Vocabulary
Words surrounding an unfamiliar word.
What are context clues?
How is the following passage structured?
Cooking the perfect pizza at home can be quite a challenge. You may find that it’s difficult to get your oven to the right temperature. If the oven is too hot the crust will burn, become hard, and taste bad. If your oven isn’t hot enough, the crust may get soggy. Even at the perfect temperature, extra moisture from your ingredients may prevent the bottom of the crust from fully cooking, but don’t let oven temperature stop you from building the pizza of your dreams. Get yourself a pizza stone. A pizza stone will get very hot when preheated and will allow your crust to fully cook without burning it. Then you can pile the ingredients on your pizza and have a crispy crust that isn’t burned. That’s the way to go.
What is problem and solution?
Determine the best title for the passage.
. It's hard to imagine what things were like before there was money, but such a time did exist. During these times people exchanged goods using the barter system. The word barter means to trade. People using the barter system traded things instead of buying and selling them. So if you were a rice farmer, you would trade your rice with many people to get all the things that you wanted or needed. Unfortunately, the people from whom you needed things might not want your rice. Isn't it nice to just go to the store and buy candy instead of having to trade rice for it?
What is Bartering: A World Without Money?
What is the author’s view of the “popular wisdom” that people should ignore the bad feelings that come from failure?
[1] Failure is a part of life, and we make mistakes pretty much every day. How do we cope?1 Or better yet, how should we cope? [2] Academics and the mainstream media tend to offer a simple solution: Don’t let it get to you and think about how things could have been worse. [3] These self-protective thoughts usually make you feel better. You move on. [4] But is it possible that popular wisdom is missing a bit of the puzzle? Does setting aside the negative emotions make you any less likely to repeat the mistake? Noelle Nelson, Baba Shiv and I decided to explore possible upsides of feeling bad about failure.
A.She ignores it
B.She agrees with it
C.She questions it
D.She has no opinion
C. She questions it
What is thesis statement?
The way in which an author organizes a text.
What is text structure?
How is the following passage structured?
Pizza is often viewed as a junk food, and it is true that some pizzas are high in salt, fat, and calories, but there may also be some benefit to eating pizza. Some studies have found that lycopene, an antioxidant that exists in tomato products that are often used in pizza, may prevent some forms of cancer. Dr. Silvano Gallus, of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmaceutical Research in Milan, studied the eating habits of people who developed cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, and colon. He concluded that people who ate pizza at least once a week had significantly less chance of developing these cancers. Here’s to your health.
What is cause and effect?
Determine the best title for the passage.
Money is pretty old but nobody knows exactly how old it is. Perhaps the oldest evidence of people using money is in the Code of Ur-Nammu. The Code of Ur-Nammu is a system of laws written around 2050 BC. That's like 4,000 years ago! Many of Ur-Nammu's laws carry fines, such as one stating that if a man is proven innocent of sorcery, his accuser must pay 3 shekels. This ancient document shows me two things: Ur-Nammu didn't tolerate false witch-hunts, and money is very old.
What is Way Back When: Money in the Code of Ur-Nammu?
What do paragraphs 5-7 reveal about the author’s perspective on negative emotions?
[5] Even though they’re unpleasant, we feel negative emotions for a reason: They likely played an important role in human evolution and survival. [6] Negative emotions tell us to pay attention, signaling that something’s wrong — with our body, with our environment, with our relationships. [7] So if you avoid negative emotions, you also might be avoiding the thing that needs your attention. Could deciding to focus on the negative emotions associated with failure lead to thoughts about self-improvement — and, with time, actual improvement?
The author believes that noticing the negative emotions from failure is important because it alerts people to a problem and helps people make changes or improvements.
What is topic sentence?
The way in which a character or author thinks or feels toward a topic.
What is point of view?
How is the passage structured?
Pizza is so old that its origins are not quite clear to historians, but the word pizza comes from the Latin verb pinsere, meaning to press. It may also be related to the Greek word pitta. In any event the word “pizza” was first documented in Italy in 997 AD. Whatever they were eating back then, however, was quite different from the pizza that we know today. Pizza as we know it could not really have been invented until sometime during the 16th century, when tomatoes were brought to Europe from America. This was big, but in my opinion the greatest development in the history of pizza occurred in 1905, when pizza was first sold in America. The rest, as they say, is history.
What is chronological order?
Determine the best title for the passage.
One problem that the U.S. faced when rebelling against the British was currency. While under British control, colonists mainly used British paper money and foreign coins. But after forming a new nation, the Americans needed their own currency. They created Continental currency. Congress issued over 240 million Continental Dollars during the Revolution. Unfortunately, these dollars soon dropped in value. This gave rise to the popular expression, "not worth a Continental." By the end of 1778, Continentals were worth 1/5th of their face value. By 1780, they were worth 1/40th. In the 1790s, the U.S. bought back Continentals for 1% of their printed value. One reason for this decline was economic warfare. During the war the British hired artists to counterfeit Continental Dollars. Then they funneled large amounts of these counterfeit notes into the American economy. The value of the Continental Dollar crashed. When people complain about today's inflation rates, I tell them about Continentals.
What is The Dollar That Couldn't: The Continental Dollar and Why It Failed?
What did the author learn from her experiment about the importance of negative emotions?
[15] In contrast, the participants who had spent time parsing4 their emotions produced thoughts oriented toward self-improvement: “If I’d only searched longer, I would have found that price”; “I gave up too quickly.”
Noticing failure and how failure makes you feel can help you make changes to help you avoid those feelings in the future.
What do you regret in your life so far? Write a narrative that explains what you may or may not regret and why.
Regrets can be one of life's greatest challenges.
It seems everyone has regrets.
A universal life lesson
What is theme?
How is the passage structured?
Jimmy’s pizzeria is my favorite pizza place in the city, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that just by looking at the outside. It is an inconspicuous brown brick building. It doesn’t even have a sign, just the name of the establishment in three-inch letters on the storefront window. The inside isn’t much to speak of either. There are some chrome swivel stools along a laminate countertop that makes an L shape, separating the register and kitchen area from the dining area. Booth seating lines the eating area of the restaurant area and a few favorable reviews from local publications are framed and displayed on the walls. Yeah, the aesthetics of the place are a little underwhelming, but forget the scenery. I go to Jimmy’s for the pizza.
What is description?
Determine the best title for the passage.
Hyperinflation refers to when the value of money drops rapidly. During World War I, Germany paid for the war by borrowing. The German Mark steadily lost value as the war went on and German people could buy less and less. After losing the war, Germany was required to make large payments to the Allies. They paid all the debts that they could by printing more money. Soon the German Mark was worthless. When the war had started, the U.S. Dollar was worth around four German Marks. By November of 1923, one U.S. Dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German Marks. At this point the money had more value as a fuel than as a currency, and people burned it to stay warm.
What is Not Worth the Paper It's Printed On: Germany After WW1?
Based on paragraphs 19-21, what is the author's point of view about feeling bad after a failure?
[19] While “feeling your failure” can be a good thing, it doesn’t change the fact that this can hurt. There’s a reason people tend to instinctively rationalize or have self-protective thoughts after they’ve made a mistake. [20] It would be debilitating5 if you were to focus on how bad you felt after each failure, big and small. So it’s up to you to decide which failures to try to improve upon, and which failures to shield yourself from. Clearly, one-off events or inconsequential6 mistakes — taking the wrong turn in a foreign city or being late to a party with friends — don’t make the best candidates (hence the saying “don’t sweat the small stuff”). [21] But if you’ve failed at something that you know you’re going to have to confront in the future — say, a task for a new role at work — pause and feel the pain. Use it to fuel improvement. If you focus on how bad you feel, you’ll probably work harder to ensure you don’t make the same mistake again.
While failure can hurt, pausing and feeling the pain can lead to improvement in the future.
What is R.A.C.E?
Restate
Answer
Cite
Explain
When you use background knowledge with available evidence.
What is inference?
How is the passage structured?
Getting a free pizza from Mortini’s Pizza Parlor is as easy as pie, pizza pie. You’ll see. Start by placing your order. I suggest that you choose a white, New York style pizza with lots of cheese, but you can get whatever floats your boat. After placing your order, wait until your pizza comes. It may take thirty minutes to an hour (longer on Super Bowl Sunday). When your pizza finally arrives, pay your deliver driver. Don’t forget to tip. Then, eat your pizza, or just throw it away. We’re fine with either. But before you throw it away, grab the coupon off the top of the box and save it in a drawer. Collect ten of these coupons and the next time you place your order from Mortini’s Pizza Parlor, you can redeem them for a free pizza. Now you see, getting a free pizza from Mortini’s is as easy as eating pizza.
What is sequence/chronological order?
Determine the best title of the passage.
Counterfeiting is the act of making phony money that looks official. It is a very old crime but recent advances in printing have made it possible for even amateurs to produce decent counterfeits. Fortunately, there are some ways that you can detect counterfeits. The first and most telling inspection is to pay attention to how the money feels. It is difficult to reproduce the texture of real money. If the money feels suspect, look carefully at the microprinting on the bill. Many features along the portrait and border of a genuine bill contain writing that is too small to reproduce in most printers. If you are still suspicious, hold the bill up to the light and look for the strip that says the value of the bill. With a little diligence, you can keep yourself from becoming a victim of this rising trend.
What is Be Alert: Catching onto Today's Counterfeit Problem?
Based on the paragraphs you've read, what is the author’s point of view about failure?
A. People should avoid failure to be successful.
B. People should seek out failure to challenge themselves.
C. People should ignore failure to make sure they don’t feel negative emotions.
D. People should pay attention to the negative emotions of failure to learn from them.
D. People should pay attention to the negative emotions of failure to learn from them.
Name the components of the Introduction, Body Paragraphs and Conclusion that belong in an essay in the correct order.
Introduction
Hook
Transition
Thesis
Body Paragraphs
Topic Sentence
Evidence
Explanation
Conclusion
Re-Stated Thesis
Message to the Reader