9.25 Range and Text Complexity Worksheet

A literary nonfiction essay about “borders” begins with the author waiting at an airport checkpoint, watching trays slide along the conveyor. She notes how the same gesture—placing a bag on a belt—can feel routine for some travelers and like a test for others. The essay then broadens: borders exist not only at countries but in neighborhoods, in language, and in paperwork. The author describes a friend who speaks flawlessly yet is asked “Where are you really from?” and a cousin whose diploma does not “count” in a new country. By the final paragraph, the author argues that borders are less about geography than about permission: who must prove themselves, how often, and to whom. “The border,” she writes, “moves toward the person who expects to pass.”

A philosopher of science writes about “explanations that flatter.” She argues that humans prefer stories in which outcomes were predictable, because predictability feels like control. After a sports upset, analysts claim the signs were always there; after a market crash, commentators say it was inevitable. The philosopher does not deny that patterns exist; she criticizes the confidence that arrives after the fact. She proposes practicing “epistemic humility”: admitting what could have happened differently and what we did not know at the time. “A good explanation,” she writes, “should leave room for surprise.”

A historian of technology studies early telephone switchboards and argues that the “human network” mattered as much as wires. Operators—mostly women—learned to recognize callers’ voices, anticipate who was likely calling whom, and route messages quickly. In emergencies, operators sometimes broke formal rules to connect a doctor faster. Yet company manuals insisted operators were interchangeable, emphasizing obedience over judgment. The historian calls this contradiction “the invisibility of skilled care”: work that functions precisely because it seems effortless, and is therefore undervalued.