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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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Date
Score/ 16
Question 1
Which claim and evidence pair matches this judgement: not relevant?
- A. Claim: The beach needs more bins. Evidence: Seagulls are noisy birds.
- B. Claim: The beach needs more bins. Evidence: The beach is popular.
- C. Claim: The new reading app improves reading scores. Evidence: In a term-long trial across 12 classes, pupils using the app improved more than similar pupils who did not.
Question 2
Read the question and choose. A website's address looks almost like a famous newspaper's, but with one letter different. What should you suspect?
- A. nothing; addresses don't matter
- B. it may be an imitation site pretending to be the real one
- C. it is safer than the real site
- D. it is the newspaper's official backup site
Question 3
Is the proposed answer correct? A news story is shared today, but the article is dated four years ago. Why does this matter? → it may present old events as if they are happening now
- A. yes, it is correct
- B. no, it is not correct
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.
Question 4
Read "Two Views on Zoos". What is the main difference between the two texts?
- A. Both texts argue zoos should close.
- B. Text A defends zoos; Text B argues against them.
- C. Text B supports breeding programmes more strongly than Text A.
- D. Text A is about elephants; Text B is about birds.
Question 5
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. A is factual; B is emotional.
- C. Both describe a different storm.
- D. Both are written in the first person.
Question 6
Which poetry term matches this description? A pair of lines, usually rhyming, that form a unit.
- A. elegy
- B. limerick
- C. ode
- D. couplet
Question 7
Type the poetry term (in English) that matches this description. A stanza of four lines.
Answer
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.
Question 8
Read "Two Views on Zoos". How does Text B respond to the idea of breeding programmes?
- A. It says breeding programmes have never worked.
- B. It admits a few have worked but says most zoo animals are not endangered.
- C. It does not mention them.
- D. It agrees that they are the main purpose of zoos.
Question 9
Read the question and choose. Throughout the story, a caged bird sings by the window of a girl who is not allowed to leave her house. What does the caged bird most likely symbolise?
- A. the girl's lack of freedom
- B. the girl's love of music
- C. the arrival of spring
- D. the family's wealth
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 10
Read "The Shark on the Motorway". What was the first step Amira took to check the photo?
- A. asking a teacher
- B. visiting the motorway
- C. a reverse image search
- D. calling her uncle
The Last Lap
Ruby had trained for the school relay every morning since September, running laps of the park while her breath made clouds in the cold air. She was the fastest in her class, and everyone expected her team to win.
On the day of the race, the team's second runner, Theo, tripped on the bend and dropped the baton. By the time he scrambled up, two teams were far ahead. Ruby, waiting for the last leg, felt her heart sink.
When the baton finally reached her, she ran harder than she ever had. She passed one runner. The finish line rushed towards her. The crowd was roaring. Then, a metre from the tape, the leader dipped her shoulder and won by a hand's width.
Theo couldn't look at anyone. Ruby walked over, still panting, and held out the silver ribbon. "Second place," she said, "and that comeback was the best part of the whole race."
Later, the team hung the ribbon on the classroom wall, right next to the first-place trophy from the year before. Somehow it seemed brighter.
Question 11
Read "The Last Lap". Why does the ribbon 'seem brighter' than the trophy?
- A. It is made of shiny material.
- B. It represents the team's effort and kindness, which feel more meaningful.
- C. The lights in the classroom are on it.
- D. It is bigger than the trophy.
The Gardener's Ledger
My father kept two books. The first was the ledger in which he recorded every coin that passed through the shop: the price of flour, the cost of the new awning, the debts that customers swore they would settle by Friday. He wrote in it every evening, in a small, upright hand, and he never let anyone else touch it.
The second book I did not discover until after he died. It was a cheap school exercise book, its cover soft with handling, hidden at the back of the shed behind the seed trays. Inside, in the same upright hand, he had recorded something quite different: the date the first snowdrop appeared each year; the night a fox had dug up the tulips; the morning, in 1987, when "M. laughed at the robin on the spade and said it was the bravest bird in England." M. was my mother. I had never heard my father mention her laugh.
For forty years, it seemed, he had been keeping accounts of another kind – of small, unprofitable things that added up to a life. The shop ledger balanced to the penny. The garden book did not balance at all. There were gaps of months, sometimes years. In 1993, the year my mother died, there is only one entry: "Rain."
I used to think my father was a man who cared only for what could be counted. I sat in that cold shed until the light went, reading his small, careful sentences, and understood that I had been reading the wrong book.
Question 12
Read "The Gardener's Ledger". How do the two books differ?
- A. Both record the shop's accounts.
- B. One records money precisely; the other records personal moments and feelings.
- C. One is about the garden; the other is about the weather only.
- D. One is written by the father, the other by the mother.
Question 13
Which poetic form is this? (/ shows a new line) The bus is late again. / Rain writes its long letters on the glass, / and nobody reads them.
- A. couplet
- B. free verse
- C. quatrain
- D. sonnet
Question 14
Which fallacy matches this description? Attacking the person making an argument instead of the argument itself.
- A. bandwagon
- B. ad hominem
- C. false dilemma
- D. slippery slope
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.
Question 15
Read "Two Views on Zoos". On which point would both writers most likely agree?
- A. Protecting wildlife is important.
- B. Elephants are happy in zoos.
- C. Zoos should all be closed.
- D. Children should not see animals.
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.
Question 16
Read "Should Secondary Schools Try a Four-Day Week?". Which persuasive technique does the writer use in the first sentence?
- A. statistics
- B. expert opinion
- C. an anecdote
- D. direct address, inviting the reader to imagine
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