Getcha Word Up

My family has always been into attending sporting events. In fact, many of our family summer vacations have been centered around our love for watching games up close and personal. Last summer it was my brother’s turn to pick the event and he chose the World Hot Dog Eating Championship held in Coney Island!

Which of the following vacations would the narrator and her family most likely take?

• a resort vacation at a beach in the Caribbean

• a week-long hike along the Grand Canyon

• a trip to Hawaii to see a surfing competition

• a safari in South Africa to see the elephants

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CCSS.L.6.6

CCSS.L.7.6

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I really didn’t know what to expect when we first arrived at Coney Island. I quickly learned that the sport was very popular and Coney Island was a really cool place to host the event. When we first arrived, the sponsors of the event were very accommodating. They had bleachers set up that we could sit in and the stationary stage was easy to see. On the stage, there was a very long table set up with mounds of hot dogs piled on it. I couldn’t believe my eyes! “All of those hot dogs would be eaten today?” I thought to myself. It looked like there were enough to feed an elephant for a week, if elephants ate hot dogs.

The event sponsors most likely

• wanted to make the visitors as comfortable as possible.

• tried to make everyone watching the event stand in the hot sun.

• planned to throw mounds of hot dogs at the people in the crowd.

• didn’t want people to see the stage at all.

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It wasn’t long before the contestants entered the outdoor arena and made their way onto the stage. They were ________ to one another and many of them shook hands. Most of them were middle-aged, overweight guys, but one of them was a skinny, young Japanese guy. I learned from my brother that his name was Takeru Kobayashi, and he was the returning champion. Then the announcer introduced each of the contestants by name and explained that they were all trained professionals. He explained that no one should ever try a stunt like this at home, that it was more dangerous than most people think. Finally, after a countdown, the contestants started to eat.

Choose the word that best fills in the blank.

• arid

• cordial

• compact

• vital

The contestants had twelve minutes to try and eat as many hot dogs as they could, and boy, were they eating them fast! The hot dog buns must have made the contestants’ mouths really dry too, because they sure drank a lot of water in between dogs. I think the water probably helped soothe their throats. Five minutes into the event, I couldn’t believe how many hot dogs had been swallowed, but the contestants kept going. Their pace started to slow down a bit, but as the clock started winding down, the race was still close. The announcer came over the loudspeaker again and conducted another countdown: “5, 4, 3, 2, 1…….game over!”

Why did the narrator think the contestants drank so much water?

• The more water contestants drank, the less full they felt from the hot dogs.

• The more water contestants drank, the higher their score for the competition.

• The water made eating the hot dog buns easier on the contestants’ throats.

• The water helped the contestants cool down under the hot, bright sun.

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It was close, but there was a clear-cut winner–the champion, Takeru Kobayashi. Even though he was the smallest, he ate far more than the other contestants. In twelve minutes he had eaten fifty-three hot dogs. The crowd started going crazy, chanting Kobayashi’s name, and photographers swarmed the stage as the announcer ________ Kobayashi the winner. Kobayashi looked very happy, but at the same time, he looked a little sick from eating so much so fast. Many people stormed up onto the stage to commend him, but I had no desire to do so. Would you want to be that close to someone if they got sick and started to throw up fifty-three hot dogs? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Choose the word that best fills in the blank.

• plummeted

• transported

• accommodated

• declared

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CCSS.RI.5.4

CCSS.W.5.2D

CCSS.W.6.2D

CCSS.W.7.2D