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11th grade reading comprehension
11th grade (Year 12 in England) · 16 questions · Common Core: RI.11-12.7, RST.11-12.7, RI.11-12.9, RI.11-12.6 · England: SAT Reading and Writing (Command of Evidence: Quantitative), ACT Science-style reading, SAT Reading and Writing (Cross-Text Connections)
Name
Date
Score/ 16
Cooling the City (with data)
On hot summer afternoons, the centres of large cities can be several degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside. This "urban heat island" effect occurs because dark surfaces such as asphalt and roofing absorb sunlight and release it slowly as heat, while buildings trap warm air and reduce the cooling effect of wind. A lack of vegetation makes the problem worse: trees and plants cool the air by providing shade and releasing water vapour.
In a recent study, researchers measured the average afternoon surface temperature in July across four neighbourhoods of one city, alongside the percentage of each area covered by trees. Their results are summarised below.
Neighbourhood | Tree cover (%) | Average July afternoon surface temperature (°C)
Northgate | 8 | 41
Riverside | 15 | 38
Elm Park | 27 | 34
Hillcrest | 35 | 32
The researchers caution that tree cover is not the only factor: Riverside, for instance, is next to a large river, which may have cooled it independently. Nevertheless, they conclude that expanding urban tree cover is a promising strategy for reducing extreme heat, particularly in neighbourhoods where many residents lack air conditioning.
Question 1
Read "Cooling the City (with data)". What is the difference in average temperature between Northgate and Hillcrest?
- A. 7 °C
- B. 9 °C
- C. 27 °C
- D. 3 °C
Two Texts on Memory
TEXT 1
For much of the twentieth century, many people imagined memory as a kind of recording device. An experience, according to this view, was stored somewhere in the brain like a film on a shelf; remembering meant taking the film down and playing it again. Forgetting was simply the film fading with age. This model was appealing because it matched how memory often feels: vivid, detailed and certain.
TEXT 2
Decades of experiments have undermined the idea that memories are fixed recordings. In one well-known type of study, participants watch a video of a car accident and are later asked how fast the cars were going when they "smashed" or when they "hit" each other. Those who heard "smashed" not only gave higher speed estimates but were more likely, a week later, to report seeing broken glass – although there was none in the video. Such findings suggest that each act of remembering is partly an act of reconstruction, shaped by later information, expectation and language. A memory can feel certain and still be wrong.
Question 2
Read "Two Texts on Memory". What do both texts acknowledge?
- A. Memories are always accurate.
- B. Memories can feel vivid and certain.
- C. Language has no effect on memory.
- D. The recording model is correct.
Cooling the City (with data)
On hot summer afternoons, the centres of large cities can be several degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside. This "urban heat island" effect occurs because dark surfaces such as asphalt and roofing absorb sunlight and release it slowly as heat, while buildings trap warm air and reduce the cooling effect of wind. A lack of vegetation makes the problem worse: trees and plants cool the air by providing shade and releasing water vapour.
In a recent study, researchers measured the average afternoon surface temperature in July across four neighbourhoods of one city, alongside the percentage of each area covered by trees. Their results are summarised below.
Neighbourhood | Tree cover (%) | Average July afternoon surface temperature (°C)
Northgate | 8 | 41
Riverside | 15 | 38
Elm Park | 27 | 34
Hillcrest | 35 | 32
The researchers caution that tree cover is not the only factor: Riverside, for instance, is next to a large river, which may have cooled it independently. Nevertheless, they conclude that expanding urban tree cover is a promising strategy for reducing extreme heat, particularly in neighbourhoods where many residents lack air conditioning.
Question 3
Read "Cooling the City (with data)". Which statement is best supported by the table?
- A. Elm Park has the most trees.
- B. Tree cover has no relationship with temperature.
- C. Northgate is cooler than Riverside.
- D. As tree cover increases across the four neighbourhoods, average temperature decreases.
Two Views on AI and Art
Text 1. When photography was invented, some painters declared that art was dead. Instead, painting changed: freed from the need to record reality, artists explored colour, emotion and abstraction. Image-generating AI may play a similar role. Used as a tool, it can help people sketch ideas quickly, test compositions and bring visual thinking to those who never trained as artists. The question is not whether AI will end art, but what new kinds of art people will make with it.
Text 2. Comparisons with photography are tempting but misleading. A camera records the world; many AI image tools are trained on millions of existing artworks, often without their creators' permission or payment. Until artists can choose whether their work is used, and are fairly credited, it is hard to call this simply a new tool. The problem is not the technology itself but the way it has been built.
Question 4
Read "Two Views on AI and Art". How does each text end?
- A. Text 1 ends with a story; Text 2 with a joke.
- B. Both end with statistics.
- C. Both end by reframing the debate: Text 1 asks what new art will be made; Text 2 locates the problem in how AI is built.
- D. Both end by agreeing completely.
Cooling the City (with data)
On hot summer afternoons, the centres of large cities can be several degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside. This "urban heat island" effect occurs because dark surfaces such as asphalt and roofing absorb sunlight and release it slowly as heat, while buildings trap warm air and reduce the cooling effect of wind. A lack of vegetation makes the problem worse: trees and plants cool the air by providing shade and releasing water vapour.
In a recent study, researchers measured the average afternoon surface temperature in July across four neighbourhoods of one city, alongside the percentage of each area covered by trees. Their results are summarised below.
Neighbourhood | Tree cover (%) | Average July afternoon surface temperature (°C)
Northgate | 8 | 41
Riverside | 15 | 38
Elm Park | 27 | 34
Hillcrest | 35 | 32
The researchers caution that tree cover is not the only factor: Riverside, for instance, is next to a large river, which may have cooled it independently. Nevertheless, they conclude that expanding urban tree cover is a promising strategy for reducing extreme heat, particularly in neighbourhoods where many residents lack air conditioning.
Question 5
Read "Cooling the City (with data)". Which neighbourhood had both the most tree cover and the lowest temperature?
- A. Northgate
- B. Riverside
- C. Elm Park
- D. Hillcrest
The Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln, 1863)
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Question 6
Read "The Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln, 1863)". "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." Which device sets 'what we say' against 'what they did'?
- A. antithesis
- B. onomatopoeia
- C. anaphora
- D. metonymy
Question 7
The composer Florence Price became the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra, in 1933. Her music blended European classical forms with African American spirituals. Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
- A. Florence Price was a groundbreaking composer who combined different musical traditions.
- B. Symphonies are very long.
- C. Orchestras only played European music.
- D. Florence Price was a famous singer.
Question 8
Type the rhetorical device (in English) that matches this description. Using many conjunctions in a row, to slow down or pile up items.
Answer
Inheritance
When my aunt died she left me her piano, which was the one thing in her house I had never wanted. It was an upright of dark, scarred wood, too large for any room it had ever stood in, and it had been out of tune for as long as I could remember. As a child, I had been made to sit at it every Thursday while she counted the beats aloud in a voice like a ruler rapping a desk. I had hated it with the pure, uncomplicated hatred of a nine-year-old.
The removal men groaned it up the three flights to my flat and left it in the hall, where it blocked the light from the only window. For a month I edged around it sideways, as one edges around a guest who has outstayed their welcome. I told friends I would sell it. I photographed it twice for the listing and deleted the pictures both times.
It was during a power cut in February that I finally lifted the lid. I could not have said why. The flat was cold and dark and silent, and perhaps I simply wanted to hear something. I pressed middle C. It was flat, of course – everything about that piano was slightly flat – but the note hung in the hall far longer than I expected, and something in the slowness of its fading undid me.
I played the only piece I still knew, a dull exercise in C major that my aunt had made me repeat a hundred times. My fingers found it before my mind did. Halfway through, I realised I was counting under my breath, in her rhythm, in her voice.
I have not had the piano tuned. People ask me why, and I tell them I haven't got round to it, which is true in the way that most convenient answers are true. The other reason is harder to explain. Every flat note is exactly as she left it. I am not ready to correct her yet.
Question 9
Read "Inheritance". What is the significance of the power cut in the structure of the story?
- A. It introduces a new character.
- B. It creates the quiet, isolated moment in which the narrator finally confronts the piano.
- C. It shows the narrator moving to a new flat.
- D. It explains why the piano is out of tune.
Question 10
Type the narrative technique (in English) that matches this description. A story told through letters, diary entries, emails or other documents.
Answer
Two Views on AI and Art
Text 1. When photography was invented, some painters declared that art was dead. Instead, painting changed: freed from the need to record reality, artists explored colour, emotion and abstraction. Image-generating AI may play a similar role. Used as a tool, it can help people sketch ideas quickly, test compositions and bring visual thinking to those who never trained as artists. The question is not whether AI will end art, but what new kinds of art people will make with it.
Text 2. Comparisons with photography are tempting but misleading. A camera records the world; many AI image tools are trained on millions of existing artworks, often without their creators' permission or payment. Until artists can choose whether their work is used, and are fairly credited, it is hard to call this simply a new tool. The problem is not the technology itself but the way it has been built.
Question 11
Read "Two Views on AI and Art". On which point would both authors most likely agree?
- A. AI should be banned immediately.
- B. AI image technology is significant and raises important questions about art.
- C. Photography was a mistake.
- D. Artists should never be paid.
Two Texts on Memory
TEXT 1
For much of the twentieth century, many people imagined memory as a kind of recording device. An experience, according to this view, was stored somewhere in the brain like a film on a shelf; remembering meant taking the film down and playing it again. Forgetting was simply the film fading with age. This model was appealing because it matched how memory often feels: vivid, detailed and certain.
TEXT 2
Decades of experiments have undermined the idea that memories are fixed recordings. In one well-known type of study, participants watch a video of a car accident and are later asked how fast the cars were going when they "smashed" or when they "hit" each other. Those who heard "smashed" not only gave higher speed estimates but were more likely, a week later, to report seeing broken glass – although there was none in the video. Such findings suggest that each act of remembering is partly an act of reconstruction, shaped by later information, expectation and language. A memory can feel certain and still be wrong.
Question 12
Read "Two Texts on Memory". What is the function of the final sentence of Text 2?
- A. to support the recording model
- B. to introduce a new experiment
- C. to state a key implication of the research
- D. to describe the video in detail
Question 13
The architect Diébédo Francis Kéré grew up in Gando, Burkina Faso, where his school was a hot, dark concrete building. When he returned as an architect, he designed a new school using local clay bricks and a raised, ventilated roof that kept classrooms cool without air conditioning. The project, built with the help of villagers, became a model for sustainable design. Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
- A. Kéré disliked going to school as a child.
- B. Kéré designed a school that uses local materials and clever design to stay cool, and it became a model of sustainability.
- C. Burkina Faso has many architects.
- D. Concrete is the best material for hot climates.
Question 14
[1] The novelist rarely describes her characters' appearance. [2] Instead, she reveals them through small gestures — a tapped spoon, a glance away. [3] Readers thus come to know the characters as they would real people. Which choice best describes the overall structure?
- A. It tells a story in chronological order.
- B. It argues that the novelist is unpopular.
- C. It compares two novelists.
- D. It identifies a technique, illustrates it, and explains its effect.
Question 15
Which narrative technique matches this description? A story told within another story.
- A. unreliable narrator
- B. stream of consciousness
- C. frame narrative
- D. epistolary
Question 16
Read the question and choose. A study on the benefits of a sugary cereal was funded by the cereal company. What should a careful researcher do?
- A. ignore it completely, because funded studies are always false
- B. only read the summary
- C. treat it as the most reliable source
- D. note the conflict of interest and look for independent studies
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