas Edison and his team tested thousands of materials and, in October 1879, kept a lamp with a filament of carbonized cotton thread glowing for more than half a day. [8] Both men pumped most of the air out of their bulbs, because without oxygen the hot filament could not burn.

   [9] Although the two inventors had solved the same problem, they did very different things next. [10] Swan's lamps soon lit individual buildings in Britain, including a London theater in 1881. [11] Edison, by contrast, set out to build an entire system around his lamp: generators to make electricity, wires to carry it under the streets, and meters to measure how much each customer used, and in 1882 his Pearl Street Station began supplying customers in lower Manhattan.

   [12] In Britain, the two men at first disputed who owned the invention, and in 1883 they joined forces in a single company to make lamps there. [13] Today the light bulb is usually credited to Edison alone, yet the record shows that Swan reached the same answer at the same time. [14] Edison's greater fame came less from the bulb than from the network of power that he built to light it.

2. 1.

   Ari links paragraph 4 back to paragraph 2, which it does not sit beside. Which label and reason fit that link?

   • Example: paragraph 4 gives the Pearl Street Station as one example of the bulbs in paragraph 2.
   • Cause: paragraph 4 says Swan's carbon filament is what made Edison test thousands of materials.
   • Contrast: paragraph 4 says the bulb is usually credited to Edison alone, but paragraph 2 shows Swan solving it too.
   • Contrast: paragraph 4 sets the bright arc lamps of the streets against a small, gentle lamp for homes.
3. 2.

   Bo sees the article change its pattern partway through. Where does it shift, and from what to what?

   • At paragraph 3, from problem and solution to compare and contrast.
   • At paragraph 3, from problem and solution to the time order of Edison's life.
   • At paragraph 2, from problem and solution to compare and contrast.
   • It keeps one pattern, problem and solution, from the first sentence to the last.
4. 3.

   Esme imagines paragraph 3 placed before paragraph 2. What would a reader lose?

   • Nothing important, because paragraphs 2 and 3 are each about a different inventor and stand on their own.
   • Paragraph 2 explains how removing the air saved the filament, and paragraph 3 sets Swan's lamps against Edison's system.
   • Paragraph 3 opens by saying both men had solved the same problem, but the reader would not yet know how they solved it.
   • Paragraph 2 needs the Pearl Street Station from paragraph 3 to explain why the filament stopped burning.

5. How Water Builds a Cave (article)

   [1] A limestone cave begins with rain. [2] As raindrops fall through the air and soak through the soil, they absorb carbon dioxide, which turns the water into a weak acid. [3] Limestone is made mostly of a mineral called calcite, and calcite slowly dissolves in this acid. [4] Over many thousands of years, water seeping through cracks in the rock carries the dissolved calcite away, and the cracks widen into passages and rooms.

   [5] Once the cave is open to the air, the next stage begins. [6] When a drop of water seeps from the ceiling into the cave, it gives off some of its carbon dioxide and can no longer hold all of its dissolved calcite. [7] A tiny ring of calcite is left behind on the ceiling, and drop after drop, the rings grow downward into a hanging stone icicle called a stalactite, while drops that fall to the floor build a mound called a stalagmite.

   [8] Stalactites and stalagmites are often confused, but they differ in where they grow and in their shape. [9] A stalactite hangs from the ceiling and is usually thin and pointed, and a young one is often a hollow tube called a soda straw. [10] A stalagmite, on the other hand, rises from the floor and is usually thicker, with a rounded top, because each drop splashes as it lands. [11] When the two grow long enough to meet, they join into a single column.

   [12] The water in a cave, then, does two opposite jobs. [13] While it seeps through solid rock, it dissolves calcite and carries it away, but when it drips into open air, it leaves calcite behind. [14] Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the longest known cave system in the world, holds both kinds of work, with hundreds of miles of passages carved by water and rooms decorated by it.

6. 4.

   Jun links sentence 14, about Mammoth Cave, back to paragraphs 1 and 2. Which label and reason fit that link?

   • Contrast: Mammoth Cave was carved in a different way from the caves described in paragraph 1.
   • Example: Mammoth Cave is one real case of both the carving in paragraph 1 and the building in paragraph 2.
   • Cause: the great length of Mammoth Cave is what makes the stalactites in paragraph 2 grow.
   • Sequence: sentence 14 tells what happens to a cave after its stalactites and stalagmites join into one solid column.
7. 5.

   Kira sees the article change its pattern partway through. Where does it shift, and from what to what?

   • At paragraph 4, from a sequence of stages to compare and contrast.
   • At paragraph 3, from a sequence of stages to compare and contrast.
   • It keeps one pattern, a sequence of stages, from the first sentence to the last.
   • At paragraph 3, from a sequence of stages to problem and solution.
8. 6.

   Luz imagines paragraph 2 placed before paragraph 1. What would a reader lose?

   • Nothing important, because the dripping and the dissolving happen at the same moment in a cave.
   • Paragraph 1 shows rain dissolving limestone into passages, and paragraph 2 shows drips building stalactites and stalagmites.
   • Paragraph 2 begins once the cave is open, so the reader would meet the next stage before learning how the cave was carved.
   • Paragraph 1 needs the stalactites from paragraph 2 to explain how rain becomes a weak acid.

9. Roads Across a Nation (article)

   [1] In 1919, a young Army officer named Dwight D. Eisenhower joined a convoy of trucks that drove from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco to test how well vehicles could cross the country. [2] The trip took about two months, because many roads were unpaved, bridges were weak, and trucks sank in mud and sand along the way. [3] Near the end of World War II, Eisenhower saw the autobahn in Germany, a network of wide, fast highways, and admired how easily traffic moved on it.

   [4] These experiences shaped his plans when he became president. [5] In 1956, Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which called for a national network of about 41,000 miles of divided highways linking the country's major cities. [6] The federal government agreed to pay 90 percent of the cost, and the states paid the rest.

   [7] As a result, the way Americans moved goods and people changed quickly. [8] Trucks could carry goods between distant cities in days instead of weeks, and many families moved to new suburbs because highways made it easy to drive into the city for work. [9] Motels, gas stations and restaurants appeared near highway exits, and towns that a highway passed by often lost travelers and business.

   [10] The new roads also brought costs, however. [11] In many cities, highways were built straight through existing neighborhoods, and thousands of homes and businesses were torn down to make room for them. [12] Some city centers lost shoppers and residents to the growing suburbs. [13] The highways that Eisenhower imagined after his slow trip in 1919 made the country far faster to cross, but they also changed where Americans lived, sometimes at the expense of the people already there.

10. 7.

    Milo links paragraph 1 to paragraph 3, skipping paragraph 2. Which label and reason fit that link?

    • Sequence: paragraph 3 tells what Eisenhower did next in the Army, after the convoy reached San Francisco.
    • Cause: the slow 1919 trip and the autobahn shaped the highways, which then changed how goods and people moved.
    • Contrast: paragraph 3 shows that the new highways made travel slower than it was for the 1919 convoy.
    • Cause: the motels and gas stations in paragraph 3 are what kept the roads in paragraph 1 unpaved.
11. 8.

    Noah sees the article change its pattern partway through. Where does it shift, and from what to what?

    • At paragraph 4, from time order to cause and effect.
    • At paragraph 3, from time order to cause and effect.
    • It keeps one pattern, time order by date, from the first sentence to the last.
    • At paragraph 3, from time order to the steps for building a highway.

12. Bridging the Golden Gate (article)

    [1] For many years, the only way to cross the Golden Gate, the narrow strait between San Francisco and the land to the north, was by boat, usually a ferry. [2] Many engineers believed that a bridge there could not be built. [3] The strait is about a mile wide, its tides push powerful currents through it, strong winds blow in from the Pacific, and thick fog often hides the water.

    [4] Each of these conditions called for its own solution. [5] To build the foundation of the south tower in open water, workers first built a huge concrete fender, a ring of walls that held back the currents while the base was poured inside it. [6] To keep the long roadway safe in strong winds, engineers designed it to flex and sway instead of resisting the wind rigidly. [7] Even the color answered the setting: the architect Irving Morrow chose a reddish orange that stands out in fog and suits the hills around the strait.

    [8] The building work itself began in January 1933. [9] First the two tall steel towers rose above the water, and then workers spun the two main cables from thousands of thin wires, carrying them back and forth across the strait. [10] Finally, the roadway was hung from the cables piece by piece, working outward from the towers.

    [11] The bridge opened in May 1937, first to people on foot and the next day to cars. [12] Its main span, 4,200 feet between the towers, was the longest of any suspension bridge in the world, a record it held until 1964. [13] The strait that many engineers had once thought impossible to bridge had become the site of one of the most famous bridges in the world.

13. 9.

    Ren links paragraph 4 back to paragraph 1. Which label and reason fit that link?

    • Contrast: paragraph 1 says engineers thought a bridge could not be built there, and paragraph 4 shows one standing.
    • Sequence: paragraph 4 tells what the ferries did next, once the fog over the strait had cleared.
    • Cause: the thick fog in paragraph 1 is what delayed the opening in paragraph 4 until 1964.
    • Example: paragraph 4 gives the fender of the south tower as one example of the problems in paragraph 1.
14. 10.

    Zee imagines paragraph 2 placed before paragraph 1. What would a reader lose?

    • Paragraph 1 needs the color from paragraph 2 to explain why ferries crossed the strait.
    • Nothing important, because the fender, the swaying roadway and the color make sense without the strait.
    • Paragraph 1 describes the strait and its conditions, and paragraph 2 describes the fender, the roadway and the color.
    • Paragraph 2 opens with "Each of these conditions", but the reader would not yet know the currents, wind and fog.