Fable · Level 2 · 166 words

The Knife and the Stone

Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.

A young cook named Pia worked in a harbor kitchen beside an old cook named Ruth. Every morning, before the first order, Ruth drew her knife across a flat stone, ten slow strokes on each side. Pia thought this was wasted time. While Ruth sharpened, Pia was already chopping, and for the first hour she was the faster of the two.

But a knife dulls a little with every cut, and a dull edge does not slice; it tears. By noon Pia was pressing hard and slowing down. Her onions came out crushed, and her wrist ached before the dinner rush. Ruth's knife moved in the evening as it had in the morning, and Ruth went home with an easy hand.

One night Pia asked for her secret. Ruth handed her the stone. "The ten strokes are not a delay before the work," she said. "They are the first part of it."

Care for the tool is part of the trade, not a pause from it.

Comprehension questions

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4 questions
1. What lesson does this fable teach?

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A. Keeping a tool sharp is part of the work, not time taken away from it.
Ruth's ten strokes look like a delay and turn out to be why her evening matches her morning. The moral repeats her words: care for the tool is part of the trade.

2. Why is Pia the faster cook only in the first hour?

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C. Her head start comes from skipping the sharpening, and the cost arrives as her edge dulls.
The passage gives the rule: a knife dulls a little with every cut. Pia gains an hour by not sharpening, then pays it back in pressing, crushed onions, and an aching wrist.

3. In this passage, "dulls" most nearly means

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B. loses its sharp edge
The same sentence explains it: a dull edge "does not slice; it tears." The word is about the edge failing, not about dirt, weight, or boredom.

4. What did Ruth do every morning before the first order?

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D. She drew her knife across a stone, ten strokes on each side.
The second sentence states it exactly: ten slow strokes on each side of a flat stone, every morning before the first order.

Source: Written for Fluency. Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.