No Dream Too High: Simone Biles

Which of these inferences about Simone Biles is best revealed by the passage below (from the first paragraph)?

Biles smiled from ear to ear, revealing her braces.

• A. Simone Biles is upbeat and easy to like.

• B. Biles is young for the amount of experience and success she's had.

• C. Braces are one of the many struggles that Simone Biles had to overcome.

• D. Biles is is proud to have a gymnastics move named after her.

The following passage (paragraph 4) adds to the understanding of Biles’s development mainly by .

She also didn’t know how to control her immense power, often bounding up and back several feet after landing tumbling passes.

• A. explaining why Biles would have to build a career without being able to perfect the balance beam

• B. showing how unnecessarily harsh critics were toward Biles early on in her career

• C. suggesting how Biles took a weakness and turned it into one of her greatest assets

• D. establishing what would be her signature tumbling technique throughout her Olympic run

Which of the following inferences is best supported by the passage below (paragraph 7)?

Part of Biles’s natural talent also stems from her height or lack thereof. In some sports, height is an advantage, but gymnasts benefit from being shorter. From 2000-2012, the four all-around gold medal winners at the Olympics were between 5-foot and 5-foot-3. While that might seem short for most athletes, Biles stands at just 4 feet 8 inches. Her height bothered her as a child. As she told Women’s Health, “it was kind of a struggle being small since everyone would make fun of you,” but she’s glad she can show others that they can be “short or tall” and become the best.

• A. The all-around competition was previously better suited for the elegant Eastern Europeans.

• B. Biles was expected to struggle in the all-around competition due to being under 5-feet.

• C. Most fans do not realize just how short Gabby Douglas is.

• D. Biles possessed a distinct physical advantage over even the highest-achieving gymnasts before her.

Choose the sentence that best adds descriptive detail to the following passage (paragraph 8):

On her way to becoming a world champion, Biles faced tough decisions. In eighth grade, she was training 20 hours a week, far less than other elite gymnasts. If she wanted to be an Olympian, she would have to commit more time to training. For Biles, that meant shifting to homeschooling and taking on more practices. Traveling to competitions would be all business. A Texas Monthly story about Biles noted that when they travel “gymnasts are sequestered—they stay in a different hotel from the one in which their families stay—to reduce distractions. If they’re allowed out at all, it’s for carefully supervised visits to a tourist site or megamall.” Still, Biles decided to make the switch. Afterwards, as she told Buzzfeed, “My hours ramped up and we did beam and bars twice a day, which usually I had only done once a day.”

• A. “Texas was also the site of the first nationals Biles would win.”

• B. “Biles felt an extreme amount of pressure to become the first African-American to win the all-around gold medal.”

• C. “Biles was afraid that she couldn’t go back to being a normal teenager if her gymnastics career did not work out.”

• D. “Biles proved that being exceptionally tall was not the only way an athlete could be physically gifted.”

With which of the following statements would the author of this text most likely agree?

• A. Biles is such an exceptional gymnast that it became almost impossible to for any other gymnasts to compete at her level.

• B. Biles attributes a good deal of her success to her close bond with Gabby Douglas.

• C. Biles does not pick routines that have a high degree of difficulty, but she executes them with near perfection.

• D. Biles was almost kept out of Olympic competition due to her height.

Which sentence from the text most strongly supports the correct answer to the previous question?

• A. “Part of Biles’s natural talent also stems from her height or lack thereof.”

• B. “As Olympics teammate Aly Raisman told the New Yorker, ‘Simone’s just in her own league. Whoever gets second place, that’s the winner.’”

• C. “Yet, her commitment to honing that athleticism in the gym and her willingness to make tough choices are what truly set her apart.”

• D. "Her height bothered her as a child. As she told Women’s Health, ‘it was kind of a struggle being small since everyone would make fun of you,’ but she’s glad she can show others that they can be ‘short or tall’ and become the best.”

Which of these inferences is best supported by the text?

• A. Many leaders of USA Gymnastics are quietly hoping that Biles does not compete in 2020 so that other gymnasts can have a chance.

• B. Most of the other nations that Biles competes against have deeply-rooted racist beliefs.

• C. Biles does not see a college degree as something that is necessary for her future success.

• D. Changes to the gymnastics score system have helped Biles to flourish even more greatly.

Which sentence from the text most strongly supports the correct answer to the previous question?

• A. “To accept the scholarship and attend college with her peers, Biles would have to give up the opportunity for endorsement deals.”

• B. “The difficulty score aided Biles because the routines she performs are more challenging than what other gymnasts attempt.”

• C. “In response, she tweeted, ‘everyone forgets that I have feelings.’”

• D. “Now, she can often be seen laughing during events, while teammates and opponents are understandably more nervous.”