Topic Quiz: Reading Comprehension

(1) Every spring at Lakeview High School, where I have worked as a counselor for fourteen years, we hold a college signing day. Seniors stand on the gym stage in sweatshirts from the schools they will attend, and the crowd cheers. It is a wonderful tradition. But every year I notice who is not on that stage: the students who have accepted paid apprenticeships as electricians, machinists, medical assistants and welders. They have made a plan for their future that is every bit as serious, yet we act as if they have made no plan at all.

(2) That silence sends a message, and students hear it. Over the years, many of my students have told me they were interested in a trade but worried that their parents or friends would see it as "settling." Some of them enrolled in college programs they had little interest in, took on loans and left after a semester or two. Others chose the trade anyway but felt they had to apologize for it.

(3) The truth is that apprenticeships are not a lesser path. In a typical apprenticeship, a person works for an employer, earns a paycheck from the first day and takes classes at the same time. Wages usually rise as skills grow. At the end, the apprentice holds a recognized credential and, in many cases, a job offer. For students who learn best by doing, this combination of work and study can be a far better fit than four more years in a classroom.

(4) Some parents worry that a trade will limit their child's choices later. It is a fair concern, but it misunderstands how careers work today. Many electricians and machinists go on to become supervisors, inspectors or business owners. Some later earn college degrees, often with their employer's help. Choosing an apprenticeship at eighteen does not close a door; it opens one that many students never knew was there.

(5) None of this means college is a bad choice. For many students it is exactly the right one. My point is simpler: we should treat every serious plan with the same respect. Schools can do this without spending much money. Invite apprentices to walk across the stage on signing day. Bring local employers and union training programs to career fairs alongside colleges. Teach students and parents how apprenticeships work, just as we teach them how to fill out a financial aid form.

(6) Our students are watching what we celebrate. If we want them to choose the path that fits them best, we have to show them that more than one path is worth cheering for.

(1) In the fall of last year, a white refrigerator appeared on the sidewalk outside the Alder Street Laundromat in the town of Westfield. A hand-painted sign on the door read Take what you need. Leave what you can. Within a week, the shelves held bread, apples, cartons of milk and plastic containers of homemade soup.

(2) The fridge was the idea of Carla Mendes, who owns the laundromat, and two of her regular customers. Community fridges like this one have appeared in many cities in recent years. The idea is simple: anyone may drop off food, and anyone may take it, with no forms, no questions and no hours. Supporters say this removes the embarrassment some people feel about asking for help.

(3) Keeping the fridge running turned out to be more work than its founders expected. Someone had to clean it every day, throw out spoiled food and check the temperature. Volunteers posted a list of rules: no raw meat, no opened packages, and every homemade item labeled with the date it was made. Mendes pays for the electricity herself, about fifteen dollars a month.

(4) Not everyone in Westfield welcomed the fridge at first. A few nearby business owners worried that it would attract litter or crowds. The town's health department also raised questions about food safety. Mendes met with both groups. The volunteers agreed to keep a cleaning log on the side of the fridge and to remove anything past its date. After two months without problems, the health department said it would not object as long as the log was kept up.

(5) Today, about thirty volunteers take turns caring for the fridge. A local bakery drops off unsold loaves every evening, and a farm stand brings leftover vegetables on Saturdays. Volunteers estimate that dozens of people use the fridge each day, though no one keeps an exact count; not counting is part of the point.

(6) The fridge has limits. It cannot replace the town food pantry, which offers larger amounts of food and connects families with other services. On some days, the shelves are empty by noon. Still, many neighbors say it fills a gap. One volunteer, a retired school bus driver, put it this way: the pantry helps you plan for the month, but the fridge helps you get through today.

MEMO

To: All Staff, Brightwater Foods Distribution Center From: Dana Okafor, Human Resources Manager Date: October 1 Subject: Choosing Your Health Plan for Next Year

(1) Open enrollment for next year's health coverage runs from October 15 through November 5. This year, you will choose between two plans: the Standard Plan and the Saver Plan. Please read this memo carefully, because if you do not make a choice, you will be placed in the Saver Plan automatically.

(2) Both plans use the same network of doctors and hospitals, and both cover preventive care, such as yearly checkups and flu shots, at no cost to you. In other words, you will not need to change doctors no matter which plan you pick.

(3) The plans differ mainly in how you pay. The Standard Plan has a higher paycheck deduction ($48 per pay period for individual coverage) but a low deductible of $500. A deductible is the amount you pay for care each year before the plan begins to share the costs. The Saver Plan, by contrast, costs only $18 per pay period, but its deductible is $2,500.

(4) Which plan is better depends on how often you expect to need care. Employees who rarely visit a doctor may save money with the Saver Plan's lower deductions. On the other hand, employees who manage an ongoing condition, take regular prescriptions, or expect a planned surgery may find that the Standard Plan costs less over the full year.

(5) To enroll, follow these steps. First, log in to the employee portal using your badge number. Next, review the cost calculator, which estimates your yearly total under each plan. Then select a plan and add any dependents. Finally, print or save the confirmation page; you will need it if any questions come up later.

(6) HR will hold two information sessions in the break room on October 17: one at 7:00 a.m. for first shift and one at 3:30 p.m. for second shift. Bring your questions. Choosing carefully now can save you hundreds of dollars next year.

(1) Everyone knows health inspectors are the enemy. At least, that is what I believed the Tuesday morning Ms. Albright walked into my father's diner, the Blue Kettle, with her clipboard and her sensible shoes.

(2) I had been working the register after school for two years, long enough to know the stories. Mr. Petrakis down the street said an inspector once fined him for a single fingerprint on a cooler door. My father's friend Lou swore they had a quota to fill. So when Ms. Albright asked to see the kitchen, I followed her, ready to defend our honor.

(3) She opened the walk-in refrigerator and checked the thermometer. She wrote something down. She checked again. "Forty-four degrees," she said. "It needs to stay at forty-one or below."

(4) There it was. I looked at my father, expecting him to argue. Instead he just nodded slowly, wiping his hands on his apron. "The door seal," he said. "I have been meaning to replace it."

(5) I waited for the fine, the lecture, the closing notice taped to our window. Ms. Albright crouched by the refrigerator door and ran her finger along the rubber seal. "This brand cracks at the corners," she said. "There's a supplier on Fifth Street that sells a better one for about forty dollars. Move the dairy and the chicken to your reach-in cooler until it's fixed, and I'll come back Friday to recheck."

(6) Then she did something I did not expect. She stopped in front of the handwritten sign my father had taped above the sink years ago: WASH LIKE YOUR MOTHER IS WATCHING. She laughed out loud. "My parents ran a bakery for thirty years," she said. "My mother would have loved this."

(7) After she left, I told my father she had been lucky we didn't complain about her. He gave me a long look. "Mei," he said, "she found a problem that could have made somebody sick. Then she told me how to fix it for forty dollars. Who do you think she is protecting?"

(8) I didn't answer. I was thinking about the stories from Mr. Petrakis and Lou, and about how neither of them had ever mentioned what the inspector actually found.

(9) On Friday, I made sure the new seal was in before she arrived. When she checked the thermometer, it read thirty-eight. She smiled at me, and this time, I smiled back.

Cedar Valley Manufacturing, Paid Time Off (PTO) Policy

(1) Purpose. Cedar Valley Manufacturing provides paid time off (PTO) so employees can rest, handle personal matters, and recover from illness while still receiving pay. PTO combines vacation and sick time into one account.

(2) Who is eligible. All full-time employees (scheduled for 32 or more hours per week) earn PTO starting on their first day. Part-time employees scheduled for 20 to 31 hours per week earn PTO at half the full-time rate. Temporary and seasonal workers do not earn PTO.

(3) How PTO is earned. Full-time employees earn 4 hours of PTO for each two-week pay period, or 104 hours per year. After five years of service, the rate increases to 6 hours per pay period. New employees may not use PTO until they have completed 90 days of employment, but the hours they earn during that time are saved in their accounts.

(4) Requesting PTO. Planned PTO, such as a vacation, must be requested through the employee portal at least two weeks in advance. Requests are approved in the order they are received. During our busy season, from November 1 through December 31, no more than two employees per department may be off on the same day. Unplanned PTO for illness or emergencies must be reported to your supervisor at least one hour before your shift begins, when possible.

(5) Carryover. Employees may carry up to 40 unused PTO hours into the next year. Any hours over 40 that are unused on December 31 are lost. This rule encourages employees to take time away from work each year.

(6) Leaving the company. Employees who leave Cedar Valley with at least two weeks' notice will be paid for their unused PTO hours. Employees who leave without notice, or who are dismissed for misconduct, will not be paid for unused hours.

Text 1

From a report by the director of the Oakdale Parks Department, a fictional city agency

(1) Oakdale's four grass soccer fields at Riverside Park are among the busiest in the county, and they are wearing out. Last year, the fields were closed an average of 38 days because of rain and mud, forcing youth leagues to cancel games and squeeze practices into the remaining days.

(2) I recommend replacing two of the four fields with modern artificial turf. Turf drains quickly and can be used in almost any weather, so the department could schedule about three times as many hours of play on each field. Installing turf on two fields would cost about $1.8 million. In return, the department would save about $45,000 a year in mowing, watering, and fertilizer, and about 2 million gallons of water each summer.

(3) Parents often ask whether turf is safe. A review of injury studies published by the National Youth Sports Safety Board, a fictional organization, found that overall injury rates on modern turf and on grass were similar. Players on turf had somewhat more skin scrapes, often called "turf burns," while players on muddy grass had somewhat more ankle sprains. Based on this review, turf is just as safe as grass.

(4) With turf, Oakdale's young athletes can spend their seasons playing instead of waiting for fields to dry.

Text 2

A letter to the Oakdale City Council from a resident who works as a pediatric nurse

(5) I share the frustration of every parent who has driven to Riverside Park only to find a "Field Closed" sign. The fields are closed far too often. But artificial turf is the wrong fix.

(6) First, turf gets hot. Last July, on an 86-degree afternoon, a teacher at Lincoln Middle School measured the surface of the school's turf field at 141 degrees. The grass field next to it measured 92 degrees. Children playing on surfaces that hot are at risk of burns and heat illness.

(7) Second, the parks director says turf is "just as safe," but the review he cites tells a more complicated story. Yes, overall injury rates were similar. But the review also found more skin scrapes on turf, and in my work I treat scrapes that become infected. The review's authors also noted that most of the studies involved high school and college athletes, not the young children who use Riverside Park most.

(8) Third, turf does not last forever. Most turf fields must be replaced every eight to ten years, at a cost of about $600,000 per field, and the old turf usually ends up in a landfill.

(9) There is a better option. A drainage consultant hired by the city last year estimated that rebuilding the drainage under all four grass fields would cost about $400,000 and would sharply reduce the number of days the fields are closed. Let's fix the fields we have.

(1) By the third week of August, the creek that ran along the east edge of the Whitaker farm had shrunk to a string of muddy puddles. Tom Whitaker walked down to it every morning anyway, as if checking on it might bring the water back. The corn on the upper field had already curled and paled. The beans were holding on, but only just.

(2) His daughter, Jess, had come home from the city in June, saying it was for the summer. She had a job lined up in an office downtown starting in September, and she talked about it at dinner more than Tom wanted to hear. He did not argue. He had decided long ago that she would not want this life, and that it was better not to ask her to.

(3) Jess, for her part, had expected to be bored. Instead she found herself up at five most mornings, reading about irrigation on her phone while the coffee brewed. She noticed things her father had stopped noticing: the old pond behind the barn that had silted in, the rain barrels stacked and unused by the shed, the way water from the barn roof poured straight into the gravel and disappeared.

(4) One night in late August, at the kitchen table, she spread out a sheet of notebook paper covered in sketches. "If we clean out the pond and run gutters from the barn into it, we could catch most of the rain that falls on the roof," she said. "Next summer, that's water for the beans."

(5) Tom looked at the drawings for a long time. He wanted to say that he had thought of the pond years ago, that there had never been money or time or anyone to help. Instead he heard himself ask, "How much gutter would it take?"

(6) They spent the first two weeks of September doing the work together. Jess rented a small excavator with money she had saved for a city apartment deposit. Tom showed her how to grade the pond's edge so it would not wash out. They argued about angles, and once about whether the downspout should go left or right of the door, and then they laughed about arguing.

(7) On September 16 — the day Jess's office job was supposed to start — the first real rain in seven weeks moved across the county. They stood together in the barn doorway and watched water run off the roof, through the new gutters and down into the pond, where it spread in widening brown rings.

(8) Jess had called the office the week before. She told her father only that evening, while they were washing the mud off their boots. Tom did not say anything for a while. Then he said, "Your grandmother dug that pond, you know." It was the first time in years he had told her anything about the farm's past. She understood it was his way of saying he was glad she had stayed.