Name____________________________________                             Date_______________________
           Unfortunate Husband
Reading Comprehension Worksheet           

Directions:  Read the passage below carefully. When you have finished reading it completely, answer the questions that follow.

1997 Urban Legend

This guy pushed his motorcycle from the patio into his living room, where he began to clean the engine with some rags and a bowl of gasoline, all in the comfort of his own home. When he finished, he sat on the motorcycle and decided to give his bike a quick start and make sure everything was still OK. Unfortunately, the bike started in gear, and crashed through the glass patio door with him still clinging to the handlebars.

His wife had been working in the kitchen. She came running at the fearful sound, and found him crumpled on the patio, badly cut from the shards of broken glass. She called 911, and the paramedics carried the unfortunate man to the Emergency Room.

Later that afternoon, after many stitches had pulled her husband back together, the wife brought him home and put him to bed. She cleaned up the mess in the living room, and dumped the bowl of gasoline in the toilet.  

Shortly thereafter, her husband woke up, lit a cigarette, and went into the bathroom for a much-needed relief break. He sat down and tossed the cigarette into the toilet, which promptly exploded because the wife had not flushed the gasoline away. The explosion blew the man through the bathroom door. 

The wife heard a loud explosion and the terrible sound of her husband's screams. She ran into the hall and found her husband lying on the floor with his trousers blown away and burns on his buttocks. The wife again ran to the phone and called for an ambulance. 

The same two paramedics were dispatched to the scene. They loaded the husband on the stretcher and began carrying him to the street. One of them asked the wife how the injury had occurred. When she told them, they began laughing so hard that they dropped the stretcher, and broke the guy's collarbone.

Questions:

1)   What is the tone of this selection?

2)   What is the setting of this passage?

3)   What seems to be the author's intent for writing this selection?

4)   What is the Main Idea of this passage?

5>   What was the cause of the main event in the story?

6>   Tell how you would have solved the problem.

7>   Think of a situation that occurred to the person in the story and decide whether you would have done the same thing or something different.  Please explain.

8>   Who is the most important character in the story and why?