← Back to the activity

Grade 9 English Language Arts — Reading across paragraphs

Answer a question whose evidence is split between two paragraphs, and follow a reference back across the break.

Name: ________________________

  1. 1.Paragraph 1: "The committee met the villagers and the engineers on Monday. It had asked the engineers to bring the plans." Paragraph 2: "They had brought drawings of the new bridge." Who does "They" mean?

    • a) the drawings
    • b) the committee
    • c) the villagers
    • d) the engineers

  2. 2.A passage runs in three paragraphs: the first describes the village before the flood, the second the night of the flood, the third the rebuilding. Sort each question by the paragraph that answers it.

    Groups: Paragraph 1 · Paragraph 2 · Paragraph 3

    • At what hour did the water reach the road?
    • How did the families get out?
    • Who paid for the new bridge?
    • What crops were grown there?
    • How many houses stood in the village?
    • How long did the repairs take?

  3. 3.Which of these questions could only be answered by reading more than one paragraph?

    • a) Why did the narrator refuse the invitation, given what had happened the year before?
    • b) What is the name of the town?
    • c) How old was the narrator when the story begins?
    • d) What color was the door?

  4. 4.Read: "The old cinema closed in 1998. For twenty years the building stood empty. In 2018 a bookshop opened in it, and the owner kept the red velvet seats up in the balcony." Match each question to its answer.

    • How long did the building stand empty?
    • What is in the building now?
    • What was kept from the cinema?
    • Where in the building were they kept?
    • a bookshop
    • the red velvet seats
    • in the balcony
    • twenty years

  5. 5.Paragraph 1: "Every winter the lake freezes and the ferry stops running." Paragraph 2: "In January the villagers simply walk across." Write the one word from the first paragraph that explains how walking across is possible.

  6. 6.Read: "Kamala keeps bees on her roof. Her neighbors' mango tree fruited heavily this year, for the first time in a decade." Sort each statement by what the passage does with it.

    Groups: Stated in the passage · Not stated — you joined the two facts yourself

    • The mango tree fruited heavily this year.
    • Kamala keeps bees.
    • The roof is close enough to the tree to matter.
    • The bees are on her roof.
    • The tree had not fruited well for ten years.
    • The bees helped the tree to fruit.

  7. 7.Paragraph 1: "Sunita had never once left the district." Paragraph 3: "She stepped off the train and stood quite still, looking up." What does the third paragraph gain from the first?

    • a) It tells you what the weather was like.
    • b) It tells you how long the journey took.
    • c) It tells you that she had bought a ticket.
    • d) It tells you that everything she is looking at is new to her.

  8. 8.Paragraph 1: "The bus to the hill station leaves at six. Nobody in the hostel owns an alarm clock." Paragraph 2: "Meena was on the bus. She had sat up all night with a book." Why was Meena on the bus?

    • a) She never went to sleep, so nothing had to wake her.
    • b) The bus left later than six that day.
    • c) She owned an alarm clock.
    • d) Somebody in the hostel woke her.

Answer key — Grade 9 English Language Arts — Reading across paragraphs

  1. 1. d) the engineers
  2. 2. How many houses stood in the village? → Paragraph 1; At what hour did the water reach the road? → Paragraph 2; Who paid for the new bridge? → Paragraph 3; What crops were grown there? → Paragraph 1; How did the families get out? → Paragraph 2; How long did the repairs take? → Paragraph 3
  3. 3. a) Why did the narrator refuse the invitation, given what had happened the year before?
  4. 4. How long did the building stand empty? → twenty years; What is in the building now? → a bookshop; What was kept from the cinema? → the red velvet seats; Where in the building were they kept? → in the balcony
  5. 5. freezes
  6. 6. Kamala keeps bees. → Stated in the passage; The bees are on her roof. → Stated in the passage; The mango tree fruited heavily this year. → Stated in the passage; The tree had not fruited well for ten years. → Not stated — you joined the two facts yourself; The bees helped the tree to fruit. → Not stated — you joined the two facts yourself; The roof is close enough to the tree to matter. → Not stated — you joined the two facts yourself
  7. 7. d) It tells you that everything she is looking at is new to her.
  8. 8. a) She never went to sleep, so nothing had to wake her.