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Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility

7th grade reading

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Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility

Good morning, everyone. Last Saturday, twenty-three pupils from this school spent three hours on Sandy Bay beach. We collected forty-one bags of rubbish. Forty-one. Bottles, crisp packets, fishing line, a shoe, and – I promise you this is true – an entire garden chair. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. "It's not my rubbish. Why should I pick it up?" And you're right: most of us didn't drop it. But here's the thing. The seal pup that gets tangled in that fishing line doesn't care whose fault it was. The toddler who cuts her foot on broken glass doesn't care either. That beach belongs to all of us. We swim there in summer. We walk our dogs there in winter. Some of us learned to ride our bikes on the promenade. If it belongs to all of us, then looking after it belongs to all of us too. So I'm asking you for just one thing. Not money. Not your whole weekend. Just two hours, on the first Saturday of next month. Bring gloves, bring a friend, bring your little brother if you have to. Because if twenty-three of us can fill forty-one bags, imagine what four hundred of us could do. Thank you.

  1. Question 1

    Read "Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility". What is the speaker asking the audience to do?

    • A. join a beach clean-up next month
    • B. stop going to the beach
    • C. write to the council
    • D. give money to a charity

  2. Question 2

    Read "Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility". Why does the speaker repeat "Forty-one" on its own?

    • A. to emphasise how much rubbish there was
    • B. because she made a counting mistake
    • C. to show she is unsure
    • D. to tell a joke

  3. Question 3

    Read "Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility". How does the speaker respond to the objection "It's not my rubbish"?

    • A. She says everyone dropped rubbish.
    • B. She tells people to blame tourists.
    • C. She ignores it.
    • D. She agrees, then argues the harm happens regardless of whose fault it is.

  4. Question 4

    Read "Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility". Which persuasive technique is used in paragraph 3?

    • A. quoting an expert
    • B. appealing to shared experiences and belonging
    • C. using scientific data
    • D. making a joke about the audience

  5. Question 5

    Read "Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility". How does the speaker make the ending powerful?

    • A. She uses the earlier numbers to imagine a much bigger result.
    • B. She tells a sad story.
    • C. She introduces a new problem.
    • D. She lists rules for the clean-up.

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Answer key: Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility

  1. 1. A. join a beach clean-up next month

  2. 2. A. to emphasise how much rubbish there was

  3. 3. D. She agrees, then argues the harm happens regardless of whose fault it is.

  4. 4. B. appealing to shared experiences and belonging

  5. 5. A. She uses the earlier numbers to imagine a much bigger result.