How a theme grows and is sharpened

Grade 9 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   The Hedge Line (story)

   [1] For eleven years, Tala carried plates of leftovers across the low hedge between two yards, because Mr. Singh and Mr. Lowe, who had never settled where one lawn ended and the other began, would not speak to each other directly. [2] Each man claimed that the hedge had crept six inches onto his own side, and each trimmed it as fiercely as the other, so that the hedge grew thinner and more crooked every summer. [3] Tala, running between them with the plates, came to see the hedge as a wall of argument, and wished that someone would simply take it down.

   [4] In May, Mr. Lowe hired a surveyor, who drove four iron stakes into the ground and showed both men a line that was a full foot from where either had believed it to be. [5] Mr. Singh was furious for a day, and Mr. Lowe was embarrassed for two, but by the end of the week both had agreed that the stakes were in the right place. [6] Mr. Singh built a low wooden fence along the line and painted it white on both sides, and Mr. Lowe, without being asked, planted tomato vines against the boards.

   [7] The first summer after the fence, the two men, who had not shared a conversation in a decade, discovered that they could talk across it easily, since neither had to defend a single inch. [8] Mr. Lowe passed a trowel through the gap between the boards, and Mr. Singh handed back a jar of mango pickle in exchange. [9] Tala, who had stopped carrying plates because the men now carried their own, found a seat on the porch and watched them argue pleasantly about the tomatoes. [10] The fence stood between the two lawns, as visible as a signature, and it was the first thing either man had ever agreed was fair. [11] On the first cool evening of September, Mr. Singh pulled a chair up to the boards and sat down, facing his neighbor. [12] Tala thought that the old hedge, which had never admitted where it ended, had never let the two men begin.

2. 1.

   The story's theme is: “Clear boundaries can be what makes closeness possible.” Which situation shows the same theme in a different place?

   • Two teammates who shared one locker grew less friendly after the coach gave each of them a separate locker with its own lock.
   • Two neighbors share a hedge, and one trims it each week to keep the yard tidy and win a neighborhood prize.
   • A town builds a stone wall around its park to keep the park from flooding, and the wall is finished before spring.
   • Two roommates who kept arguing about shelf space put a strip of tape down the middle of the refrigerator, and afterwards they began cooking together on weekends.

3. The Morning Announcements (story)

   [1] Zee read the morning announcements over the school radio, working from a script that Mrs. Obi, the faculty advisor, wrote and left on the desk each evening. [2] Mrs. Obi was fond of long, formal sentences and also fond of being right, so when Zee noticed in October that the script listed the chess club in Room 12, Zee said nothing. [3] Zee had decided long ago that a polite student did not correct a teacher in front of the whole school, and that silence was a kind of manners.

   [4] For three weeks, the script repeated the old room number, though the club had moved to Room 14 when a heating pipe was replaced, and a small group of students wandered the second floor each Tuesday, checking doors and arriving late. [5] On the fourth Tuesday, Zee watched from the radio window as the club's youngest members stood puzzled in the hallway below, scrolling through their phones, and Zee's stomach tightened. [6] That evening, Zee wrote a short note to Mrs. Obi, saying that the room had changed, that the mistake was easy to miss, and asking whether the script could be fixed.

   [7] Mrs. Obi read the note the next morning, was quiet for a moment, then thanked Zee and corrected the line before the broadcast. [8] Over the intercom, Mrs. Obi also admitted that the announcements had been wrong for weeks and apologized to the chess club by name. [9] A few teachers mentioned afterward that they had noticed the error too, and had assumed that someone else would say something. [10] Zee had expected the note to feel like a rebuke, but it felt closer to repairing something that had been left leaning against a wall. [11] The following Tuesday, the whole club arrived on time, and the youngest member waved up at the radio window on the way in. [12] Zee, reading the next script, noticed another small error and marked it in the margin without hesitating.

4. 2.

   Jun traces the theme from the first idea, through the turn, to the refined idea. Which set of three sentences covers that whole path?

   • Sentences 3, 6 and 10.
   • Sentences 3, 11 and 10.
   • Sentences 2, 3 and 10.
   • Sentences 10, 11 and 12.
5. 3.

   The story's theme is: “Speaking up respectfully is a way of caring for the people a mistake affects.” Which situation shows the same theme in a different place?

   • A bus driver noticed that a posted sign listed the wrong stop, and politely told the dispatcher so that riders would not be left waiting at an empty corner.
   • A school radio host practiced reading announcements in a clear voice before each broadcast.
   • A clerk politely corrected a price tag, mainly to keep a personal record clean.
   • A teammate spotted a mistake in the game plan and shouted it across the field to show the coach was wrong.
6. 4.

   The story begins with this idea: “Staying silent about someone else's mistake is the polite thing to do.” Which choice correctly says what the story keeps from that idea and what it changes?

   • Keeps: the idea that speaking up matters. Changes: politeness means staying silent whenever a teacher is wrong in front of the class.
   • Keeps: the idea that being polite matters. Changes: students are more polite than teachers.
   • Keeps: nothing from the first idea. Changes: students should correct teachers at any time, in any way.
   • Keeps: the idea that being polite matters. Changes: politeness includes speaking up kindly when silence would cost others.

7. The Moving Day Pancakes (story)

   [1] Noah had lived in the yellow house on Alder Street for all fourteen years, and when the moving truck arrived in June, Noah stood on the porch listing everything that would not fit into the boxes: the climbing tree, the dent in the garage door, the creaky third stair. [2] The new apartment, three hundred miles away, smelled of fresh paint and had white walls that echoed whenever anyone spoke. [3] For the first two weeks, Noah walked from room to room as if looking for a door that would lead back, convinced that home was a place and that this was not it.

   [4] On the first Saturday, Noah's mother, who had made pancakes every weekend for as long as Noah could remember, set the pan on an unfamiliar stove and called everyone to the table. [5] The kitchen filled with the same smell of butter and vanilla, and for the first time since the move, Noah felt something loosen. [6] The following Saturday, a neighbor from across the hall knocked to ask what was cooking, stayed to eat, and brought a jar of plum jam the Saturday after that.

   [7] By August, the pancakes had become an event: the neighbor's twins came, a man from the second floor came with a folding chair, and the white walls had stopped echoing. [8] Noah painted one wall green, not because of any plan, but because an old can of paint was left in the closet and the wall seemed ready for it. [9] In September, Noah wrote to a friend on Alder Street that the new place was starting to feel like somewhere Saturday happened. [10] The letter did not mention the climbing tree, though Noah still thought of it sometimes. [11] On the last Saturday of the month, someone arrived early to help carry the folding chairs, and Noah realized that nobody had been invited. [12] Noah left the front door unlocked, set out the extra plates, and called toward the stairwell that breakfast was ready.

8. 5.

   Milo traces the theme from the first idea, through the turn, to the refined idea. Which set of three sentences covers that whole path?

   • Sentences 5, 6 and 9.
   • Sentences 3, 7 and 9.
   • Sentences 9, 11 and 12.
   • Sentences 3, 5 and 9.
9. 6.

   The story's theme is: “Belonging comes from what people do together, not from where they happen to be.” Which situation shows the same theme in a different place?

   • A restaurant on a corner served breakfast to the neighborhood, and it was full on Saturday mornings.
   • A new member of a choir felt out of place until the group invited them to the Thursday setup crew, and after a few weeks they felt at home in any hall.
   • A family of four moved to a new town and chose a house close to a good school.
   • A student who moved to a new city kept the same Saturday routine, but spent those Saturdays alone.
10. 7.

    The story begins with this idea: “Home is the place where a person has always lived.” Which choice correctly says what the story keeps from that idea and what it changes?

    • Keeps: the idea that home matters deeply to a person. Changes: moving is better for a family than staying put.
    • Keeps: the idea that home can be rebuilt from routines and people. Changes: home matters deeply to a person who has always lived in one house.
    • Keeps: the idea that home matters deeply to a person. Changes: nothing, because the old house is still the real home.
    • Keeps: the idea that home matters deeply to a person. Changes: home can be rebuilt from routines and people, not only a fixed place.

11. The Atlas with Corrections (story)

    [1] Ari inherited an atlas from Mr. Okonkwo, a retired geography teacher, and treated its printed pages as the final word on every river, border, and capital. [2] When a classmate disagreed about the capital of a country, Ari opened the atlas to settle the matter, since a book so heavy and so carefully printed could not possibly be wrong. [3] The belief was comfortable, and Ari had come to feel that knowing a thing meant having it written down somewhere permanent.

    [4] Then, turning to the map of Africa, Ari found small pencil corrections in the margins, each with a date beside it, crossing out one country's name and writing another above it. [5] Mr. Okonkwo, asked about them at the next visit, said that the corrections had been made as the news arrived, and that every atlas he had owned looked like this by its third year. [6] He added that the first edition of a map was a best guess made on a particular day, and that the world had never agreed to stay as drawn.

    [7] Ari spent the afternoon reading the margins as if they were a second book, with a growing respect for the handwriting. [8] The corrections were small and exact, and none of them looked like the work of a person embarrassed by what the printer had got wrong. [9] Ari bought a pencil with a good eraser and began to add dates to the old notes, and a few new notes of Ari's own. [10] A month later, when the classmate again disagreed about a capital, Ari said that the atlas probably agreed, but that it would be worth checking the date. [11] The atlas still sat on the shelf as the heaviest book Ari owned, but it was no longer the last word; it was the latest word. [12] Mr. Okonkwo, shown the first new note, smiled and handed over a sharper pencil.

12. 8.

    Ren traces the theme from the first idea, through the turn, to the refined idea. Which set of three sentences covers that whole path?

    • Sentences 3, 4 and 11.
    • Sentences 9, 10 and 11.
    • Sentences 4, 5 and 11.
    • Sentences 2, 3 and 11.
13. 9.

    The story's theme is: “Wisdom means holding knowledge firmly enough to use it and loosely enough to correct it.” Which situation shows the same theme in a different place?

    • A scientist trusted old measurements without question and used them to make careful predictions.
    • A librarian kept a heavy atlas on the top shelf and told visitors it was too old to read.
    • A collector hung a framed atlas on the wall of a study and dusted it each week.
    • A pilot trusts the chart enough to fly by it, but checks each new notice about changes and marks the chart in pencil.
14. 10.

    The story begins with this idea: “Knowledge, once written down, is settled.” Which choice correctly says what the story keeps from that idea and what it changes?

    • Keeps: the idea that a printed book is worth trusting and using. Changes: nothing, because the atlas stays on the shelf.
    • Keeps: nothing from the first idea. Changes: a printed book is not worth trusting.
    • Keeps: the idea that trusting a book does not mean treating it as final. Changes: a printed book is worth trusting and using.
    • Keeps: the idea that a printed book is worth trusting and using. Changes: trusting it does not mean treating it as final.