Summarize an article without bias
Grade 9 Reading Worksheet
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
The Line That Met in Utah (article)
[1] Before 1869, a traveler going from New York to California usually faced months of travel by wagon across the plains or a long sea voyage by way of Panama or around South America. [2] In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act, which offered land and loans to companies that would build a railroad across the West. [3] The Central Pacific would build east from Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific would build west from Omaha, Nebraska, until the two lines met.
[4] The Central Pacific had to cross the Sierra Nevada almost at once, and its crews cut tunnels through solid granite, sometimes advancing only a short distance in a day. [5] Most of those workers were immigrants from China, and by the late 1860s they made up the large majority of the company's crews. [6] On the open plains, the Union Pacific relied heavily on Irish immigrants and on veterans of the Civil War, who laid track at a much faster pace. [7] On May 10, 1869, the two lines met at Promontory Summit in Utah Territory, where officials marked the joining with a ceremonial golden spike.
[8] Almost overnight, a trip across the country shrank from months to about a week, and goods, mail and settlers began to move west in great numbers. [9] Newspapers celebrated the line as the thread that had finally stitched the nation together.
[10] That picture of a united country left out the people who already lived on the land that the tracks crossed. [11] For many Native nations of the Great Plains, the railroad brought a flood of settlers and hunters onto lands that had been theirs. [12] Hide hunters reached the plains by train, and within about twenty years the great bison herds, which many Plains peoples depended on for their way of life, had nearly disappeared. [13] The railroad did connect the two coasts, but the same tracks that joined some communities brought loss to others.
Ari needs a two-sentence summary that states the central idea and how the article refines it. Which summary does both, using only what the article says?
- Built by crews that included many Chinese and Irish immigrants and finished in Utah in 1869, the transcontinental railroad cut a cross-country trip from months to about a week. The same line carried settlers and hide hunters onto Native lands, and within about twenty years the bison herds had nearly disappeared.
- Built by crews that included many Chinese and Irish immigrants, the transcontinental railroad was a magnificent feat that cut a cross-country trip from months to about a week. Sadly, the same line carried settlers and hide hunters onto Native lands, and the bison herds nearly disappeared.
- Built by crews that included many Chinese and Irish immigrants and finished in Utah in 1869, the transcontinental railroad cut a cross-country trip from months to about a week. Goods, mail and settlers soon moved west in great numbers, and newspapers praised the line for joining the nation.
- President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act in 1862, and Central Pacific crews cut tunnels through the granite of the Sierra Nevada. The two lines met at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, where officials used a ceremonial golden spike.
Bo is joining the ideas of paragraphs 3 and 4 into one summary sentence. Which sentence keeps the link the article draws between them?
- The railroad shrank a cross-country trip to about a week, and in the same way it brought new gains to the Native nations whose lands it crossed in the western territories.
- The railroad shrank a cross-country trip to about a week, but it also carried settlers and hunters onto Native lands, and the bison herds nearly vanished.
- The railroad shrank a cross-country trip to about a week, although newspapers celebrated it as the thread that stitched the nation together.
- Because the bison herds nearly vanished and settlers took Native lands, the railroad was able to shrink a cross-country trip to about a week.
Esme wants to restate sentence 12 in a summary. Which version uses new wording and keeps the sentence's meaning, including its limits?
- Within roughly two decades of hunters arriving by rail, the bison herds that the Plains nations relied on had vanished.
- Within roughly two decades of hunters arriving by rail, the huge bison herds that many Plains nations relied on had moved far to the north.
- [12] Hide hunters reached the plains by train, and within about twenty years the great bison herds, which many Plains peoples depended on for their way of life, had nearly disappeared.
- Within roughly two decades of hunters arriving by rail, the huge bison herds that many Plains nations relied on were nearly gone.
The Monarchs' Long Trip (article)
[1] Every fall, millions of monarch butterflies leave southern Canada and the eastern United States and fly south to a few mountain forests in central Mexico. [2] Some of them travel as far as about three thousand miles, a remarkable distance for an insect that weighs less than a paper clip. [3] They spend the winter packed together on the branches of fir trees, so densely in places that the branches bend under their weight.
[4] Scientists have found that monarchs steer by the sun, which is harder than it sounds, because the sun moves across the sky during the day. [5] To stay on course, a monarch uses an internal clock that adjusts its sense of direction as the hours pass, and experiments suggest that part of this clock sits in its antennae. [6] Monarchs kept indoors under shifted light schedules fly in the wrong direction when they are tested, which shows how much the clock matters.
[7] The most surprising part of the story is that no single butterfly makes the whole round trip. [8] In early spring, the monarchs that spent the winter in Mexico fly north, lay eggs on milkweed plants in the southern United States, and live only a short time longer. [9] Their offspring continue north, and over the summer several more generations are born, each living only a few weeks as adults. [10] Then, in late summer, a different generation appears, one that delays laying eggs and can live for about eight months, long enough to fly all the way to Mexico.
[11] That means the butterflies arriving in the Mexican forests each fall have never been there before, and neither had their parents. [12] How they find the same small patches of forest that their ancestors left months earlier is still being studied. [13] Mexico now protects much of the wintering area as a reserve, and many people in the United States and Canada plant milkweed for the generations that fly north.
Jun is joining paragraphs 3 and 4 in one summary sentence. Which sentence links them the way the article does?
- Because no single monarch makes the round trip, the butterflies that reach Mexico each fall have never been there before.
- Because the butterflies that reach Mexico each fall have never been there before, no single monarch makes the round trip.
- No single monarch makes the round trip, but the butterflies that reach Mexico each fall have never been there before.
- Because monarchs steer by the sun with an internal clock, the butterflies that reach Mexico each fall have never been there before.
Kira is putting sentence 10 into a summary. Which version restates it in new words without changing what it claims?
- Late in summer comes a new generation that waits to lay eggs and may survive around eight months, enough time to reach Mexico.
- Late in summer comes a new generation that lays eggs at once and may survive around eight months, enough time to reach Mexico.
- Late in summer comes a new generation that waits to lay eggs and survives exactly eight months, enough time to reach Mexico.
- [10] Then, in late summer, a different generation appears, one that delays laying eggs and can live for about eight months, long enough to fly all the way to Mexico.
Six Dots Under a Fingertip (article)
[1] In the early 1800s, the students at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris learned to read from books printed with large raised letters. [2] Each letter had to be traced slowly with the fingers, and the books were so large and heavy that the school owned only a small number of them. [3] Reading by touch was possible, but it was slow, and the students had almost no way to write anything they could read back.
[4] A French army captain named Charles Barbier had invented a system of raised dots, sometimes called night writing, which he hoped would let messages be read in the dark. [5] When Barbier brought his system to the school in the early 1820s, the students found that dots were far easier to feel than the outlines of letters. [6] Barbier's code had a serious flaw, however, because each symbol stood for a sound rather than a letter and could use as many as twelve dots, too many to feel with one touch of a fingertip.
[7] Louis Braille, a student at the school who had lost his sight as a young child, spent several years reworking Barbier's idea. [8] His key change was to shrink each symbol to a cell of no more than six dots, arranged in two columns of three, so that a whole cell fit under a single fingertip. [9] Each cell stood for a letter, a number or a punctuation mark, and the six positions allowed sixty-three different patterns. [10] Braille published his system in 1829, when he was twenty years old.
[11] The school did not officially adopt the system until 1854, but students kept using it among themselves in the meantime. [12] Today braille is used in many languages around the world, and it appears on elevator buttons, signs and medicine boxes as well as in books. [13] The raised-dot idea came from Barbier, but the size of the cell, matched to a fingertip, came from Braille.
Milo is paraphrasing sentence 8 for a summary. Which version says the same thing in different words?
- Braille's main improvement was making each symbol a cell of exactly six dots in two columns of three, small enough for one fingertip to cover.
- Braille's main improvement was making each symbol a cell of up to six dots in two columns of three, read with two fingertips at once.
- Braille's main improvement was making each symbol a cell of up to six dots in two columns of three, small enough for one fingertip to cover.
- [8] His key change was to shrink each symbol to a cell of no more than six dots, arranged in two columns of three, so that a whole cell fit under a single fingertip.
Noah wants a two-sentence summary that keeps the central idea and how the article refines it. Which summary is objective and complete?
- In the early 1800s, blind students in Paris struggled with clumsy books of raised letters, and Barbier's twelve-dot code was a poor fix. The brilliant young Louis Braille solved it by shrinking each symbol to a cell of up to six dots that fits under one fingertip.
- Louis Braille published his system in 1829, when he was twenty, and its six positions allowed sixty-three patterns. The school adopted it in 1854, and braille now appears on elevator buttons, signs and medicine boxes.
- In the early 1800s, blind students in Paris read slowly from a few books of large raised letters. Then Charles Barbier, an army captain, brought them a code of raised dots that were far easier to feel.
- In the early 1800s, blind students in Paris read slowly from a few books of large raised letters, and Barbier's dot code helped but used up to twelve dots for sounds. Louis Braille made reading by touch practical by shrinking each symbol to a cell of up to six dots that fits under one fingertip.
Pia is linking paragraphs 1 and 2 in a summary. Which sentence connects them the way the article does?
- Raised letters had to be traced slowly, but the students found Barbier's raised dots far easier to feel.
- Because raised letters had to be traced slowly, Charles Barbier invented his raised dots for the students of the school.
- Raised letters had to be traced slowly, and Barbier's raised dots were just as slow for the students to feel.
- Raised letters had to be traced slowly, but the books printed with them were large and heavy.
The Stone and the Scholar (article)
[1] In 1799, French soldiers rebuilding a fort near the town of Rashid, which Europeans called Rosetta, in Egypt, uncovered a broken slab of dark stone covered in writing. [2] The stone carried a single royal decree from 196 BC, written three times: in hieroglyphs, in a later Egyptian script called Demotic, and in ancient Greek. [3] Because scholars could still read ancient Greek, the stone seemed to offer a way into hieroglyphs, which no one had been able to read for well over a thousand years.
[4] For centuries, European scholars had believed that hieroglyphs were symbols of ideas, a kind of picture writing in which each sign stood for a whole thought rather than a sound. [5] That belief made progress slow, because it led readers to search for hidden meanings in each picture instead of looking for signs that stood for sounds. [6] The English scientist Thomas Young made early progress, working out that the oval rings called cartouches held the name of a king and that some of their signs stood for sounds.
[7] The breakthrough came from the French scholar Jean-François Champollion, who had studied Coptic, a late form of the Egyptian language written mostly in Greek letters. [8] Using his knowledge of Coptic words, Champollion showed that hieroglyphs combined signs for sounds with signs for meanings, and that the system could be read like a language. [9] He announced his results in 1822, more than twenty years after the stone was found.
[10] The stone itself was not enough, since its hieroglyphic section is badly broken and holds only part of the text. [11] What made it useful was the combination of a known language, Greek, with a scholar who could hear the Egyptian language behind the signs. [12] Today the Rosetta Stone is displayed in the British Museum in London, where it has been since 1802. [13] Its name now stands for any key to a hard problem, even though the stone was only one part of the solution.
Ren is joining paragraphs 2 and 3 in one summary sentence. Which sentence keeps the article's link between them?
- Scholars had long believed that each hieroglyph stood for an idea, but Champollion showed that the signs combined sounds and meanings.
- Because Thomas Young had studied Coptic, Champollion was able to show that the signs combined sounds and meanings.
- Scholars had long believed that each hieroglyph stood for an idea, and Champollion likewise showed that each sign stood for a whole thought.
- Because Champollion showed that the signs combined sounds and meanings, scholars had long believed that each hieroglyph stood for an idea.
Zee is choosing a two-sentence summary. Which one gives the central idea and the way the article refines it, without bias?
- Found in Egypt in 1799, the Rosetta Stone carried one decree in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek, and the Greek gave scholars a way in. Because scholars could read the Greek, the stone let them read the hieroglyphs, and it has been in the British Museum since 1802.
- French soldiers found the stone in 1799 while rebuilding a fort near the town of Rashid. It has been in the British Museum since 1802, and its name now describes any key to a hard problem.
- Found in Egypt in 1799, the Rosetta Stone carried one decree in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek, and the Greek gave scholars a way in. The stone was not enough on its own, though, since reading hieroglyphs took Champollion's knowledge of Coptic and his finding, announced in 1822, that the signs stood for sounds as well as meanings.
- Thomas Young worked out that the oval rings called cartouches held the name of a king. He also found that some of the signs inside those rings stood for sounds.