7th Grade Reading Comprehension Passages

Reading Passages, Questions & Answers - Seventh Grade

Below you’ll find 7th grade reading comprehension passages along with questions and answers and related vocabulary activities. These printable worksheet activities include original excerpts from short stories and books as well as high-interest informational topics.

Jane and Cousin John

Jane Eyre is the story of a young orphan girl from childhood to adulthood. At the beginning of the story, Jane is 10 years old. Her uncle and his family have cared for her since her parents died a few years earlier. In this passage, the uncle has died, and…

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Below is the beginning of  Mark Twain’s short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” published in 1865. The narrator visits Wheeler in a gold mining camp in California. ———————————— In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on…

Wilma Rudolph, Olympic Star

Wilma Rudolph was born in Tennessee in 1940. She was the twentieth of twenty-two children in a poor but loving African American family. Because she was born two months early, the doctor doubted she would live. She survived but was ill with a variety of sicknesses throughout her childhood. After…

Fortune Cookie Friends

Mei Mei frowned as she helped her mother and father set out the cooking supplies in the shiny steel kitchen. Her family had just moved here from San Francisco, having bought a small restaurant, which was set to open in the next few days.   “Moving here was a dumb idea,”…

Mark Twain: How to Tell a Story

This is the beginning of Mark Twain’s essay “How to Tell a Story.” —————— I do not claim that I can tell a story as it ought to be told. I only claim to know how a story ought to be told, for I have been almost daily in the…

Helen and the World’s Fair

Born in Alabama in 1880, Helen Keller was a normal, bright baby. When she was just a toddler, she became seriously ill. She recovered, but lost her hearing and sight. She had barely learned to speak , so she was unable to learn any more words. Her family finally found…

Primary Source: Gold in California!

On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill near present-day El Dorado County, California. At that time, California was a new territory of the United States and sparsely populated. It took a while for the news to reach the established parts of the U.S. The first publication of…

The Salem Witch Trials: The Dark Truth Behind Talking Animals and Flying Broomsticks

In 1692, events that took place in Salem Village, Massachusetts would embed themselves in American history, serving as a dark reminder of what can happen when people let fear take control of them. It all started with two little girls, a slave, and a fear that the Devil was lurking…

Fellow-Passengers

In 1879 famed Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson traveled by ship across the Atlantic to New York, then by train to San Francisco. He wrote of his travels in his book Across the Plains. In this passage he reflects on the other passengers on the train. ———————————————– I had by…

The Lady Librarians of the 1930s

Nan Collins shivered, wrapping her wool scarf around her neck more tightly. She adjusted the angle of her brimmed hat, tilting it to better protect her against the misty rain that seems to hover this morning in the cold mountain air. With a cluck of her tongue and a gentle…