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8th grade reading comprehension

8th grade (Year 9 in England) · 16 questions · Common Core: RI.8.9, RL.8.9, RI.8.8, W.8.1.B · England: KS3 Reading, GCSE English Language Paper 2 Q4, KS3 Reading (evaluating arguments)

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Score/ 16

  1. Question 1

    Text A (a diary): "The storm terrified me. I hid under the stairs all night." Text B (a news report): "High winds of up to 80 mph caused damage across the region." How do the texts differ?

    • A. A is personal and emotional; B is factual and impersonal.
    • B. Both describe a different storm.
    • C. A is factual; B is emotional.
    • D. Both are written in the first person.

Should Secondary Schools Try a Four-Day Week?

Imagine a school week that ends on Thursday afternoon. For students in a growing number of schools around the world, this is no longer a fantasy. I believe secondary schools should at least trial a four-day week. The strongest reason is wellbeing. Many teenagers report feeling exhausted by the end of the week, and a longer weekend could give them time to rest, exercise and pursue interests that school leaves no room for. Supporters also point to attendance. In one regional pilot involving twelve schools, attendance rose by three percentage points after the change. That may sound small, but across a year it adds up to thousands of extra lessons attended. Critics argue that working parents would struggle with childcare on the fifth day. This is a serious concern. However, schools could offer an optional supervised study day, run by staff and volunteers, so that no family is left without support. Others worry that students will learn less. Yet schools in the pilot lengthened each remaining day by forty minutes, so total teaching time hardly changed. A trial costs little and teaches us a lot. If it fails, we can change back. If it works, students will thank us for it.

  1. Question 2

    Read "Should Secondary Schools Try a Four-Day Week?". Which evidence does the writer use in paragraph 3?

    • A. a personal story about the writer's child
    • B. a description of a weekend trip
    • C. a quotation from a famous scientist
    • D. attendance figures from a pilot in twelve schools

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.

  1. Question 3

    Read "The Shark on the Motorway". What was the first step Amira took to check the photo?

    • A. a reverse image search
    • B. visiting the motorway
    • C. asking a teacher
    • D. calling her uncle

  1. Question 4

    Which claim and evidence pair matches this judgement: relevant but not sufficient?

    • A. Claim: The new reading app improves reading scores. Evidence: The app has a colourful design that children like.
    • B. Claim: Our school should switch to LED lights. Evidence: My uncle has LED lights at home.
    • C. Claim: Our school should switch to LED lights. Evidence: A council energy audit of our building found LED lights would cut the lighting bill by 60% and pay for themselves in two years.

Who Has Seen the Wind? (Christina Rossetti, 1872)

Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.

  1. Question 5

    Read "Who Has Seen the Wind? (Christina Rossetti, 1872)". How is the second verse different from the first?

    • A. It answers the question with a name.
    • B. It is written in prose.
    • C. It moves from small leaves to whole trees, showing the wind's stronger effect.
    • D. It changes the topic to the sea.

  1. Question 6

    Read the question and choose. A character who has always worn a mask at school finally takes it off in front of her friends. What does removing the mask most likely symbolise?

    • A. showing her true self
    • B. hiding a secret
    • C. a costume party ending
    • D. feeling ill

  2. Question 7

    Type the poetry term (in English) that matches this description. Poetry with no regular rhyme or metre.

    Answer

  3. Question 8

    Which narrative technique is used here? Everyone suspects the gardener, who was seen near the safe with muddy boots, but he was only fixing a leaking pipe.

    • A. cliffhanger
    • B. red herring
    • C. flashback
    • D. foreshadowing

Two Views on Zoos

TEXT A – "A Lifeline for Wildlife" Modern zoos are not the cramped menageries of the past. The best of them are centres for conservation, research and education. Breeding programmes in zoos have helped save species such as the Arabian oryx and the California condor from extinction, and some animals bred in zoos have been successfully returned to the wild. For millions of children who will never visit a rainforest or a savannah, seeing a living animal up close can spark a lifelong love of nature. Closing zoos would not free animals; it would abandon them. TEXT B – "Wild at Heart" No enclosure, however large, can replace a wild home. An elephant may walk dozens of kilometres a day in the wild; in a zoo, it may cover a fraction of that, and some show repetitive swaying or pacing that scientists link to stress. While a few breeding programmes have succeeded, most animals in zoos belong to species that are not endangered at all. If we truly want to protect wildlife, our money would do far more good protecting habitats where animals already live.

  1. Question 9

    Read "Two Views on Zoos". How does Text B respond to the idea of breeding programmes?

    • A. It admits a few have worked but says most zoo animals are not endangered.
    • B. It agrees that they are the main purpose of zoos.
    • C. It says breeding programmes have never worked.
    • D. It does not mention them.

  1. Question 10

    Type the fallacy (in English) that matches this description. Attacking the person making an argument instead of the argument itself.

    Answer

  2. Question 11

    Judge the evidence for this claim. Claim: Our school should switch to LED lights. Evidence: My uncle has LED lights at home.

    • A. relevant and sufficient
    • B. relevant but not sufficient
    • C. not relevant

  3. Question 12

    Which poetry term matches this description? Poetry with no regular rhyme or metre.

    • A. haiku
    • B. couplet
    • C. free verse
    • D. elegy

  4. Question 13

    Read the question and choose. A dramatic photo is going viral with the caption "Flooding in our city today". How can you check it?

    • A. count the shares
    • B. do a reverse image search to see where and when it first appeared
    • C. ask the person who shared it if it's real
    • D. zoom in to see if it looks wet

  5. Question 14

    Which fallacy matches this description? Drawing a big conclusion from too few examples.

    • A. hasty generalisation
    • B. bandwagon
    • C. slippery slope
    • D. false dilemma

  6. Question 15

    Which poetic form is this? (/ shows a new line) Cold rain on the roof / a cat curls on the warm stove / the kettle whispers

    • A. free verse
    • B. couplet
    • C. quatrain
    • D. haiku

  7. Question 16

    Which fallacy is used here? Either we ban phones in school completely, or students will never learn anything.

    • A. false dilemma
    • B. slippery slope
    • C. bandwagon
    • D. ad hominem

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  1. A is personal and emotional; B is factual and impersonal.
  2. attendance figures from a pilot in twelve schools
  3. a reverse image search
  4. Claim: Our school should switch to LED lights. Evidence: My uncle has LED lights at home.
  5. It moves from small leaves to whole trees, showing the wind's stronger effect.
  6. showing her true self
  7. free verse
  8. red herring
  9. It admits a few have worked but says most zoo animals are not endangered.
  10. ad hominem
  11. relevant but not sufficient
  12. free verse
  13. do a reverse image search to see where and when it first appeared
  14. hasty generalisation
  15. haiku
  16. false dilemma