The Last Edition: Reading Comprehension Worksheet (Grade 8)
Free printable Grade 8 reading comprehension worksheet: an original fiction passage, "The Last Edition", with 6 questions covering literal understanding, inference, vocabulary in context and main idea. Answer key included.
Reading Comprehension: The Last Edition
Read the passage carefully, then answer the questions in full sentences.
The centenary edition of the Bellweather school newspaper was supposed to be easy. Noor had already designed the gold masthead and assigned cheerful articles about one hundred years of assemblies, sports days and terrible cafeteria lunches. Then an unsigned envelope appeared beneath the newsroom door.
Inside was a photocopy of a council register. It listed Bellweather School as opening in 1924—not 1926, the date carved above the main entrance. Across the bottom, someone had written, Ask what happened to the missing two years.
Noor and deputy editor Caleb searched the digital archive. Every official school history began in 1926. The local library, however, held two water-damaged attendance books from 1924 and 1925. They showed that forty-three students had attended classes in a converted wool store while the permanent building was being constructed. A flood later destroyed most records from the temporary school, and over time the building's opening date had replaced the school's actual beginning.
The principal read their evidence in silence. Banners had been printed, former students invited and a centenary cake ordered. Publishing the discovery now, she warned, would confuse families and embarrass the organising committee. She did not forbid the article. That made the decision harder.
Caleb suggested waiting until after the celebration. Noor imagined the correction appearing in a quiet later issue, technically accurate and almost unseen. The newspaper's first responsibility, she decided, was not to protect a convenient story simply because it had become expensive.
They rebuilt the front page. The gold masthead stayed, but the headline became THE 102-YEAR-OLD SCHOOL. Their article did not accuse anyone of lying. It showed how missing records, a memorable stone date and years of repetition had turned a mistake into accepted history.
On celebration morning, the principal cut the cake beneath a hastily altered banner. In her speech, she thanked the newspaper for returning two forgotten years—and forty-three students—to the school's story.
- 1.What evidence contradicted the date above Bellweather's entrance?
- 2.How did 1926 become accepted as the school's starting date?
- 3.Why was the principal's response more complicated than a direct order not to publish?
- 4.What competing responsibilities do Noor and Caleb weigh?
- 5.Why does Noor reject publishing the correction after the celebration?
- 6.How does the altered celebration support the story's central idea?