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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
Question 1
Is the proposed answer correct? A headline says: "Eating breakfast makes children smarter." The study behind it found that children who ate breakfast had higher test scores, but it did not control for family income or sleep. What is the main weakness in the headline's claim? → The study shows a link, but other factors could explain it, so it doesn't prove breakfast causes higher scores.
- A. yes, it is correct
- B. no, it is not 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 2
Read "Cooling the City (with data)". What is the difference in average temperature between Northgate and Hillcrest?
- A. 3 °C
- B. 9 °C
- C. 27 °C
- D. 7 °C
Question 3
Text 1: Some economists argue that a four-day week raises productivity because rested workers focus better. Text 2: Other researchers caution that productivity gains seen in office trials may not apply to hospitals or factories, where hours relate directly to output. How would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the economists in Text 1?
- A. By claiming rested workers focus worse.
- B. By arguing offices should work longer hours.
- C. By noting that their findings may not apply to every kind of workplace.
- D. By agreeing that all workplaces should adopt a four-day week.
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". On which point would both authors most likely agree?
- A. Artists should never be paid.
- B. Photography was a mistake.
- C. AI should be banned immediately.
- D. AI image technology is significant and raises important questions about art.
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 5
Read "The Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln, 1863)". How does the speech move through time across its three paragraphs?
- A. from the nation's past founding, to the present war and ceremony, to the future task
- B. it stays entirely in the present
- C. from a personal story to a list of statistics
- D. from the future to the past
Question 6
Which rhetorical device matches this description? Placing contrasting ideas side by side in balanced phrases.
- A. anaphora
- B. asyndeton
- C. epistrophe
- D. antithesis
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 7
Read "Two Texts on Memory". How would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the model in Text 1?
- A. by arguing that experiments show memory is reconstructed, not simply replayed
- B. by agreeing that memories are fixed recordings
- C. by claiming that forgetting never happens
- D. by saying memory has never been studied
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 8
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 Quiet Infrastructure
When we speak of infrastructure, we tend to picture concrete and steel: bridges, railways, power lines. We rarely think of the public library. Yet libraries are a form of infrastructure as essential, in their way, as any road – and, because their work is quiet, they are easier to neglect.
Consider what a library actually provides. It offers free access not only to books but to the internet, to printers, to warm and safe space, to help with forms and applications, to activities for toddlers and to company for the isolated elderly. For a student without a quiet room at home, it is a study hall. For a job-seeker without a computer, it is an office. For a newly arrived family, it may be the first public institution that welcomes them without asking anything in return.
Critics argue that, in an age of smartphones, these functions are obsolete. Information is everywhere; why fund buildings full of paper? But the argument confuses access to information with access to opportunity. A phone cannot print a CV, provide a warm room on a winter afternoon or offer the patient guidance of a librarian who can tell a reliable source from a persuasive fake. Moreover, millions of people still lack reliable internet at home. To assume that everyone is connected is to design policy for the comfortable and forget the rest.
None of this means libraries should stand still. The best have already transformed themselves into community hubs, hosting coding clubs, repair cafés and citizenship classes. But transformation requires investment, and investment requires us to recognise libraries for what they are: not a nostalgic luxury, but part of the foundation on which a fair society is built.
A bridge that collapses makes headlines. A library that closes rarely does. Its users simply scatter, each a little more alone than before. That silence is precisely why we should pay attention.
Question 9
Read "The Quiet Infrastructure". Why does the writer include paragraph 4?
- A. to show that supporting libraries is not the same as resisting change
- B. to criticise coding clubs
- C. to list the opening hours of libraries
- D. to argue that libraries should stay exactly as they are
Question 10
Read the question and choose. You are researching the safety of an energy drink. Which source is most trustworthy?
- A. a report paid for by the drink's manufacturer
- B. a blog by a fitness influencer
- C. a forum thread with anonymous comments
- D. a peer-reviewed study by independent researchers
Question 11
Type the drama term (in English) that matches this description. The release of emotions such as pity and fear that an audience feels at the end of a tragedy.
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 12
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 by agreeing completely.
- 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 with statistics.
Question 13
Read "Two Views on AI and Art". Which choice best states the main idea of Text 1?
- A. Photography destroyed painting.
- B. AI will soon replace all artists.
- C. Only trained artists should make images.
- D. Like photography, AI may change art rather than end it, acting as a new creative tool.
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 14
Read "Two Texts on Memory". What do both texts acknowledge?
- A. Language has no effect on memory.
- B. The recording model is correct.
- C. Memories can feel vivid and certain.
- D. Memories are always accurate.
Question 15
In a study, students who explained a concept aloud to a classmate later remembered it better than students who reread their notes for the same length of time. This finding suggests that ___ Which choice most logically completes the text?
- A. actively explaining material may strengthen memory more than passive review.
- B. memory does not depend on study methods.
- C. classmates are a distraction while studying.
- D. rereading notes is the most effective study method.
Question 16
Is the proposed answer correct? A school claims that its new reading programme raised pupils' reading scores. Which finding would most directly WEAKEN this claim? → Reading scores rose by the same amount at nearby schools that did not use the programme.
- A. yes, it is correct
- B. no, it is not correct
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