GRADE 9

Listening Comprehension

Hand it to Faith: 7-year-old girl gets new hand from 3-D printer
Seven-year-old Faith Lennox never thought much about putting a prosthetic limb where her missing left
hand had once been. Not until the little girl learned she could design her own, strap it on easily and then jump
on her bike and ride away more quickly than she had ever imagined.
With family members occasionally shouting "Be careful" and "Watch out for that car," Faith firmly
placed her new hand's bright blue and pink fingers on her bike's left handlebar and took off for a seemingly
endless ride around the office building of Build It Workspace. Inside, just a short time before, that hand had
rolled off a 3-D printer that built it overnight.
The prosthetic that had just made such a task so easy represents a breakthrough in small, lightweight
hands that are economical and easy for children to use. It weighs only 500 grams and costs just $50 to construct
out of the same materials used to make drones and automobile parts.
When Faith outgrows it in six months or a year, a replacement can be made just as cheaply and easily,
said Mark Muller, a prosthetics professor at California State University, who helped with the design. He said a
heavier adult model with sensors attached to a person's muscles would cost $15,000 to $20,000.
Faith uses her hand without sensors. Instead, as she happily demonstrated over and over after the bike
ride, she moves her upper arm back and forth. That motion opens and closes its blue and pink fingers "my
favorite colors."
When Faith quickly strapped on their new creation and headed out to ride, as TV cameras captured the
moment, the engineers who made the prosthetic admitted they were nervous. After being up all night finishing
the hand, they wanted to test it themselves to be sure it worked. But Faith was off on her bicycle before they
could make sure that the prosthetic worked well.
But when asked to demonstrate how she can use the hand to help with things like schoolwork, she got
busy. She placed her new hand firmly on a piece of paper, holding it in place as she drew a picture. And just
what did she draw? Her new hand of course, complete with robot fingers in perfect detail.
 GRADE 9
Listening comprehension test
1. Put down + if the statement is true, - if it is false (2 points each).
1. Faith has tried many different prosthetic arms.
2. Faith is now an adult.
3. The prosthetic replaces her right hand.
4. Faith was eager to ride her bicycle.
5. It takes many weeks to make a prosthetic hand on the 3-D printer.
6. 3-D printers can produce prosthetic limbs that are inexpensive and not heavy.
7. The arms produced for children use complex sensors.
8. As Faith grows up, new prosthetic arms can be made in the same way for her.
9. Adults also use these light prosthetics without sensors.
10. Faith’s prosthetic arm looks exactly like a real arm.

2. Choose the correct letter (a, b or c) – (2 points each)

1. The article describes how Faith Lennox 6. Professor Muller said that adult prosthetics
receives a. do not have sensors.
a. a mechanical bicycle b. are similar in price to prosthetics for
b. a mechanical arm. children.
c. a mechanical leg. c. weigh more than children’s prosthetics.

2. According to the article Faith did NOT 7. Faith can move her prosthetic hand
a. put the arm on herself. a. with sensors.
b. choose the design of the arm. b. by moving her arm.
c. produce the arm on the 3-D printer by herself. c. by remote control.

3. The prosthetics made by 3-D printers 8. Blue and pink

a. Are very expensive. a. are the standard colours of prosthetic arms.
b. Are very complicated and difficult to use. b. are Faith’s favourite colours.
c. Are made from the same materials as cars. c. are the colours of Faith’s bicycle.

4. What colours did Faith choose for her new 9. The engineers were rather nervous when
prosthetic hand? Faith went off on her bicycle because
a. Pink and purple. a. they hadn’t tried the hand to be sure it
b. Blue and red. worked well.
c. Pink and blue. b. they had had little sleep.
c. the arm wasn’t quite finished.

5. According to the article, Professor Mark 10. Faith showed the TV camera men how she
Muller could use her new hand for schoolwork by
a. participated in designing Faith’s prosthetic a. writing a story about her hand.
hand. b. drawing a picture of her school.
b. makes prosthetics for adults. c. drawing a picture of her prosthetic hand.
c. works at Colorado State University.
 GRADE 9
Reading Comprehension, test 1
The Origin of the Bar Code

Have you ever wondered how the bar code was invented? Joe Woodland, the man responsible, said it
sounded like a fairy tale: he had gotten the inspiration for what became the bar code while sitting on Miami
Beach. He drew it with his fingers in the sand. What he was looking for was a code of some sort that could be
printed on groceries and scanned so that supermarket checkout queues would move more quickly and
stocktaking would be simplified.
The idea for such technology came from a distraught supermarket manager who had pleaded with a dean
at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia to come up with some way of getting shoppers through his
store more quickly. The delays and the regular stocktaking were costing him his profits. The dean wasn’t
interested, but a junior postgraduate, Bernard "Bob" Silver, overheard the conversation and was interested. He
mentioned it to Woodland, who had been a fellow student. Woodland was already an inventor, and he decided
to take on the challenge.
So confident was he that he would come up with a solution to the supermarket dilemma that Woodland
left graduate school in the winter of 1948 to live in an apartment owned by his grandfather in Miami Beach. It
was in January 1949 that Woodland had his amazing idea, however, it would take many years for people to
recognize the brilliance of its simplicity and its far-reaching results for modern existence.
It was Morse Code that gave him the idea. Woodland had learned it when he was in the Boy Scouts. As
he was sitting in a beach chair and pondering the checkout dilemma, Morse came into his head:
I remember I was thinking about dots and dashes when I poked my four fingers into the sand and, for
whatever reason—I didn’t know—I pulled my hand toward me and I had four lines. I said “Golly! Now I have
four lines and they could be wide lines and narrow lines, instead of dots and dashes. Now I have a better chance
of finding the solution to this.”
Put down + if the statement is true, - if it is false (1 point each).
1. Joe Woodland invented the bar code.
2. The bar code would make shopping faster for customers.
3. The bar code was invented at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
4. Joe Woodland was a professor at Drexel University.
5. Joe’s grandfather worked at a supermarket in Miami Beach.
6. Joe thought about a friend named Morse Code while he was in Florida.
7. People understood immediately that the bar code system would improve many aspects of modern life.
8. Joe was sitting on the beach when he thought about different forms of codes.
9. Joe drew lines in the sand with a stick.
10. The bar code system is a modified use of dots and dashes.

Reading comprehension, test 2

Youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner stresses education By M. Lewis Associated Press December 15, 2014

Nobel Peace Prize winners Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India this week
stressed the importance of uniting people across borders and religions by educating children and freeing them
from poverty.
The 17-year-old Malala, who was shot in the head two years ago in Pakistan for insisting that girls have
as much right to education as boys, says it is "not only the right but the duty of children" to be educated.
Sitting beside Malala, the youngest Nobel winner ever, the 60-year-old Satyarthi told their news conference that
even if a single child is denied education "we cannot say we are enlightened."
The Nobel laureates, who shared the $1.1 million award, were praised for working to protect children from
slavery, extremism and child labor at great risk to their own lives. They repeated that the prize was not only for
them but for all the children of the world.

Grade 9 Reading Comprehension Page 1

 "It is very important for millions and millions of our children who are denied their childhood," Satyarthi
said. "There are children who are bought and sold like animals, who are made hostages ... who are made child
soldiers. This is an honor for them all."
Malala said she is disappointed that the prime ministers of their two rival nations had not accepted her
recommendation to attend the award ceremony in Oslo, Norway. December 10 is the anniversary of Alfred
Nobel's death in 1896.
"Countries do have borders. It doesn't mean that you should hate each other," she said. "If they were
here, I would have said to them to make education the priority together."
The visit by Malala and Satyarthi has drawn hundreds of people into the freezing streets of Oslo hoping
to get a glimpse of the laureates.
Martin Slotnes, a Norwegian living in Australia who was visiting the city with his wife and children,
said it was the first time he had taken an interest in the peace prize.
"Her story moves me," he said of Malala, after showing his sons the picture he snapped of her from
behind the barricade. "It was bitter cold, but it was worth it."
Choose the correct letter (a, b or c) – (1 point each)

1. According to the article, the two Nobel Prize winners say that education
a. helps people cross borders.
b. helps people be more successful in life.
c. helps people be religious.
2. How old was Malala when she was shot?
a. 14 years old
b. 17 years old
c. 15 years old
3. Why was Malala shot?
a. She claimed that children have a duty to be educated.
b. She claimed that children are right.
c. She claimed that girls and boys have the same right to be educated.
4. The other Nobel Prize winner, Kailash Satyarthi, is
a. from Pakistan.
b. the youngest Nobel Prize winner.
c. from India.
5. The two Nobel Prize winners were praised for
a. protecting children from exploitation.
b. denying children education.
c. working for child labor.
6. The Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan
a. came to see their citizens receive the Nobel Prize.
b. were not at the ceremony for the Nobel Peace Prize.
c. were disappointed that their citizens received the prize.
7. Each year, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded
a. by Alfred Nobel.
b. on Nobel’s birthday.
c. in Oslo, Norway.
8. Malala wished she could tell the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan
a. to unite their two countries.
b. to pay greater attention to education.
c. to love each other.

Grade 9 Reading Comprehension Page 2

9. People waited on the streets of Oslo
a. to see Alfred Nobel.
b. to see the winners of the Prize in Physics.
c. to see the women who shared the Peace Prize.
10. Martin Slotnes
a. has a lifetime interest in the Nobel Peace Prize.
b. is originally from Australia.
c. was especially interested in seeing the young winner.

Reading comprehension, test 3

Read the text below and choose the correct word (A, B, C or D) for each gap. - (1 point each)

Why Men’s and Women’s Clothes Button on Opposite Sides

Are the buttons on your shirt on the left side or on the right? _______(1) actually a pretty easy answer: if
you wear women’s clothing, the buttons are on the left side of the shirt. However, if you wear men’s shirts, the
buttons line up on the right side. This would _________(2) if all women were left-handed and all men were
right-handed, but because the majority of all people are right-handed, that’s clearly not the reason. So what’s the
reason?
Like many old customs, no one is really sure how the button-side decision came to dominate fashion
design. But ________(3) one of the more popular theories, it might have to do with how middle- and upper-
class European women used to dress, Caitlin Schneider writes for Mental Floss.
During historical periods like the Renaissance and the Victorian Era, women’s clothing was often much
more complicated and elaborate than men’s (think of the petticoats, corsets and bustles). But while rich men
often dressed_________(4), their female family members most likely had servants to help them put on their
clothes, both out of luxury and necessity. To make it easier for servants to button up their employer’s dresses
right, clothiers might have started sewing buttons on the opposite side. Eventually, as clothing ________(5)
more and more mass-produced, women’s clothes kept being made with the buttons of the left, and the design
became standard, Benjamin Radford wrote for Live Science in 2010.
That’s one explanation for why women’s clothes button on the left - but why would men’s clothes
always button on the right? Just as wealthy women needed servants to help them ________(6), men’s clothing
might have taken cues from military uniforms.
_________(7) male soldiers often drew their weapons with their right hand, building their clothes with
the buttons on the right side would have made it a lot easier to adjust and unbutton with their free left hand,
Garber writes. But these are far from the only theories that seek ________(8) this question. Others include the
fact that many women breastfeed _______(9) holding their baby in their left arm, or that Napoleon mass-
produced clothing that was intentionally ___________(10) women to put on. Historians may never know
exactly how women’s buttons ended up on the left, but regardless of its origin, this design is now just another
fashion custom.

1 A Theirs B They’re C There’s D There are

2 A be sense B have sense C give sense D make sense
3 A according to B accorded with C in accordance with D according with
4 A himself B themself C himselves D themselves
5 A have become B were become C became D had becoming
6 A be dressing B dressed C got dressed D get dressed
7 A Because B However C From D When
8 A to ask B to reason C to answer D to wonder
9 A while B for C so D during
10 A difficult to B difficult with C difficult by D difficult for

Grade 9 Reading Comprehension Page 3

 GRADE 9
Writing Comprehension
(In this test you will select from three writing tasks. Choose the one that you feel you are most capable to write
about.)

1. Some wild animals spend most of their lives in captivity, either in zoos or in circuses. Why do people keep
animals in such situations? How do people benefit from these animals? What about the animals; are there any
advantages for them to be in captivity? Describe the benefits and the disadvantages for the animals.

2. What would be the best job in the world for you? Describe why you would like this job. What would be your
responsibilities? Why are you well-suited to this career?

3. What kind of clothes do you wear when you go out? Do you like to follow trends? What are your favourite
clothes? Are they in fashion?