Name: Date:

“The Nuclear Tourist”

George Johnson

FIRST READ: Comprehension

Identify the choice that best answers the question.

1. According to “The Nuclear Tourist,” why do some people come back to the
Chernobyl area to live?
a. They want to return home despite the danger.
b. They find the possibility of danger to be a thrill.
c. They want to live in an area with few other people.
d. They don’t believe the radiation levels can harm them.

2. According to “The Nuclear Tourist,” how did the residents of Pripyat react at
first to the meltdown at Chernobyl?
a. by rushing to the site
b. by carrying on as usual
c. by quickly leaving the area
d. by building a containment structure

3. What does “The Nuclear Tourist” suggest is the part of Chernobyl that has been
most affected by the nuclear accident and its aftermath?
a. the outdoor air
b. the flora and fauna
c. the earth that was once topsoil
d. the atmosphere high above the area

4. What is the main reason that so many buildings described in “The Nuclear
Tourist,” such as the school and hospital, are crumbling and run-down?
a. No one has taken care of them for years.
b. Radiation in the area has damaged them.
c. Looters caused harm while removing valuable parts.
d. They were bulldozed soon after the nuclear accident.

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 GRADE 9 • UNIT 6 • SELECTION TEST
“THE NUCLEAR TOURIST” BY GEORGE JOHNSON

Name: Date:

5. In “The Nuclear Tourist,” what reasons do other tourists give the author for
visiting the Chernobyl area? Choose three options.
a. an interest in nuclear energy
b. a desire to remember the people who died
c. enjoyment of dangerous or edgy vacations
d. wanting to record video for a documentary
e. a deep concern for the people who live there
f. the surprising beauty of the forests and rivers
g. being drawn to abandoned and decayed places

FIRST READ: Concept Vocabulary

Identify the choice that best answers the question.

6. Which of the following is an example of a macabre movie?

a. a horror movie about violence and death
b. a sad movie about romantic love and loss
c. an exciting movie with car chases and explosions
d. a detective movie with suspense and a plot twist

7. What does the word eerily mean in the following sentence?

The empty streets were eerily calm as residents prepared for the approaching
storm.

a. in a bright or cheerful way

b. in a noisy or disruptive way
c. in a weird or frightening way
d. in a common or ordinary way

8. What is the most likely meaning of specter in the following sentence?

Even with plenty of food, the villagers’ days were marked by the specter of hunger
when they learned next season’s crops might be affected by the lack of rain.

a. a terrible memory
b. a source of dread
c. a physical pain
d. a bad dream

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 GRADE 9 • UNIT 6 • SELECTION TEST
“THE NUCLEAR TOURIST” BY GEORGE JOHNSON

Name: Date:

CLOSE READ: Analyze the Text

Identify the choice that best answers the question.

9. The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.

Part A According to “The Nuclear Tourist,” how has the world’s view of
splitting the atom changed since it first occurred?
a. from enthusiasm to fear
b. from insecurity to confidence
c. from excitement to anger
d. from nervousness to appreciation

Part B Which quotation from “The Nuclear Tourist” best supports the answer
to Part A?
a. They say that five sieverts of radiation is enough to kill you, so I was
curious to see the reading on my Russian-made dosimeter as our tour van
passed into … the vast, quarantined wilderness that surrounds Chernobyl.
b. Inevitably it was first used in warfare, but after Hiroshima and Nagasaki
a grand effort began to provide electricity “too cheap to meter,” freeing
the world from its dependence on fossil fuels.
c. More than half a century later the swirling symbol of the atom, once the
emblem of progress and the triumph of technology, has become a
bewitching death’s-head, associated in people’s minds with destruction
and Cold War fear.
d. [W]e were becoming almost cavalier about the exposure risk.… [O]ur
guide, hurrying us along, exclaimed, “Oh, over here is a high-radiation
spot! Let’s go see!”

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 GRADE 9 • UNIT 6 • SELECTION TEST
“THE NUCLEAR TOURIST” BY GEORGE JOHNSON

NAME: Date:

10. The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.

Part A Why does the author of “The Nuclear Tourist” come to feel at ease
about his exposure risk while in the Chernobyl area?
a. He thinks the benefits outweigh the danger.
b. No one has been harmed by being in the area.
c. Most measurements he has taken have been quite low.
d. He has become used to the danger of radiation exposure.

Part B Which excerpt from “The Nuclear Tourist” best supports the answer to
Part A?
a. Scientists studying Chernobyl remain divided over the long-term effects of
the radiation on the flora and fauna.
b. And that [nuclear tourism] is what drew me, along with the wonder of
seeing towns and a whole city … left to the devices of nature.
c. [Her hair] reminded me of radioactivity. This was her third time at
Chernobyl ….
d. The radiation levels in my room were no greater than what I’ve measured
back home.

11. A reader of “The Nuclear Tourist” can conclude that unless levels are
extremely high, radiation’s negative effects on people can take a while to show
up. Which detail from the text best supports this idea?
a. It is not possible to see radiation, but instead one must test for it using a
dosimeter.
b. Nearly 200 villagers were evacuated, and many dogs were shot after the
disaster.
c. People who consumed irradiated food as children later developed thyroid
cancer.
d. People who lived near the explosion were told they could return in three
to five days.

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 GRADE 9 • UNIT 6 • SELECTION TEST
“THE NUCLEAR TOURIST” BY GEORGE JOHNSON

Name: Date:

CLOSE READ: Analyze Craft and Structure

Identify the choice that best answers the question.

12. Which of the following statements from “The Nuclear Tourist” is an example
of the author’s personal observation?
a. In 2011, Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst catastrophe at a nuclear
power plant, was officially declared a tourist attraction.
b. The asphalt roof of the plant began burning, and … so did the graphite
blocks that made up the reactor’s core. A plume of smoke and radioactive
debris rose high into the atmosphere and began bearing north toward
Belarus and Scandinavia.
c. After the accident a concrete and steel structure—the sarcophagus—was
hastily erected to contain the damaged reactor.
d. As the sarcophagus crumbled and leaked, work began on what has been
optimistically named the New Safe Confinement…. Everything about
this place seems like science fiction.

13. The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.

Part A Which sentence best describes how the author of “The Nuclear Tourist”
feels about the lack of safety precautions during the trip?
a. He is worried that he will be exposed to too much radiation.
b. He is alarmed and plans to report his concerns after the trip.
c. He is mostly calm but wishes there had been a few more rules.
d. He is pleased that he is not restricted from visiting dangerous places.

Part B Which excerpt from the passage supports your answer to Part A?
a. Our tour group walked along the edge of a bone-dry public swimming
pool, its high dive and racing clock still intact ….
b. We visited the ruins of the Palace of Culture, imagining it alive with music
and laughter, and the small amusement park with its big yellow Ferris
wheel.
c. Jimmied doors opened onto gaping elevator shafts. I kept thinking how
unlikely a tour like this would be in the United States. It was refreshing
really. We were not even wearing hard hats.
d. From the rooftop we looked out at what had once been grand, landscaped
avenues and parks—all overgrown now. Pripyat, once hailed as a model
Soviet city, a worker’s paradise, is slowly being reabsorbed by the earth.

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 GRADE 9 • UNIT 6 • SELECTION TEST
“THE NUCLEAR TOURIST” BY GEORGE JOHNSON

Name: Date:

14. Read this passage from “The Nuclear Tourist.”

A few minutes later we reached Zalesye, an old farming village, and wandered
among empty houses. … On the floor of one home a discarded picture of Lenin—
pointy beard, jutting chin—stared sternly at nothing, and hanging by a cord on a
bedroom wall was a child’s doll. It had been suspended by the neck as if with an
executioner’s noose.

What does the descriptive and figurative language in the passage help readers
imagine?
a. the differences in the village before and after the accident
b. the leftover destruction many years after the accident
c. the sweetness and ordinariness of life before the accident
d. the chaos and violence at the time the accident occurred

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: Word Study

Identify the choice that best answers the question.

15. What is the meaning of the Latin root -spec-?

a. to sit
b. to look
c. to lean
d. to travel

16. The word retrospective includes the Latin root -spec- and the prefix retro-,
which means “backward, or behind.” Based on this information, what is the
meaning of the word retrospective?
a. traveling back to the beginning
b. sitting at the back of a room
c. looking back at past events
d. leaning backward

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 GRADE 9 • UNIT 6 • SELECTION TEST
“THE NUCLEAR TOURIST” BY GEORGE JOHNSON

Name: Date:

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: Author’s Style

Identify the choice that best answers the question.

17. At the beginning of “The Nuclear Tourist,” the author explains that it takes
around five sieverts of radiation to kill a person. How does this information
help the reader?
a. It allows the reader to estimate how much radiation the author is exposed
to on his trip.
b. It gives the reader information to help understand the radiation
measurements throughout the article.
c. It gives the reader an understanding of how quickly people get can sick
after being exposed to tiny amounts of radiation.
d. It lets the reader know how many people probably died as a result of
radiation from the accident and how many died from other causes.

18. Read this passage from “The Nuclear Tourist.”

Throughout the night firefighters and rescue crews confronted the immediate
dangers—flames, smoke, burning chunks of graphite. What they couldn’t see or feel
—until hours or days later when the sickness set in—were the invisible poisons.
Isotopes of cesium, iodine, strontium, plutonium. The exposures they received
totaled as much as 16 sieverts—not micro or milli but whole sieverts, vastly more
radiation than a body can bear.

How do the technical terms in this passage help the reader understand the
passage?
a. They explain why the firefighters and rescue crews were not able to put
out the fires.
b. They explain exactly how much radiation a person can be exposed to
before he or she gets ill.
c. They describe the high amounts of radiation the firefighters and rescue
crews were unknowingly exposed to.
d. They describe the different effect of each type of radioactive element on
the bodies of the firefighters and rescue crews.

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 GRADE 9 • UNIT 6 • SELECTION TEST
“THE NUCLEAR TOURIST” BY GEORGE JOHNSON

Name: Date:

19. Read this passage from “The Nuclear Tourist.”

Mounted over the door of an old science class was an educational poster illustrating
the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. Heat to visible light to x-rays and gamma
rays—the kind that break molecular bonds and mutate DNA. How abstract that must
have seemed to the schoolkids before the evacuation began.

DNA mutations, or changes, can cause illnesses such as cancer. Given this
information, what is the most likely purpose of the scientific language in this
passage?
a. to explain why no students were able to survive the evacuation
b. to help readers imagine the ghostly scene in the science classroom
c. to show how the poster is another reminder of the accident’s terrible
effects
d. to point out that the science class was part of an old medical school and
hospital

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