Reading set · The hour before seven — printable English Language Arts 9 worksheet

Reading set · The hour before seven

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

My shift at the rink starts at six, which in January means I unlock the door in the dark and the cold comes in with me. The building has a smell I have never found anywhere else: cold concrete, rubber matting, and the faint sweetness of the machine that resurfaces the ice. For the first twenty minutes I am the only person in it.

I took the job because it paid, and because my mother said a job in winter would stop me sleeping until noon. What I did not expect was the hour before anyone arrives. I put the lights up one bank at a time, so the ice goes from grey to white in stages. I check the boards for cracks. I set out the pylons for the six-year-olds who come at seven and who will knock them all down anyway.

By half past six the regulars start. Mr. Fenn, who is eighty-one and skates in a wool coat, arrives first and says the same thing every morning: that the ice is better than it was yesterday. It is not always better. He says it anyway, and I have come to think he is not describing the ice.

Then the parents, carrying children who are mostly bag. Then the figure skaters, who take the far end and who do not speak to anybody. Then the hockey kids, who speak to everybody, loudly, at once.

I used to think a rink was a building with ice in it. I have stopped thinking that. A rink is a place where a man of eighty-one and a child of six are doing the same thing at the same time, badly, on purpose, in front of each other. There is nowhere else in this town where that happens.

In March the ice comes out and the floor underneath turns out to be ordinary concrete, stained and cracked, with the lines of a basketball court on it from some earlier decade. The first year I saw that I found it depressing. Now I think it is the most honest thing in the building. The ice is temporary. Everybody who comes here knows it, and comes anyway, and that is the part I would want to explain to somebody who asked me why I keep the job.

According to the writer, what happens during the first twenty minutes of the shift?
1. a) The writer is alone in the building.
2. b) The six-year-olds arrive and knock down the pylons.
3. c) Mr. Fenn skates at the far end in his wool coat.
4. d) The machine resurfaces the ice for the hockey kids.
In this passage, “I put the lights up one bank at a time” means the writer
1. a) replaces the bulbs in one row before starting the next
2. b) turns the lights slowly from dim up to full brightness
3. c) switches the lights on in groups rather than all at once
4. d) raises each light fixture higher above the ice surface
Why does the writer say Mr. Fenn is not describing the ice?
1. a) Because at eighty-one he can no longer judge the ice surface.
2. b) Because he is comparing this rink with one he skated on before.
3. c) Because he says the same hopeful thing whatever the ice is like.
4. d) Because he is talking about the basketball lines under the ice.
How is the middle of this passage organized?
1. a) By comparing the rink in winter with the rink in summer.
2. b) By listing problems at the rink and how the writer solves them.
3. c) By the order people arrive through the morning.
4. d) By moving from the writer's opinions to the facts that support them.
What connects the writer's changed view of the bare concrete floor with what Mr. Fenn says every morning?
1. a) Both explain why the writer first agreed to take the job in winter.
2. b) Both describe something the writer only ever notices during March.
3. c) Both suggest the rink is badly looked after by the end of the season.
4. d) Both show someone valuing the rink regardless of the state of the ice.
Which statement best captures the purpose of this passage as a whole?
1. a) To contrast the writer's attitude to work with the attitude of the regulars.
2. b) To explain what the writer came to understand about the rink by working there.
3. c) To persuade readers that small towns should work harder to keep their arenas open.
4. d) To describe the steps involved in opening an ice rink each winter morning.

Answer key · Reading set · The hour before seven

English Language Arts 9 · maddyhelps.com

a) The writer is alone in the building. — The opening paragraph ends on it: for the first twenty minutes the writer is the only person in the building. The pylons are set out for children who come at seven, Mr. Fenn arrives at half past six, and the resurfacing machine is mentioned only as part of the building's smell.
c) switches the lights on in groups rather than all at once — The phrase that settles it is “one bank at a time”: a bank is a group of lights you switch together, not a brightness setting and not a job you do once. The next clause confirms it — the ice goes from grey to white in stages, which happens because more groups keep coming on. Nothing here is being raised or rewired.
c) Because he says the same hopeful thing whatever the ice is like. — The writer first says Mr. Fenn says the same thing every morning, then says plainly that it is not always better. A remark that does not change with the thing it is about is not really about that thing. His age is given as a fact, never as a reason he is mistaken.
c) By the order people arrive through the morning. — The paragraphs run six o'clock, half past six, then the parents, the figure skaters and the hockey kids, each group introduced by Then. The seasonal contrast appears only at the end, in March, and the writer names no problem that gets solved.
d) Both show someone valuing the rink regardless of the state of the ice. — Mr. Fenn calls the ice better every morning when it is not, which the writer decides means he is not talking about the ice. The floor works the same way: the writer stops finding it depressing once the ice is understood as temporary and people come anyway. The two sit at opposite ends of the piece and make one point between them. Neither is a complaint about upkeep, and the writer gives the money as the reason for taking the job.
b) To explain what the writer came to understand about the rink by working there. — The last sentence says the writer would want to explain this to somebody who asked why the job is worth keeping, and the piece moves from taking the job for the money to understanding what the place is. The morning routine and the regulars are the evidence for that understanding, not the point of the piece, and nothing in it argues for a policy.