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English Language Arts 9 · Worksheets

Reading set · Eleven months

Six questions on one passage, in the order the provincial test asks them, covering Reading sets. Print it, or work through it on screen — the answer key starts on its own page.

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Reading set · Eleven months

English Language Arts 9 · maddyhelps.com

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Circle the best answer for each question. Use the space to note the evidence or reasoning that decided it.

Read this, then answer the questions that follow

Soraya had kept the book for eleven months. It sat on the shelf above her desk where she could see it, spine out, the library's white sticker going yellow at the edges.

She had meant to return it the week after the funeral. Then the week after that. By December she was sure the fine was more than the book was worth, and the size of it had become its own reason to wait, the way a letter you have not answered gets harder to answer every day you do not.

Her father had taken it out for her. That was the thing. He had walked her to the branch on Ninth, found it on the shelf himself, and carried it home under his arm because she was carrying everything else. He had not read it. He had never read it. He had just known that she wanted it.

In August she put it in a bag and walked to the branch. The building had been repainted. The desk stood in a different place, and the woman behind it was not the woman who had been there before, which Soraya had not thought about and which, for a moment, she could not get past.

"I've had this out a long time," she said.

The woman scanned it. Soraya watched her face for the number.

"It's been returned," the woman said.

"No. I've had it since last September, I know I owe."

"Someone returned a copy on your card in October." She turned the screen so Soraya could see it. "There's nothing owing."

Soraya looked at the screen, and then at the book in her hand, at the yellow sticker and at the crease on the back cover where her father had held it against his coat.

She said thank you. She put the book back in the bag. She carried it home under her arm, and she put it on the shelf above her desk, spine out, where she could see it.

  1. What does the comparison with an unanswered letter explain?

    1. a) Why waiting made returning the book harder rather than easier.
    2. b) Why the library never sent Soraya a reminder about the book.
    3. c) Why Soraya's father chose that book for her in the first place.
    4. d) Why Soraya could not afford to pay the fine by December.

  2. Why did Soraya's father carry the book home himself?

    1. a) He wanted to read it before she did.
    2. b) The book was too heavy for her to manage.
    3. c) She was already carrying everything else.
    4. d) He was returning another book to the branch that day.

  3. What do the details about Soraya's father suggest about him?

    1. a) He visited the branch on Ninth often enough to know its shelves himself.
    2. b) He wanted her to read a book that had been important to him.
    3. c) He expected her to return the book promptly on her own card.
    4. d) He paid attention to what mattered to her without needing to share it.

  4. At the desk the story stops narrating and gives four short lines of dialogue. What does that do?

    1. a) It marks the point at which Soraya decides to keep the book.
    2. b) The reader finds out the fine is gone at the same moment Soraya does.
    3. c) It shows the woman is impatient to get on to whoever is waiting behind her.
    4. d) It explains why the branch had been repainted since her last visit.

  5. Why is it significant that Soraya keeps the book at the end?

    1. a) What she has been holding on to is her father, not the library's book.
    2. b) She is waiting for the woman who used to work at that desk to come back.
    3. c) She has decided to pay the fine later, once she can afford the whole amount.
    4. d) She means to read it now that no deadline is hanging over her.

  6. Which statement best expresses a theme of this story?

    1. a) Libraries forgive the debts that people cannot forgive in themselves.
    2. b) Grief attaches itself to ordinary objects, which then cannot be given back.
    3. c) Going back to a place after a loss shows how little has really changed.
    4. d) Avoiding a small task for long enough is what turns it into an impossible one.

Answer key · Reading set · Eleven months

English Language Arts 9 · maddyhelps.com

  1. a) Why waiting made returning the book harder rather than easier. — The comparison is attached to the sentence about the delay becoming its own reason to wait. It explains why she did not go, not what it cost: the point of the letter is that every day you leave it makes answering worse. Her father's choice is explained in the next paragraph instead, and the library is never said to have written to her.
  2. c) She was already carrying everything else. — The same paragraph gives the reason outright: he carried it home under his arm because she was carrying everything else. The story says twice that he had not read it and never would, so wanting it first is the opposite of what it tells you, and nothing suggests the book was heavy or that he had an errand of his own.
  3. d) He paid attention to what mattered to her without needing to share it. — The story says it twice — he had not read it, he had never read it — and then says he had just known that she wanted it. It also has him carry it because she was carrying everything else. That is attention rather than shared taste, so reading it as his book, or as a lesson about returning things on time, works against the lines.
  4. b) The reader finds out the fine is gone at the same moment Soraya does. — Everything before this is summarized from a distance — eleven months, the week after the funeral, by December. The dialogue removes that distance: nothing stands between you and “There's nothing owing”, so the news arrives for you as it arrives for her. She decides nothing here; the deciding happens in the last paragraph, after she has looked at the crease.
  5. a) What she has been holding on to is her father, not the library's book. — The last sentence puts the book back exactly where the first sentence had it, spine out, where she could see it — and the thing she looks at before deciding is the crease her father's hand left in the cover. The library has let her go and she keeps it anyway, which only makes sense if the library's copy was never what she was keeping. The story has already said there is nothing owing, so money cannot be the reason.
  6. b) Grief attaches itself to ordinary objects, which then cannot be given back. — Everything in the story works on one object: the sticker, the crease, the shelf it returns to, and a father who is present only through having carried it. The story does build the idea that delay makes a task impossible — and then takes it away, because the fine is already gone and the task turns out to be nothing. The forgiven debt is not the point either: she looks at the screen and then straight past it, to the crease. And the branch has visibly changed, which is the thing she cannot get past.