READTHEORY Passage and Questions Name Date • Reading Comprehension Assessment Directions: Read the passage Then answer the questions below LovingMondays Most people not like Mondays They hate ending the weekend and returning to work That is because work means the end of free time Some people hate Mondays so much that they ruin part of their weekends! My parents, for example, whine all of Sunday that the weekend is ending But that means they just waste one of their few free days complaining about how they won’t be free the next day It is so foolish! Those of us in Mrs Shantayanan’s class (we always call her “Mrs S” because her name is so long), though, don’t hate Mondays We actually love them! That is because every Monday, Mrs S begins class with the best part of the week: our weekend show and tell A Monday Tradition According to Mrs S., she’s been doing weekend show and tell since 1992 That was her first year of teaching She said everyone always seemed so unhappy to return to school So, after winter break, she decided to ask the students to tell everyone what they did over break Everyone loved it, so she started doing it after weekends too Pretty soon, everyone was looking forward to Mondays Showing and Telling At the weekend show and tell, five students get up and tell the class what they did over the weekend The five students are picked ahead of time Mrs S keeps a list to see who has already showed for the month Each of us gets to share once per month Most shares just involve the student saying what he or she did all weekend But the best shares are the ones that involve showing too For instance, a few weeks ago, one student got a puppy over the weekend He even brought it into class so we could all see it! Most shares are not that exciting This can be a downside to the weekend show and tell Sometimes, the presenters didn’t anything that fun over the weekend Then the shares can seem kind of boring Or, worse, it can make the presenter feel bad But Mrs S told us that we should not feel like we are boring anyone She says that the less interesting weekends are her favorite to hear This is because they are most like her own, she says I guess when you have been hearing about weekends for 20 years, you not feel pressure to something that interesting! 1) Unlike the rest of the passage, the first paragraph mostly describes A B C D the narrator’s viewpoint why people not like Mondays what happens in the narrator’s class who the narrator’s teacher is 2) As used in paragraph 1, the word complaining has a similar meaning to A B C D enjoying celebrating whining describing READTHEORY Questions 3) According to the passage, Mrs S has been doing weekend show and tell since A B C D 1982 1992 2002 2012 4) According to the narrator, what is the downside of weekend show and tells? A B C D Sometimes, students not have anything interesting to share Most students the same things as each other on the weekend A lot of the students refuse to participate in the activity Mrs S has already heard all the good weekend stories 5) It can be supposed from the passage that Mrs S A B C D has never done anything fun in her free time dislikes Monday just as much as the narrator’s parents will soon quit doing the weekend show and tells does not usually anything exciting on her weekends 6) How you feel about Mondays? Do you "hate them" like the author says most people do? Why or why not? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 7) What you think about the "Monday Tradition" as described in this passage? Do you think it is an effective way to enjoy Mondays? Explain _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ READTHEORY Answers and Explanations 1) B Question Type: Global In the first paragraph, the narrator states that “most people not like Mondays” and lists the reasons they not like them The rest of the passage, though, explains why the narrator and his or her classmates love Mondays and look forward to them Therefore, choice (B) is correct The entire passage is from the narrator’s viewpoint, so choice (A) is not correct, since the question asks about how the first paragraph is different from the other paragraphs, not how it is similar The first paragraph does not describe anything about the narrator’s class It is the rest of the passage that discusses the narrator’s class, not the first paragraph Because of this, choice (C) is not correct The narrator’s teacher is not mentioned until the second paragraph This means that choice (D) is not correct 2) C Question Type: Vocabulary complaining (verb): expressing annoyance or dissatisfaction about something In the first paragraph, the narrator states that his or her parents “whine all of Sunday that the weekend is ending,” which means “they just waste one of their few free days complaining about how they won’t be free the next day.” We can use context clues—hints from known words or phrases around the unknown word or phrase—to figure out what the word complaining most nearly means Since the narrator states that his or her parents whine and that it means they are complaining, it follows that whining and complaining are similar in meaning It also means choice (C) is correct In the first paragraph, the narrator states that his or her parents “whine all of Sunday that the weekend is ending,” which means “they just waste one of their few free days complaining about how they won’t be free the next day.” This suggests that the narrator does not believe his or her parents are enjoying their Sunday, so complaining and enjoying are probably not similar in meaning Because of this, choice (A) is not correct In the first paragraph, the narrator states that his or her parents “whine all of Sunday that the weekend is ending,” which means “they just waste one of their few free days complaining about how they won’t be free the next day.” This suggests that the narrator does not believe his or her parents are wasting their Sunday, not celebrating it, so complaining and celebrating are probably not similar in meaning Because of this, choice (B) is not correct In the first paragraph, the narrator states that his or her parents “whine all of Sunday that the weekend is ending,” which means “they just waste one of their few free days complaining about how they won’t be free the next day.” The narrator never suggests that his or her parents are explaining or describing anything, so complaining and describing are not similar in meaning Because of this, choice (D) is not correct 3) B Question Type: Detail To answer this detail question correctly, we need to find the part of the passage in which the narrator describes how long Mrs S has been doing weekend show and tell on Mondays In the beginning of paragraph 3, the narrator writes that “she’s been doing weekend show and tell since 1992.” Therefore, choice (B) is correct, and Mrs S has been hearing about weekends during the weekend show and tell for twenty years The passage does not provide information to support choices (A), (C), and (D) Therefore they are incorrect 4) A Question Type: Detail To answer this detail question correctly, we need to find where in the passage the author discusses the downside of the weekend show and tells This happens in paragraph 6, where the narrator states that there “can be a downside to the weekend show and tell.” He or she goes on to state that “sometimes, the presenters didn’t anything that fun over the weekend” which makes their shares “seem kind of boring.” This means that choice (A) is correct, and the downside of weekend show and tells is that sometimes there is nothing interesting for the students to share The passage does not suggest that most students have similar weekends Because of this, choice (B) is not correct The passage states that give students participate in the weekend show and tell per week, but it does not say that anyone refuses to participate Instead, the narrator only states that students take turns sharing Because of this, choice (C) is not correct Though the passage ends by stating that Mrs S has heard a lot of good weekend stories in her twenty years of hearing them, it does not say that she cannot possibly hear any other good ones Additionally, it does not say that she has heard all the good weekend stories in existence Choice (D) is not correct because it is too extreme 5) D Question Type: Inference In the final paragraph, the narrator states that Mrs S.’s favorite weekends to hear about are the “less interesting” ones, “because they are the most like her own.” This suggests that Mrs S does not very interesting things on her weekends, if the less exciting shares are more like her own weekends, so choice (D) is correct Though the final paragraph suggests that Mrs S does not usually have exciting weekends (the narrator states that she prefers hearing about “less interesting weekends… because they are the most like her own”), it does not suggest that Mrs S has never had a fun weekend or that she never has fun in her free time Choice (A) is not correct because it is too extreme The passage does not provide enough information about Mrs S to say she never has done anything fun in her life The passage makes it very clear that everyone in Mrs S.’s class likes Monday, and it never suggests that Mrs S is not included in that group Because of this, choice (B) is not correct The passage suggests that Mrs S.’s weekend show and tells are very popular It never gives any information that might suggest that Mrs S wants to quit doing them or will soon quit doing them Because of this, choice (C) is not correct