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End-of-Grade 8 (EOG8) Reading

Last updated 6 months ago
46 questions

Canada’s Boy Wonder

by Lianne George
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1

What is Pearson’s most significant achievement?

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1

What does paragraph 1 emphasize about Lester B. Pearson?

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What claim is made about the relationship between Canada and the United Kingdom before Lester B. Pearson served as Prime Minister in the statement below from paragraph 2?
“he helped transform Canada from a colonial appendage to an autonomous state with a powerful voice”

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What does the usage of the word autonomous in the sentence below from paragraph 2 emphasize about Canada?
“In short, he helped transform Canada from a colonial appendage to an autonomous state with a powerful voice and a sterling reputation.”

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How does paragraph 3 support the central idea?

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How does the author reveal the shortcomings that contribute to Pearson’s accomplishments being overlooked today?

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Which statement contradicts the idea that Lester B. Pearson was an important figure in Canadian history?

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Which quote shows how Pearson contributed to the way foreign countries regard Canada?

Dish Night

by Michael Martone

Every Wednesday was Dish Night at the Wells Theatre. And it worked because she was there, week in and week out. She sat through the movie to get her white bone china. A saucer. A cup. The ushers stood on chairs by the doors and reached into the big wooden crates. There was straw all over the floor of the lobby and balls of newspaper from strange cities. I knew she was the girl for me. I'd walk her home. She'd hug the dish to her chest. The street lights would be on and the moon behind the trees. She'd talk about collecting enough pieces for our family of eight. "Oh, it's everyday and I know it," she'd say, holding it at arm's length. "They're so modern and simple and something we'll have a long time after we forget about the movies."

2
I forget just what happened then. We heard about Pearl Harbor at a Sunday matinee. They stopped the movie, and a man came out on stage. The blue stage lights flooded the gold curtain. It was dark in there, but outside it was bright and cold. They didn't finish the show. Business would pick up then, and the Wells Theatre wouldn't need a Dish Night to bring the people in. The one we had gone to the week before was the last one ever, and we hadn't known it. The gravy boat looked like a slipper. I went to the war, to Europe where she'd write to me on lined school paper and never failed to mention we were a few pieces shy of the full set.

3
This would be the movie of my life, this walking home under the moon from a movie with a girl holding a dinner plate under her arm like a book. I believed this is what I was fighting for.
Everywhere in Europe I saw broken pieces of crockery. In the farmhouses, the cafes. Along the roads were drifts of smashed china. On a beach, in the sand where I was crawling, I found a bit of it the sea washed in, all smooth with blue veins of a pattern.

I came home and washed the dishes every night, and she stacked them away, bowls nesting in bowls as if we were moving the next day.

The green field is covered with these tables. The sky is huge and spread with clouds. The pickup trucks and wagons are backed in close to each table so that people can sit on the lowered tailgates. On the tables are thousands of dishes. She walks ahead of me. Picks up a cup then sets it down again. A plate. She runs her finger along a rim. The green field rises slightly as we walk, all the places set at the tables. She hopes she will find someone else who saw the movies she saw on Dish Night. The theater was filled with people. I was there.
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1

Which detail from the selection supports the theme?

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1

What does the collection of dishes at the Wells Theatre symbolize?

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1

What is meant by “Business would pick up then” in paragraph 2?

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1

How does the imagery in paragraph 3 impact the selection?

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What effect does the author create by using the description of the china in paragraph 3?

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How does the narrator’s encounter with the broken china during the war affect him?

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Which statement summarizes the selection?

Adapted from “The Apple Tree”

by Edgar A. Guest

1
When an apple tree is ready for the world to come and eat, There isn’t any structure in the land that’s “got it beat.” There’s nothing man has built with the beauty or the charm
That can touch the simple grandeur of the monarch of the farm. There’s never any picture from a human being’s brush That has ever caught the redness of a single apple’s blush.

2
When an apple tree’s in blossom it is glorious to see, But that’s just a hint, at springtime, of the better things to be; That is just a fleeting glimpse, a vision quickly gone Of the wonders and the splendors that are waiting just beyond The distant edge of summer; just a forecast of the treat When the apple tree is ready for the world to come and eat.

3
Architects of splendid vision long have labored on the earth, And have raised their dreams in marble and we’ve marveled at their worth; Long the spires of costly buildings have looked upward at the sky; Rich in promise and in beauty, they have cheered the passer-by. But I’m sure there’s nothing finer for the eye of man to meet Than an apple tree that’s ready for the world to come and eat.

4
There’s the promise of the apples, red and gleaming in the sun, Like the medals worn by mortals as rewards for labors done; And the big arms stretched wide open, with a welcome warm and true In a way that sets you thinking it’s intended just for you. There is nothing with a beauty so entrancing, so complete, As an apple tree that’s ready for the world to come and eat.
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1

Which lines support the theme of the poem?

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Which line supports the analysis that the speaker adores apple trees?

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What does forecast mean in stanza 2?

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How does stanza 3 support the theme of beauty in the poem?

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What can be inferred from stanza 4?

Adapted from Our Mr. Wrenn: "Mr. Wrenn is Lonely"

by Sinclair Lewis

The ticket taker of the movie theater is a public personage, who stands out on Fourteenth Street, New York, wearing a gorgeous light blue coat of numerous brass buttons. He nods to all the patrons, and his nod is the most cordial in town. Mr. Wrenn used to trot down to Fourteenth Street, passing other shows, just to get that cordial nod, because he had a lonely furnished room for evenings, and for daytime a tedious job that always made his head stuffy.

He stands out in the correspondence of the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company as "Our Mr. Wrenn," who would be writing you directly and explaining everything most satisfactorily. At thirty-four, Mr. Wrenn was the sales entry clerk of the Souvenir Company. He was always bending over bills and columns of figures at a desk behind the stockroom. He was a meek little bachelor-a person of inconspicuous1 blue ready-made suits, and a small unsuccessful mustache.

Today-historians have established the date as April 9, 1910-there had been some confusing mixed orders from the Wisconsin retailers, and Mr. Wrenn had been "called down" by the office manager, Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle. He needed the friendly nod of the theater ticket taker. He found Fourteenth Street, after office hours, swept by a dusty wind. Under the elevated station he secretly made believe that he was in Paris, for here Italian boys swayed with trays of violets; a tramp displayed crimson mechanical rabbits, which squeaked, on silvery leading-strings; and a newsstand was heaped with the orange and green and gold of magazine covers.

"Gee!" inarticulated Mr. Wrenn. "Lots of colors. Hope I see foreign stuff like that in the moving pictures."

5
He came primly up to the theater, feeling in his vest pockets for a nickel and peering around the booth at the friendly ticket taker. But the latter was thinking about buying Johnny's pants. Should he get them at the Fourteenth Street Store, or Siegel-Cooper's, or over at Aronson's, near home? So ruminating, he twiddled his wheel mechanically, and Mr. Wrenn's pasteboard slip was indifferently received in the plate-glass gullet of the grinder2 without the taker's even seeing the clerk's bow and smile.

6
Mr. Wrenn trembled into the door of the theater. He wanted to turn back and rebuke this fellow, but was restrained by shyness. He had liked the man’s “Fine evenin’, sir”—rain or shine—but he wouldn’t stand for being cut. Wasn’t he making nineteen dollars a week, as against the ticket taker’s ten or twelve? He shook his head with the defiance of a cornered mouse, fussed with his mustache, and regarded the moving pictures gloomily.

They helped him. After a Selig3 domestic drama came a stirring Vitagraph4 Western scene, “The Goat of the Rancho,” which depicted with much humor and tumult the revolt of a ranch cook. Mr. Wrenn was really seeing, not cowpunchers and sagebrush, but himself, defying the office manager’s meanness and revolting against the ticketman’s rudeness. Now he was ready for the nearly overpowering delight of travel-pictures. He bounced slightly as a Gaumont film presented the island of Java.

8
He was a connoisseur of travel-pictures, for all his life he had been planning a great journey. Though he had done Staten Island and taken an excursion to Bound Brook, neither of these was his grand tour. It was yet to be taken. In Mr. Wrenn, apparently fastened to New York like a domestic-minded barnacle, lay the possibilities of heroic roaming. He knew it. He, too, like the man who had taken the Gaumont pictures, would saunter among Javanese natives in “markets with tiles on the roofs and temples and—and—uh, well—places!” The scent of Asian spices was in his broadened nostrils as he scampered out of the theater, without a look at the ticket taker, and headed for “home”—for his third-floor-front on West Sixteenth Street.

He wanted to prowl through his collection of steamship brochures for a description of Java. But, of course, when one’s landlady has both the sciatica5 and a case of Patient Suffering one stops in the basement dining room to inquire how she is.

1inconspicuous: not noticeable
2grinder: a machine that takes tickets
3Selig: a company that established the first permanent movie studio in Los Angeles 4Vitagraph: prolific film production company in the early 1900s 5sciatica: pain that can extend from the hip down the back of the thigh, moving along the sciatic nerve
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How do Mr. Wrenn’s actions contribute to the development of the theme?

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What can be inferred from paragraph 5?

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What do Mr. Wrenn’s thoughts in paragraph 6 reveal about his view of the ticket taker?

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Which quote reveals Mr. Wrenn’s timid nature?

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How does the perspective of Mr. Wrenn at the movie theater create irony in the selection?

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What does the author mean by “connoisseur of travel-pictures” in paragraph 8?

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How do the different perspectives of the ticket taker and Mr. Wrenn affect the story?

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Which statement provides an objective summary of the selection?

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Make an inference about Mr. Wrenn from the information in paragraph 7. Cite a quote from the selection that most strongly supports your answer.

Adapted from "Bats"

by W. S. Dallas

Among the sounds which greet the ear of the wayfarer1 as the shades of evening deepen into night, one of the commonest is a rather faint chirping noise which comes mysteriously from overhead. On looking up in search of the source of this peculiar sound, we may see a small, dark, shadow-like creature sweeping to and fro with great rapidity. It is one of the curious groups of animals called bats, representatives of which are to be met with in all countries, always active at night or in the twilight, and presenting a remarkable general similarity of structure, although in some respects they may differ considerably in habits. In the British Islands some fourteen species have been distinguished.

2
Like the owls, with which they share the dominion2 of the evening air, the bats have a perfectly noiseless flight; their activity is chiefly during the twilight, although some species are later, and in fact seem to keep up throughout the whole night. As they rest during the day, concealed usually in the most inaccessible places they can find, and are seen only upon the wing, their power of flight is their most striking peculiarity in the popular mind, and it is perhaps no great wonder that by many people, both in ancient and modern times they have been regarded as birds. Nevertheless, their hairy bodies and leathery wings are so unlike anything that we ordinarily understand as pertaining to a bird, that opinion was apparently always divided, as to the true nature of these creatures—"a mouse with wings," as Goldsmith called it once, according to James Boswell, is certainly a curious animal, and very difficult to classify so long as the would-be systematist has no particularly definite ideas to guide him. The likeness of the bat to a winged mouse has made itself felt in the name given to the creature in many languages, such as the “Chauvesouris” of the French and the “Flitter-mouse” of some parts of England, the latter being reproduced almost literally in German, Dutch, and Swedish, while the Danes called the bat a “Flogemmus,” which has about the same meaning, and the Swedes have a second name, “Lädermus,” evidently referring to the texture of the wings, as well as to the mouse-like character of the body.

3
But so soon as we have definite characteristics to appeal to in classification, we find no difficulty in assigning these puzzling creatures to their proper place in the system.
Bats produce their young alive, and nurse them; the milk being produced by special glands. Now, these are characteristics which are peculiar among all animals to the vertebrate class Mammalia. They possess also other characters that are unmistakably mammalian. Leaving out of consideration the structure of the internal organs, they have teeth implanted in sockets in the jaws, four limbs, and a hairy covering to the skin, so that they possess more decidedly mammalian characteristics than some other members of the class, such as the marine whales and dolphins (Cetacea) and manatees (Sirenia), which are still often spoken of as fishes. In point of fact, although organized for flight, the bat may, without any violence to language, be spoken of as a quadruped,3 for its forelimbs contain all the parts found in those of other mammals fully developed, and they come into use when the creature is walking on the ground.

Perhaps the special characteristics of the bats will be brought out most distinctly by a comparison of their structure with that of a bird, seeing that the modification of the forelimbs into wings is their most striking distinction from other Mammalia; for, although some other members of the class are spoken of as "flying," such as the Flying Squirrels, Flying Lemurs, and Flying Phalangers, these creatures do not really fly, but merely glide through the air to considerable distances by the action of a broad fold of skin which runs down each side of the body, and which, when stretched between the extended limbs, buoys the creatures up in the air after the fashion of a parachute.

1wayfarer: one who travels on foot
2dominion: territory over an area
3quadruped: an animal, especially a mammal, having four feet
Required
1

What does the word inaccessible mean in the sentence below from paragraph 2?
“As they rest during the day, concealed usually in the most inaccessible places they can find, and are seen only upon the wing, their power of flight is their most striking peculiarity in the popular mind, and it is perhaps no great wonder that by many people, both in ancient and modern times they have been regarded as birds.”

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Which quote provides evidence to support the claim that the classification of bats is complex?

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What does the word systematist mean in the sentence below from paragraph 2?

“Nevertheless, their hairy bodies and leathery wings are so unlike anything that we ordinarily understand as pertaining to a bird, that opinion was apparently always divided, as to the true nature of these creatures—‘a mouse with wings,’ as Goldsmith called it once, according to James Boswell, is certainly a curious animal, and very difficult to classify so long as the would-be systematist has no particularly definite ideas to guide him.”

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How does the last sentence in paragraph 2 refine a key concept about bats?

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How does paragraph 3 contribute to the development of the idea of scientific classification of bats?

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How does the author distinguish bats from whales and dolphins in paragraph 3?

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Which statement reflects the author's point of view about the bat's abilities?

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Which statement provides an objective summary of the text?

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Explain how the author’s statement, “they possess more decidedly mammalian characteristics than some other members of the class,” in paragraph 3 impacts the meaning of the text. Cite the quote that most strongly supports your answer.

From the pages of Southern Living.

Hot! Springs

by Kelly Margaret Smith

Hope springs eternal, but can it bring eternal youth?

For decades, Americans believed the water springing to the surface in Hot Springs, Arkansas, was a death-defying elixir for the body and soul.

Walking down one block of Central Avenue, dubbed "Bathhouse Row," at Hot Springs National Park, it's easy to imagine how this place attracted thousands of vacationers in its turn-of-the-twentieth-century heyday. Today people still bustle with excitement about getting into hot water.

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At an average 143 degrees, water constantly pours forth from the sandstone at the foot of Hot Springs Mountain. What makes the water so hot? Park ranger Mark Blaeuer says that, unlike the famed geysers of the West, these waters originate as rain and heat up largely through compression rather than volcanic activity. "The geothermal gradient heats the water, not volcanic intrusion," he explains. "The deeper the water gets, the hotter it becomes because of pressure. It heats up at about 4 degrees every 300 feet."

The water starts as rainfall northwest of Hot Springs, where pores and faults in outcroppings of two rock formations, Bigfork Chert and Arkansas Novaculite, conduct water downward. The stratas of rock dip southeast, moving water under Hot Springs Mountain, and then a fold in the rock layers brings it to the surface. The water spreads up and out through the Hot Springs Sandstone.

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According to geologists, after the rain falls, it slowly descends 6,000 to 8,000 feet, traveling only about one foot a year. (Most of the water fell as rain 4,400 years ago.) As the liquid seeps deeper into the earth, it picks up trace minerals that many believe give it therapeutic power.

In the late 1800s, Americans trotted around the globe to resort spas for health and beauty remedies. It didn't take long for entrepreneurs to see the business value of this natural spa in the Arkansas frontier as a tourist attraction.

Although Hot Springs became the eighteenth national park in the U.S. National Park System in 1921, Mark quickly points out that these warm waters attracted tourists well before Old Faithful. "Hot Springs was set aside 40 years before Yellowstone National Park, during the golden age of bathing," he says. "The government got involved here so that no one person would own this whole resource."

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More than water enticed visitors in the early days; Mark claims some slick advertising played a role as well. "The resort in the 1870s was part of a nation trying to find peace within itself," he says. "Hot Springs was promoted as The Valley of Peace." Legends were spread that the various American Indian tribes laid down their weapons here to share the healing waters in harmony. And that wasn't the only marketing mendacity* -some even reported that Spanish conquistadores found their fountain of youth here.

No credible evidence supports either promotion. "One of the nineteenth-century writers who reported The Valley of Peace idea also reported volcanic activity here, which we know is not scientifically true," Mark says. However, one thing is sure-people believed in the waters' healing powers.

Perhaps Hot Springs can't deliver on the promise of peace and eternal youth. Maybe hope doesn't spring eternal. So what? The warm splash of rain from 2400 BCE-traveling miles to get here-is hope enough.

*mendacity: falsehood

Southern Living is a registered trademark of TI Inc. Lifestyle Group used under lIcense.
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Which quote supports the central idea that Hot Springs is a natural phenomenon?

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How does paragraph 3 refine a key concept in the text?

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Which quote from the text is irrelevant to people’s fascination with Hot Springs?

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What is the meaning of originate in the sentence below from paragraph 3?
“Park ranger Mark Blauer says that, unlike the famed geysers of the West, these waters originate as rain and heat up largely through compression rather than volcanic activity.”

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Which detail from the text supports the analysis that the water from the springs is good for the mind and the body?

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Which quote supports the connection between water and the passage of time at Hot Springs?

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How does the phrase “therapeutic power” in paragraph 5 affect the meaning of the text?

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How does the author connect the American Indian tribes and the Spanish conquistadores in paragraph 8?