Comprehension Practice - Grade 9 HL

Read the text and answer the questions that follow.

Ghost Stories Haunt Pike Place Market – by Stuart Eskenazi

1. At Pike Place Market, you are never alone. Even when you are by
yourself.

2. Karen McAleese swears to it. On All Saints’ Day a few years ago,
she is convinced she saw someone – something – saunter out of the
kitchen at Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub, her family’s place. "He was
tall and looked part black, with a suit jacket on,” Karen says. “He had
very thin hands. He walked right up to the end of the bar and then
he just kind of faded.” She was terrified. She is pale as a ghost as she
thinks back on the memory.

3. Nina Menon, the co-owner of Bead Zone in the Market’s Down Under,
doubts no more. She was in her shop on a rather tense phone call
when strands of red beads hanging on the wall came crashing to the
ground. “I was extremely sceptical, but seeing was believing,” Nina
says. “It just wasn’t possible that those beads could have just slid off.”

4. When people say Pike Place Market is full of spirits, they cannot begin
to imagine how true that may be. We mere mortals may not be the
only things lurking in the market’s nooks and crannies. For starters,
there’s Frank, a tall and elderly ghost who allegedly introduces
himself by name outside the Alibi Room, a club off Post Alley. Then
there was the time an overpowering scent of old-lady perfume filled
the back office of the Market Theatre, sending an employee – alone
inside – bolting out the front door.

5. Still not a believer? Then let’s gather round for a Pike Place Market
ghost story – the scariest, creepiest, and most hair-raising of them
all. Mwahahaha!
We call it: PHANTOMS OF THE MORTUARY.

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 Comprehension Practice - Grade 9 HL

6. Edgar R. Butterworth collected buffalo bones. He tended to the dead

and owned a small furniture store in Centralia. During a Diphtheria
epidemic, he added ready-made coffins to his furniture line.

7. In 1892, the former Centralia mayor and state legislator relocated

to Seattle and bought out a downtown undertaking business. As
Seattle expanded, so did his business. In need of a bigger facility, he
commissioned the building of a three-storey brick structure at 1921
First Avenue.

8. The building opened in 1903 – four years before Pike Place Market
started – two blocks away. It was beautifully furnished in stained
mahogany, art glass, ornamental plaster, and specially designed
brass and bronze hardware. He moved out in 1923.

9. Since then, other businesses have moved in such as Kells, the Irish
pub that has operated successfully in the basement for the past
twenty-five years. Its entrance is reached from Post Alley, not First.
Irishman Patrick McAleese, the six-foot-six owner of Kells, says that
the business occupies the former embalming room and crematorium
(which could explain the bone-thin ghost that his sister Karen reports
seeing at the bar).

10. When Patrick and Karen were teenagers and their parents owned
Kells, a wall mirror in the back bar – which was closed at the time –
fell to the floor and shattered into pieces. “But in a neat little pile,”
Karen adds.

11. When the family ran back to see what had happened, a single candle
on the bar had been inexplicably lit and was burning. “You think
someone must be pulling your leg,” Patrick says, “but then you don’t
see anyone.”
(Adapted from The Seattle Times, Monday, 25 June 2007).

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 Comprehension Questions
A paradox is a self-contradictory statement that may be true; an
opinion that conflicts with common beliefs; something with seeming
contradictory qualities or phases.

1. Explain the paradox in the opening paragraph.

(2)

2. Refer to paragraphs 2 and 3. What do Nina Menon and Karen McAleese

have in common? Explain your answer.
(3)

3. Explain the following idiomatic expression: “pale as a ghost” (paragraph

2).
(1)

4. What is the journalist implying by adding “something” after the dash in

paragraph 2?
(2)

5. Explain what the writer’s use of “Mwahahaha” implies (paragraph 5).

(2)

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 Comprehension Questions

6. How do you think you would have reacted if you had witnessed what
Karen McAleese encountered? Motivate your answer.

(2)

7. Finally, the journalist relates what he calls the scariest ghost story.
Re-tell it briefly in your own words.

(2)

8.1. Discuss the literal and figurative meaning of the journalist’s use of
the words “full of spirit” in the article.
(2)

8.2. How do you think this fits into the article as a whole?
(2)

9. Add a prefix to the following words to give them opposite meanings:

9.1. earthly (1)

9.2. Believing (1)

TOTAL: /20

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 Comprehension Answers
1. It is a contradiction to say that a person is never alone, even when no (2)
one else is with them.

2. Both have had experiences with ghosts. Karen saw a figure that vanished (3)
in the bar, and Nina saw beads fall that could not possibly have slipped
off by themselves.

3. Very pale (1)

4. The journalist implies that it was not a person (someone) but a ghost (2)
(something). The dash shows the journalist’s shift in thought.

5. It is an imitation of a well-known, scary, diabolical laugh that is (2)

typical of the villain in old horror stories. It implies that we are going
to read a scary story.

6. Accept a unique, well-motivated response. (2)

7. The story is told by the owner of the pub. They heard a terrible crash (2)
and found that a mirror had fallen off the wall and broken into pieces
– a neat pile – and there was a lit candle standing on the bar. The bar
had been empty and closed at the time of the incident.

8.1. Figurative: usually means enthusiastic/eager; here it is Literal: meaning (2)

full of ghosts.

8.2. The literal meaning has to do with ghosts. The implied meaning is (2)
that when people say the market is “full of spirits”, they mean it has
a lively atmosphere – they do not realise it is literally full of ghosts.

9. Add a prefix to the following words to give them opposite meanings:

9.1. unearthly (1)

9.2. disbelieving (1)

TOTAL: /20
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