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7th grade reading comprehension
7th grade (Year 8 in England) · 16 questions · Common Core: RL.7.4, RI.8.4, RL.7.3, RL.8.3 · England: KS3 Reading, GCSE English Language Paper 1 Q2, GCSE English Language Paper 1 Q4
Name
Date
Score/ 16
The Attic
The attic door had been painted shut for as long as Daniel could remember. His mother said there was nothing up there but dust and old suitcases. So when the decorators scraped away the paint on the first Saturday of the summer holidays, Daniel was the first one up the narrow stairs.
The air was thick and warm and smelt of mothballs. Thin blades of light slid through gaps in the roof tiles and lay across the floorboards like fallen swords. In the far corner, beneath a sheet greyed with age, something waited.
Daniel crossed the room slowly. Each board groaned beneath him as if complaining about being woken. He reached out, hesitated, then pulled the sheet away in one quick movement.
It was a desk – small, battered, and covered in carvings. Initials. Dates. A crooked drawing of a sailing boat. And there, in the corner, carved more deeply than all the rest, were three letters he knew better than his own name: D.A.M.
Daniel Adebayo Mensah. His grandfather. The grandfather who had died two years before Daniel was born, and whom his mother never spoke about.
He ran his fingers over the letters. Downstairs, someone switched on a radio, and a burst of music floated up through the floor. Daniel did not move. For the first time, the silence in the attic did not feel empty. It felt like someone waiting to tell him a story.
Question 1
Read "The Attic". What mood does the writer create in paragraphs 2 and 3?
- A. mysterious and tense
- B. angry
- C. bored and dull
- D. light-hearted and comic
Question 2
Read "The Attic". "Thin blades of light…lay across the floorboards like fallen swords." What effect does this simile create?
- A. It makes the attic feel dramatic and slightly threatening.
- B. It shows the attic is brightly lit.
- C. It makes the attic feel cheerful.
- D. It tells us there are weapons in the attic.
Question 3
Read the question and choose. An influencer praises a skincare brand but does not say she was paid. What is the problem?
- A. viewers may think it is an honest opinion when it is really an advert
- B. the product must be bad
- C. there is no problem
- D. influencers are not allowed to like products
Question 4
What role does this sentence play in an argument? Critics say bike lanes take space away from drivers.
- A. claim
- B. reason
- C. evidence
- D. counterclaim
Question 5
What type of conflict is described? Lost in a blizzard, two hikers must build a shelter before nightfall.
- A. character vs character
- B. character vs nature
- C. character vs society
- D. character vs technology
The Shark on the Motorway
During a storm last spring, a photo exploded across social media. It showed a large shark swimming beside cars on a flooded motorway. Within hours it had been shared more than 80,000 times, often with captions such as "Stay indoors — sharks in the streets!"
Fourteen-year-old Amira Haddad saw the photo in her family group chat. Something felt wrong. "The shark looked too sharp compared with the blurry water," she said. "So I decided to check."
First, Amira ran a reverse image search. She found the same shark in a wildlife photo published years earlier, on a website about ocean animals. Next, she checked two local news sites. Neither mentioned sharks; both reported flooding and road closures. Finally, she found an article from a fact-checking organisation explaining that the image had been edited and had appeared during several different storms in different countries.
Amira posted the fact-check in the group chat. "My uncle had already shared the photo," she laughed. "He was embarrassed, but he thanked me."
Fact-checkers say edited images spread fastest when they are shocking and arrive during real emergencies, when people are anxious and want to warn others. Their advice is simple: pause before you share, look for the original source, and check whether reliable outlets are reporting the same thing.
Question 6
Read "The Shark on the Motorway". Which headline best fits this article?
- A. Sharks invade city during storm
- B. Teen uses simple checks to expose viral storm photo
- C. Social media to close after storm
- D. Uncle bans phones in family chat
Question 7
Which sentence works as this part of an argument: rebuttal?
- A. Our town needs more bike lanes.
- B. In one study, students who started later slept about 45 minutes more a night.
- C. But a single hour a fortnight would be enough to teach the basics.
Question 8
At the start of the year, Leo refused to join any club. By June, he was captain of the chess team and organising the school tournament. How does Leo change?
- A. He stops liking chess.
- B. He goes from withdrawn to confident and involved.
- C. He becomes lazier.
- D. He does not change.
The Attic
The attic door had been painted shut for as long as Daniel could remember. His mother said there was nothing up there but dust and old suitcases. So when the decorators scraped away the paint on the first Saturday of the summer holidays, Daniel was the first one up the narrow stairs.
The air was thick and warm and smelt of mothballs. Thin blades of light slid through gaps in the roof tiles and lay across the floorboards like fallen swords. In the far corner, beneath a sheet greyed with age, something waited.
Daniel crossed the room slowly. Each board groaned beneath him as if complaining about being woken. He reached out, hesitated, then pulled the sheet away in one quick movement.
It was a desk – small, battered, and covered in carvings. Initials. Dates. A crooked drawing of a sailing boat. And there, in the corner, carved more deeply than all the rest, were three letters he knew better than his own name: D.A.M.
Daniel Adebayo Mensah. His grandfather. The grandfather who had died two years before Daniel was born, and whom his mother never spoke about.
He ran his fingers over the letters. Downstairs, someone switched on a radio, and a burst of music floated up through the floor. Daniel did not move. For the first time, the silence in the attic did not feel empty. It felt like someone waiting to tell him a story.
Question 9
Read "The Attic". "Each board groaned beneath him as if complaining about being woken." Which technique is used?
- A. onomatopoeia only
- B. alliteration
- C. personification
- D. hyperbole
Question 10
A study of 300 students found that those who ate breakfast scored slightly higher on morning memory tests. The researchers said more studies were needed before drawing firm conclusions. Which headline reports the study most accurately?
- A. Skipping breakfast ruins your grades
- B. Small study links breakfast to slightly better morning memory
- C. Scientists say breakfast is pointless
- D. Breakfast makes you a genius, scientists prove
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 11
Read "Inheritance". How does the narrator feel about the piano at the start?
- A. delighted to finally own it
- B. indifferent, having never seen it
- C. proud of its value
- D. resentful, because of unhappy childhood lessons
The Margin
Zainab had read the library book three times before she noticed the handwriting.
It was in the margin of page 112, so faint she had taken it for a smudge. In tiny, slanted letters, someone had written: "Don't trust the narrator." Underneath, in different ink and a rounder hand, someone else had replied: "Why not?" And beneath that, in the first writer's slant: "Read chapter 9 again."
She read chapter 9 again. Then she read it a fourth time, and a fifth, and on the sixth she saw it – a single sentence where the narrator claimed to have been at home when, three chapters earlier, he had described himself on a train. A lie, hidden in plain sight. The whole story tilted, like a picture knocked crooked on a wall.
Zainab sat back. She checked the date stamps on the card inside the front cover. The book had been borrowed forty-seven times since 1994. Somewhere among those forty-seven readers were two people who had held a conversation across years without ever meeting.
She found a pencil. For a long time she hesitated over the page, feeling as if she were about to speak in a room full of strangers. Then, carefully, beneath the other two, she wrote: "Found it. Thank you."
When she returned the book, the librarian frowned at the pencil marks. Zainab apologised. But as she walked home, she wondered who would be next to find them.
Question 12
Read "The Margin". "The whole story tilted, like a picture knocked crooked on a wall." What does this simile show?
- A. She felt dizzy and ill.
- B. Her understanding of the story suddenly shifted.
- C. The library was badly decorated.
- D. The book fell off the shelf.
The Shark on the Motorway
During a storm last spring, a photo exploded across social media. It showed a large shark swimming beside cars on a flooded motorway. Within hours it had been shared more than 80,000 times, often with captions such as "Stay indoors — sharks in the streets!"
Fourteen-year-old Amira Haddad saw the photo in her family group chat. Something felt wrong. "The shark looked too sharp compared with the blurry water," she said. "So I decided to check."
First, Amira ran a reverse image search. She found the same shark in a wildlife photo published years earlier, on a website about ocean animals. Next, she checked two local news sites. Neither mentioned sharks; both reported flooding and road closures. Finally, she found an article from a fact-checking organisation explaining that the image had been edited and had appeared during several different storms in different countries.
Amira posted the fact-check in the group chat. "My uncle had already shared the photo," she laughed. "He was embarrassed, but he thanked me."
Fact-checkers say edited images spread fastest when they are shocking and arrive during real emergencies, when people are anxious and want to warn others. Their advice is simple: pause before you share, look for the original source, and check whether reliable outlets are reporting the same thing.
Question 13
Read "The Shark on the Motorway". Why do edited images spread fastest during real emergencies, according to the article?
- A. Phones work better in storms.
- B. Fact-checkers are on holiday.
- C. People are anxious and want to warn others, so they share without checking.
- D. News sites stop working.
The Margin
Zainab had read the library book three times before she noticed the handwriting.
It was in the margin of page 112, so faint she had taken it for a smudge. In tiny, slanted letters, someone had written: "Don't trust the narrator." Underneath, in different ink and a rounder hand, someone else had replied: "Why not?" And beneath that, in the first writer's slant: "Read chapter 9 again."
She read chapter 9 again. Then she read it a fourth time, and a fifth, and on the sixth she saw it – a single sentence where the narrator claimed to have been at home when, three chapters earlier, he had described himself on a train. A lie, hidden in plain sight. The whole story tilted, like a picture knocked crooked on a wall.
Zainab sat back. She checked the date stamps on the card inside the front cover. The book had been borrowed forty-seven times since 1994. Somewhere among those forty-seven readers were two people who had held a conversation across years without ever meeting.
She found a pencil. For a long time she hesitated over the page, feeling as if she were about to speak in a room full of strangers. Then, carefully, beneath the other two, she wrote: "Found it. Thank you."
When she returned the book, the librarian frowned at the pencil marks. Zainab apologised. But as she walked home, she wondered who would be next to find them.
Question 14
Read "The Margin". Why does Zainab hesitate before writing?
- A. She cannot find a pencil.
- B. She is afraid of the narrator.
- C. Joining the conversation feels like speaking to strangers.
- D. She does not know the answer.
Question 15
Why is this headline likely to be clickbait? Doctors HATE this one simple trick
- A. it uses mystery and emotion instead of information
- B. it is written by doctors
- C. it explains a medical study
- D. it gives exact figures
Question 16
Which type of conflict matches this description? A struggle against machines, artificial intelligence or technology that has gone wrong.
- A. character vs society
- B. character vs character
- C. character vs technology
- D. character vs self
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