English Language Arts Grade 3 Release Item …...Hear This 12 B oth dogs and wolves can hear better...

II. English Language Arts

Grades 3-8 ELAMassachusettes State Exams for

NYS Common Core Practice www.KwellerPrep.com

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Grade 3 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension Test

The spring 2014 grade 3 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension test was based on Pre-K–5 learning standards in two content strands of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy (March 2011) listed below. Page numbers for the learning standards appear in parentheses.

■ Reading (Framework, pages 13–19)

■ Language (Framework, pages 33–40)

The Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy is available on the Department website at www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/current.html.

ELA Reading Comprehension test results are reported under two MCAS reporting categories, Reading and Language, which are identical to the two framework content strands listed above.

The tables at the conclusion of this chapter indicate each released and unreleased common item’s reporting category and the standard it assesses. The correct answers for released multiple-choice questions are also displayed in the released item table.

Test Sessions and Content Overview

The grade 3 ELA Reading Comprehension test included two separate test sessions. Each session included reading passages, followed by multiple-choice, short-response, and/or open-response questions. Selected common reading passages and approximately half of the common test items are shown on the following pages as they appeared in grade 3 test & answer booklets.

Reference Materials

The use of bilingual word-to-word dictionaries was allowed for current and former English language learner students only, during both ELA Reading Comprehension sessions. No other reference materials were allowed during any ELA Reading Comprehension test session.

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from Is My Dog a Wolf?by Jenni Bidner

Close Cousins. . .

1 In the days of your great-great-(add about 1,000 greats)-grandparents,wolves and dogs shared the same ancestor—the ancient wolf. Gradually, over the centuries, dogs evolved and changed to become their own species, and wolves stayed wolves.

2 Even though it has been thousands of years since dogs have been wild, many things a dog does by instinct a wolf also does.

3 How different are they? Well, you can’t tame a wolf and turn it into a dog. And a dog that gets lost in the woods will not become a wolf simply because it doesn’t live in someone’s home. The two species have changed too much in the past thousands of years.

4 Once you understand that dogs and wolves are different, you can look at the ways they are similar. For example, a dog shares a lot more characteristics with a wolf than he does with a cat or a person.

. . .

Can Wolves Be Trained? 5 Wolves are very smart animals, but because they are wild, they have

much less interest in being trained. They cannot easily (or as reliably) be taught to do tricks, walk on a leash, or sit on command.

6 Dogs, on the other hand, can be trained to do all sorts of things, from shaking hands and jumping through hoops, to guiding blind people, tracking criminals, and sniffing out illegal drugs.

Read the passage to learn about dogs and wolves. Then answer the questions that follow.

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English Language ArtsReading CompRehension

DIRECTIONSThis session contains two reading selections with multiple-choice, short-response, and open-response questions. For multiple-choice questions, mark your answers by filling in the circle next to the best answer. For short-response and open-response questions, write your answer in the space below the question.

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. . .

The Nose Knows 7 Dogs and wolves can see, of course, but their sense of smell is much

more important to them. Their sense of smell is thousands of times better than ours. So, it’s not surprising that they use their noses more than we do.

8 Think of your room. Picture your bed, desk, clothes, toys, and posters. Humans are very visual. When we think of something, we tend to picture it in our mind.

9 Your dog probably pictures your room by its smells as well. The smell of your shampoo on your pillow. The stink of your socks under the bed. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.

10 Wolves use their sense of smell to find animals such as deer, which they hunt for food. They try to smell dangers, including other wolves or hunters. They also judge the health and moods of other wolves by their smell.

11 Dogs are so good at using their noses that many are given smelling jobs. Police dogs use their noses to detect illegal drugs and chase down criminals.

. . .

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Hear This12 Both dogs and wolves can hear better than we can. They can detect

quieter noises as well as a wider range of musical notes. That’s why we can’t hear a high-pitched silent dog whistle, but dogs and wolves can.

13 All wolves have upright pointy ears, but dogs have a variety of ear shapes. It doesn’t seem to matter whether your dog has pointed ears, floppy ears, or tiny ears—they can all hear better than we can.

14 Wolf and dog ears also do more than just hear. Their shape and position can change, which is an important tool for communication.

15 Perky ears mean they are paying attention to someone or something. Scrunched-up ears, especially on dogs with floppy ears, can mean they’re worried or fearful. Flattened ears usually mean a warning or aggression. However, softly flattened ears can also be a friendly sign when the dog is trying to please his leader—you!

16 Watch your dog’s ears so you can learn this important part of dog language.

Through Their Eyes17 Dogs and wolves don’t see colors as well as most people do. They

have trouble telling the difference between red, orange, green, and yellow. This means a yellow toy on a red rug might almost be invisible to them.

18 Don’t feel too bad for them. They might not be able to appreciate the colors in your art project, but they are excellent at detecting the slightest motion—an important hunting skill.

19 Some dogs have better eyesight than others. Certain dogs (especially those with long noses, such as greyhounds) prefer to hunt with their eyes rather than with their noses. They’re probably using both, but some dogs favor one over the other.

. . .

Howling & Yowling20 Wolves love to howl, which is best

described as wolf singing. Howling together

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seems to be a bonding experience for the whole wolf family. A few types of dogs, such as beagles and bloodhounds, love to howl as well.

21 Wolves usually bark only as a warning about possible intruders. But barking is probably the most common dog noise. In fact, dogs tend to bark a lot. They bark to warn you about strangers. They bark when they play. They bark when they want attention. And some bark just because they’re bored.

22 Both dogs and wolves will snarl and growl as a warning to other animals, people, or things that scare them. Always take a growl seriously. It’s one of the ways a dog warns you he is thinking about biting because he’s afraid, feels threatened, or needs to protect his home area.

. . .

Why Does My Dog Chew My Stuff?23 It’s not because he’s mad at you.24 The wolf pup below is chewing on a deer antler for several reasons.

There is some small nutritional value gained by chewing antlers and crunching on bones. It is also the way wolves brush their teeth. (The rough texture of bones scrapes the teeth clean.) But mostly, it is just fun and tastes good.

25 Most of us don’t leave antlers lying around the house, so table legs, shoes, and hockey sticks probably seem like good antler substitutes.

26 Many dogs get scared or bored when they are left alone, and chewing on something can be comforting and entertaining to them. If that “something” smells like you, it is all the more appealing. So when he eats your homework, it really means he misses having you around—but don’t try explaining that to your teacher.

. . .

Why Does My Dog Dig?27 Digging is a survival tool for wolves, but it’s just plain old fun for dogs.28 Wolves dig holes to hide leftover food and bones, so they’ll have a

nice snack for later. Some dig to catch small underground animals such as mice and moles, which make tasty snacks. Or they dig to create a cool

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hole to lie in during the summer…or a warm snow cave in the winter. Adult wolves dig underground dens for puppies to provide shelter and safety.

29 Dogs may dig for some of the same reasons, but one thing is for sure: freshly dug dirt has all sorts of interesting smells. And dogs (and wolves) love to use their noses.

House Rules30 In the wild, wolves live by wolf rules. Most of their days are spent

caring for the young, resting, and hunting. Dogs, however, must live by people rules both inside and outside the home. Their willingness to do this is probably the biggest difference between the two species.

Is My Dog a Wolf? by Jenni Bidner. Text and illustration copyright © 2006 by Jenni Bidner. Reprinted by permission of the author Jenni Bidner.

ID:292666 D Common

●1 According to the passage, how longdid it take for dogs to become different from wolves?

A many days

B many weeks

C many months

D many years

ID:292668 B Common

●2 Based on the passage, which of thefollowing would a wolf be unlikely to do?

A growl at a sign of danger

B obey when told to roll over

C follow the scent of an animal

D chew on the bones of an animal

Mark your choices for multiple-choice questions 1 through 10 by filling in the circle next to the best answer.

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ID:292669 C Common

●3 According to the passage, which senseis stronger in dogs than in humans?

A taste

B sight

C smell

D touch

ID:292672 B Common

●4 Based on paragraph 15, a dog’s ears canshow what the dog is

A eating.

B feeling.

C hearing.

D smelling.

ID:292674 B Common

●5 Based on the section “Howling &Yowling,” which of the following is true?

A Wolves are quiet animals.

B Dogs bark for many reasons.

C Most dogs howl when they are bored.

D Most wolves bark when they are alone.

ID:292680 C Common

●6 Which section gives information about adog’s sense of sight?

A Can Wolves Be Trained?

B Hear This

C Through Their Eyes

D Why Does My Dog Dig?

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ID:292677 B Common

●7 Based on the passage, what is onereason wolves dig?

A to hide a toy

B to make a home

C to sharpen their claws

D to show their strength

ID:292665 B Common

●8 What is the most likely reason the authorwrote the section “Close Cousins”?

A to describe where dogs usually live

B to explain the main idea of the passage

C to explain when the passage was written

D to describe the problems faced by wolves

ID:292685 D Common

●9 Read the sentence from paragraph 12 inthe box below.

They can detect quieter noises as well as a wider range of musical notes.

Based on the paragraph, what does detect mean?

A try

B use

C make

D notice

ID:292686 B Common


It doesn’t seem to matter whether your dog has pointed ears, floppy ears, or tiny ears—they can all hear better than we can.

In the sentence, the words pointed, floppy, and tiny are all used as

A verbs.

B adjectives.

C proper nouns.

D compound words.

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Question 11 is an open-response question.

• Readthequestioncarefully.• Explainyouranswer.• Addsupportingdetails.• Double-checkyourwork.

Write your answer to question 11 in the lined space below.

ID:292692 Common

●11 Based on the passage, describe how dogs and wolves are alike. Support your answer with important information from the passage.

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Read the folktale and answer the questions that follow.

How Brazilian Beetles Got Their Gorgeous CoatsA Story from Brazil

by Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss

1 Long ago in Brazil, beetles had plain brown coats. But today their hard-shelled coats are gorgeous. They are so colorful that people often set them in pins and necklaces like precious stones. This is how it happened that Brazilian beetles got their new coats.

2 One day a little brown beetle was crawling along a wall. Suddenly a big gray rat darted out of a hole in the wall. When he saw the beetle, he began to make fun of her.

3 “Is that as fast as you can go? What a poke you are! You’ll never get anywhere! Just watch how fast I can run!”

4 The rat dashed to the end of the wall, turned around, and ran back to the beetle. The beetle was still slowly crawling along. She had barely crawled past the spot where the rat left her.

5 “I’ll bet you wish you could run like that!” bragged the gray rat. 6 “You certainly are a fast runner,” replied the beetle. Even though the

rat went on and on about himself, the beetle never said a word about the things she could do. She just kept slowly crawling along the wall, wishing the rat would go away.

7 A green and gold parrot in the mango tree above had overheard their conversation. She said to the rat, “How would you like to race with

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the beetle? Just to make the race exciting, I’ll offer a bright colored coat as a reward. The winner may choose any color coat and I’ll have it made to order.”

8 The parrot told them the finish line would be the palm tree at the top of the hill. She gave the signal to start, and they were off.

9 The rat ran as fast as he could. When he reached the palm tree, he could hardly believe his eyes: there was the beetle sitting beside the parrot. The rat asked with a suspicious tone, “How did you ever manage to run fast enough to get here so soon?”

10 “Nobody ever said anything about having to run to win the race,” replied the beetle as she drew out her tiny wings from her sides. “So I flew instead.”

11 “I didn’t know you could fly,” said the rat with a grumpy look on his face.

12 The parrot said to the rat, “You have lost the contest. From now on you must never judge anyone by looks alone. You never can tell when or where you may find hidden wings.”

13 Then the parrot turned to the brown beetle and asked, “What color would you like your new coat to be?”

14 “I’d like it to be green and gold, just like yours,” replied the beetle. And since that day, Brazilian beetles have had gorgeous coats of green and gold. But the rat still wears a plain, dull, gray one.

“How Brazilian Beetles Got Their Gorgeous Coats” by Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss, from How and Why Stories: World Tales Kids Can Read & Tell. Copyright © 1999 by Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss. Published by August House Publishers, Inc., and reprinted by permission of Marian Reiner.

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●12 In the folktale, which of the following ismost likely true of the beetle?

A She acts hurt, even though she is healthy.

B She acts shy, even though the rat knows her.

C She keeps moving, even though she is bored.

D She is kind, even though the rat is mean to her.

ID:301534 A Common

●13 In the folktale, what is the most likelyreason the parrot wants the rat to race the beetle?

A The parrot knows the beetle has wings.

B The parrot wants the beetle to go away.

C The parrot knows the beetle likes excitement.

D The parrot wants the beetle to learn to run faster.

●14 Based on paragraph 9, how does the ratmost likely feel when he sees the beetle?

A calm

B scared

C hopeful

D shocked

ID:301537 D Common

●15 In the folktale, what is the beetle’sreward?

A She becomes wiser.

B She becomes bigger.

C She becomes more jealous.

D She becomes more colorful.

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ELA Reading Comprehension

Mark your choices for multiple-choice questions 12 through 17 by filling in the circle next to the best answer.

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ID:301540 C Common

●16 Which of the following events from the folktale happens first?

A The parrot offers a prize.

B The rat runs to the palm tree.

C The beetle walks along a wall.

D The rat makes fun of the beetle.

ID:301544 D Common

●17 Read the sentence from paragraph 10 in the box below.

“Nobody ever said anything about having to run to win the race,” replied the beetle as she drew out her tiny wings from her sides.

Based on the sentence, what does drew mean?

A painted

B jumped

C changed

D stretched

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ID:301546 Common

●18 Explain a lesson that can be learned from the folktale.

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Question 18 is a short-response question. Write your answer to question 18 in the lined space below.


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Grade 3 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension

Spring 2014 Released Items: Reporting Categories, Standards, and Correct Answers*

Item No. Page No. Reporting Category StandardCorrect Answer

(MC)*

1 11 Reading 1 D

2 11 Reading 3 B

3 12 Reading 1 C

4 12 Reading 1 B

5 12 Reading 3 B

6 12 Reading 5 C

7 13 Reading 3 B

8 13 Reading 6 B

9 13 Language 4 D

10 13 Language 1 B

11 14 Reading 2

12 17 Reading 3 D

13 17 Reading 1 A

14 17 Reading 3 D

15 17 Reading 1 D

16 18 Reading 3 C

17 18 Language 4 D

18 19 Reading 2

* Answers are provided here for multiple-choice items only. Sample responses and scoring guidelines for short-response and open-response items, which are indicated by the shaded cells, will be posted to the Department’s website later this year.

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Spring 2014 Unreleased Common Items: Reporting Categories and Standards

Item No. Reporting Category Standard

19 Reading 3

20 Reading 3

21 Reading 1

22 Language 2

23 Language 4

24 Reading 3

25 Reading 2

26 Reading 3

27 Reading 1

28 Reading 3

29 Reading 1

30 Reading 1

31 Reading 8.a

32 Language 1

33 Language 4

34 Language 4

35 Reading 3

36 Reading 3

37 Reading 3

38 Reading 1

39 Reading 3

40 Language 1

41 Language 4

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(MC)*

1 11 Reading 1 D

2 11 Reading 3 B

3 12 Reading 1 C

4 12 Reading 1 B

5 12 Reading 3 B

6 12 Reading 5 C

7 13 Reading 3 B

8 13 Reading 6 B

9 13 Language 4 D

10 13 Language 1 B

11 14 Reading 2

12 17 Reading 3 D

13 17 Reading 1 A

14 17 Reading 3 D

15 17 Reading 1 D

16 18 Reading 3 C

17 18 Language 4 D

18 19 Reading 2

* Answers are provided here for multiple-choice items only. Sample responses and scoring guidelines for short-response andopen-response items, which are indicated by the shaded cells, will be posted to the Department’s website later this year.

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19 Reading 3

20 Reading 3

21 Reading 1

22 Language 2

23 Language 4

24 Reading 3

25 Reading 2

26 Reading 3

27 Reading 1

28 Reading 3

29 Reading 1

30 Reading 1

31 Reading 8.a

32 Language 1

33 Language 4

34 Language 4

35 Reading 3

36 Reading 3

37 Reading 3

38 Reading 1

39 Reading 3

40 Language 1

41 Language 4

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III. English Language Arts, Grade 4

A. CompositionB. Reading Comprehension

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Grade 4 English Language Arts TestTest Structure

The grade 4 English Language Arts test was presented in the following two parts:

■ the ELA Composition test, which used a writing prompt to assess learning standards from theWriting strand in the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts andLiteracy (March 2011)

■ the ELA Reading Comprehension test, which used multiple-choice and open-response questions(items) to assess learning standards from the Reading and Language strands in the MassachusettsCurriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy

A. CompositionThe spring 2014 grade 4 ELA Composition test and Composition Make-Up test were based on learning standards in the Pre-K–5 Writing strand of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy (March 2011). The learning standards for the Pre-K–5 Writing strand appear on pages 23–28 of the Framework, which is available on the Department website at www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/current.html.

Each grade 4 ELA writing prompt assesses standard 1, 2, or 3 in the Pre-K–5 Writing strand in the 2011 Framework. All grade 4 writing prompts assess standards 4 and 5 in the Pre-K–5 Writing strand.

ELA Composition test results are reported under the reporting categories Composition: Topic Development and Composition: Standard English Conventions.


The ELA Composition test included two separate test sessions, administered on the same day with a short break between sessions. During the first session, each student wrote an initial draft of a composition in response to the appropriate writing prompt on the next two pages. During the second session, each student revised his or her draft and submitted a final composition, which was scored in the areas of Topic Development and Standard English Conventions. The Scoring Guides for the MCAS English Language Arts Composition are available at www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/student/elacomp_scoreguide.html.

Reference Materials

At least one English-language dictionary per classroom was provided for student use during ELA Composition test sessions. The use of bilingual word-to-word dictionaries was allowed for current and former English language learner students only. No other reference materials were allowed during either ELA Composition test session.

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English Language Arts Test

WRITING PROMPT

You are finally old enough to baby-sit, and your first job is this afternoon! You will be spending the entire afternoon with a one-year-old. When you open the door you realize that instead of watching a one-year-old child, you will be watching a one-year-old elephant!

Write a story about spending your afternoon with a baby elephant. Give enough details to show readers what your afternoon is like baby-sitting the elephant.

Grade 4 Writing Prompt

ID:287980 Common

You may use the space below to plan what you are going to write (notes, outlines, other pre-writing activities).

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WRITING PROMPT

Imagine that you have been given a robot that responds to all of your commands.

Write a story about what you would do with your robot for a day. Give enough details to describe your day with your robot.

Grade 4 Make-Up Writing Prompt

ID:304817 Common

You may use the space below to plan what you are going to write (notes, outlines, other pre-writing activities).

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B. Reading ComprehensionThe spring 2014 grade 4 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension test was based on Pre-K–5 learning standards in two content strands of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy (March 2011) listed below. Page numbers for the learning standards appear in parentheses.







The grade 4 ELA Reading Comprehension test included two separate test sessions. Each session included reading passages, followed by multiple-choice and open-response questions. Selected common reading passages and approximately half of the common test items are shown on the following pages as they appeared in test booklets.

Reference Materials

The use of bilingual word-to-word dictionaries was allowed for current and former English language learner students only, during both ELA Reading Comprehension test sessions. No other reference materials were allowed during any ELA Reading Comprehension test session.

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How tHe Birds Got tHeir FeatHersby Joseph Bruchac

1 Long ago, back when the world was new, the birds had no feathers. Itwas difficult for them in those days. When the sun shone down brightly, they were too hot. When the wind blew and the seasons turned to the long white time, they were cold and they shivered in the forest. And so it was that the Creator took pity on them and sent down a message to them in a dream.

2 All the birds gathered together in council to discuss the dream they had all had, the dream they knew was a message from the Creator. The message was this: If they would appoint one bird to be their messenger, that bird could go to the Skyland and bring back clothing for all the birds. The Eagle, who was the chief, sat on the council rock and began the discussion: Who could fly that long distance, high into the Skyland, to bring back clothing for the birds?

3 Everyone wanted to go, but some of the birds were too small; their wings were too weak. The great Eagle could fly the highest of all, but as the chief of the birds he had to stay with his people. Finally it was decided that Buzzard, with his long, strong wings, would be the one to fly to the Skyland with the message that they were ready to accept the Creator’s gift of clothing.

4 Buzzard began to fly. He flew and he flew through the sky. He flew for so long that he became hungry; he had forgotten to eat before he left on his journey. He looked down, and there by the side of the lake he saw some rotten fish. He was so hungry that he flew down and he ate those rotten fish. Then, feeling better, he began to fly again.

Read the folktale and answer the questions that follow.


DIRECTIONSThis session contains two reading selections with fifteen multiple-choice questions and two open-response questions. Mark your answers to these questions in the spaces provided in your Student Answer Booklet.

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5 Buzzard flew higher and higher, up toward the Skyland. Higher and higher he went, so high that the heat of the sun shone down and burned the top of his bald head. But he was determined to carry the message of all the birds up to the Creator, and so he continued.

6 Up and up he flew, until at last he came to the Skyland, where the Creator waited. “Buzzard,” the Creator said, “you have done well. You have been brave and determined. You have carried the message of your people to me. I see that you wish to receive this gift of clothing from me. All the birds will have clothes, which you will take back to them. Buzzard, since you were the messenger, and you were so determined and brave, I will give you the first choice of clothing to wear.”

7 The Creator took Buzzard to a place where many suits of clothing hung, all of them made of beautiful feathers. Buzzard looked around. As the messenger for all the birds, he would have to pick the very best suit of all. As he looked, the Creator came to him and said, “Now, Buzzard, you must remember this. Any one of these suits of feathers will fit you when you put it on. If you do not like it, simply take it off, and it will go to another bird. But remember, once you have tried it on and taken it off, it can never be yours again.” Buzzard understood, and he began to look.

8 Now, there was a beautiful suit with red feathers and a little black mask. Buzzard tried it on. It was very bright and nice, he thought, but only red? That was not enough, so he took that suit off and it went to Cardinal.

9 There was another suit with black on it, a little bit of white, a gray back, and a red vest. Buzzard tried that on. Hmmm, he thought, not quite showy enough. That one went to Robin.

10 There was a yellow-and-black suit. This too was nice, but the messenger of all the birds must have many colors in his suit of feathers, thought Buzzard. So he took that suit off too; it went to Goldfinch.

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11 Buzzard tried on one suit of feathers after another. The Creator patiently waited and watched, until finally, Buzzard tried on a suit that fit so tightly, it didn’t cover his legs. It left his bald, red, sunburned head bare, and the feathers were brown and dirty. Buzzard looked at himself, and Buzzard was not pleased. “Ugh!” he said. “This suit is the worst of them all!” And the Creator said, “Buzzard, it is the last of all the suits. It has to be yours.”

12 So it came to be that from that day on, Buzzard wore that suit of dirty feathers. And ever since then, too, because he stopped to eat those rotten fish on his journey, Buzzard has had an appetite for things that are long dead. But still, when he flies high in the sky with his wings spread, up there close to the Skyland, you may remember that he was the messenger for all the birds. Despite his dirty suit of feathers, he still has reason to be proud.

“How the Birds Got Their Feathers” told by Joseph Bruchac, from The Boy Who Lived with the Bears and Other Iroquois Stories. Copyright © 1995 by Joseph Bruchac. Illustration copyright © 1995 by Murv Jacob. Reprinted by permission of Barbara S. Kouts.

ID:291154 D Common

●1 According to the folktale, Buzzard is chosen to travel to the Skyland because of his

A. ideas.

B. voice.

C. colors.

D. strength.

ID:291155 B Common

●2 What does paragraph 4 mostly show about Buzzard?

A. He needs to eat alone.

B. He does not plan ahead.

C. He is lost during his trip to the Skyland.

D. He is not big enough to fly to the Skyland.

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ID:291156 B Common

●3 Based on paragraph 5, how doesBuzzard feel about his trip to the Skyland?

A. He hopes it will be short.

B. He takes it very seriously.

C. He wants it to be a secret.

D. He thinks it will be simple.

ID:291163 C Common

●4 What lesson does Buzzard learn in thefolktale?

A. Try your best.

B. Listen to others.

C. Do not be picky.

D. Do not travel alone.

ID:291167 D Common


The message was this: If they would appoint one bird to be their messenger, that bird could go to the Skyland and bring back clothing for all the birds.

Which word has the same meaning as appoint?

A. hear

B. watch

C. follow

D. choose

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• Read thequestion carefully.• Explainyouranswer.• Add supportingdetails.• Double-checkyourwork.

Write your answer to question 6 in the space provided in your Student Answer Booklet.

ID:291174 Common

●6 Based on the folktale, explain the problems Buzzard experiences. Support your answer with important details from the folktale.

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Louis BrailleOpening the Doors of Knowledge

by James Rumford

1 Two hundred years ago, if you were blind, you became a beggar. Or maybe, if you were lucky, a circus musician or a fortuneteller. Most seeing people pitied you because they thought you had only half their wits. Few understood that it was only your eyes that did not work. Your heart and your mind were like everyone else’s.

2 So said a Frenchman named Haüy [ah-wee], who opened a school in Paris for blind children in 1784. He spent all his money to prove that the blind could learn. He even invented special books with huge, raised letters so that they could read with their fingertips.

3 News of Haüy’s school spread across France, arriving one day in 1818 at the doorstep of a poor saddle maker named Simon Braille. Several years before, the saddle maker’s three-year-old son Louis had punctured his eye with a sharp,

pointed awl while playing. Infection quickly sealed his eyes shut, and within days he was blind.

4 Everyone knew what was in store for the boy—a life of begging. But Louis’s father and mother would have none of that. The village priest and the village schoolteacher agreed, and they taught Louis, even though there were no books for blind children to read or ways for them to write. But Louis was bright and in two years had learned all he could at the village school.

5 Then the village priest came knocking at the Brailles’ door with an astounding proposal: send Louis to Paris, to Haüy’s school. But how? There was no money. So the priest went to the most powerful man in the county, who wrote a letter to the school.

6 Within a few months, Louis had a scholarship and left his village of Coupvray [coo-vray] for a new life in Paris. He was only 10.

Read the article about the life of Louis Braille. Then answer the questions that follow.

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7 When Louis was 12, an extraordinary man named Captain Barbier [bar-bee-ay] came to the school. He wanted to show off his invention, called “night writing.” This was a code of 12 raised bumps that made it possible for soldiers to send and read messages in the dark.

8 The sighted teachers called Captain Barbier a clever man, but, when Louis slid his fingers over the bumps, he whispered, “No, he’s a genius!”

9 Louis realized that night writing was a way for blind people to write down the ideas that filled their heads. No longer would they have to ask seeing people for help. And night writing was a way for blind people to read, really read, instead of slowly tracing their fingers over giant, raised letters.

10 But night writing needed work. Its clumps of dots took too much time to write and were almost as hard as Haüy’s letters to read. For three years Louis punched out new combinations of dots, but nothing worked. Then one summer, when he was 15, he had a breakthrough. Instead of basing his letters on 12 dots, Louis based them on six. This made his letters easy to write—and easy to read, for each letter was small enough to fit under a fingertip.

11 Louis couldn’t wait to teach his friends back at school. Within days of his return, his friends were gliding their fingertips across words they had written. No longer did they need sighted people to write for them. Louis’s dots meant freedom!

12 The head of the school, Director Pignier [peen-yay], welcomed Louis’s dot system, but some of the teachers scoffed at the boy’s foolishness. How could the blind learn without the help of the seeing? How could the blind lead the blind? But Louis paid no attention. Before long, dot-filled books appeared in classrooms.

13 At age 17 Louis was made a teacher at the school; at 24, a full professor. Students filled his classes, and he in turn filled them with hope and the promise that they each had something valuable to contribute to the world.

14 Louis even used his dots to write down music. His students no longer had to memorize every piece. Now they could compose as well. More freedom. More promise.

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15 In 1840, Director Pignier was dismissed and a teacher named Dufau [dew-foe] took his place. Dufau didn’t like Louis’s dots. They made the students too independent. One summer, when Louis was back in Coupvray, Dufau introduced a simplified form of Haüy’s raised letters. Then, to make sure that everyone used the new system, he burned Haüy’s books and Louis’s as well. There was also a new rule: No more dot writing.

16 But no one gives up newly won freedom without a fight. Louis, even in his grief, knew that. The students defied the director. They wrote in secret. They passed notes at night.

17 When Dufau saw how the students supported Louis, he gave in. Dot books and dot writing were back. For the next eight years, Louis continued to teach, and his system of reading and writing f lourished.

18 Then, in 1852, he became seriously ill and died. No newspaper mentioned his death. Only people at the school knew that a great man had passed away. They built a statue of their beloved teacher and wrote his life story.

“Louis Braille: Opening the Doors of Knowledge” by James Rumford, from Ask (January 2009). Text and art copyright © 2002 by James Rumford. Reprinted by permission of Cricket Magazine Group, Carus Publishing Company. Photograph copyright © iStockphoto/Roman Milert.

19 Slowly, the world came to know of Louis Braille and adopted his system of dot writing. In 1952, 100 years after his death, his body was taken to Paris and buried alongside the heroes of France. That day, every newspaper in the world wrote about Louis, and thousands of blind people lined the streets to honor him. Louis Braille had given them the means to prove that their hearts and minds were like everyone else’s.

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ID:298673 A Common

●7 Based on paragraph 2, how could Haüybest be described?

A. caring

B. foolish

C. nervous

D. grateful

ID:298675 C Common

●8 According to paragraph 4, why did Louisneed to leave the village school?

A. The school was too expensive for his family.

B. The school ran out of supplies for him to use.

C. The school ran out of new things to teach him.

D. The school was a great distance from his home.

ID:298678 A Common

●9 Based on the article, what was one reasonLouis thought Captain Barbier was a genius?

A. His ideas helped Louis read more easily.

B. He trained the soldiers to work with Louis.

C. His messages introduced Louis to a new school.

D. He wrote many books that Louis enjoyed reading.

ID:298680 A Common

●10 According to the article, how did Louisimprove night writing?

A. He used fewer dots.

B. He used higher dots.

C. He used shorter words.

D. He used smaller letters.

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ID:298681 A Common

●11 Based on paragraph 11, how did Louisfeel about sharing his discovery with his friends?

A. eager

B. curious

C. amazed

D. nervous

ID:298684 D Common

●12 Based on the article, how was Louis’sinvention important to blind people?

A. It gave them back their sight.

B. It gave them ideas for their writing.

C. It helped them decide what to study.

D. It helped them become more independent.

ID:298688 A Common

●13 The information in the article is mainlyorganized by

A. the order of events.

B. problem and solution.

C. compare and contrast.

D. the order of importance.

ID:298689 C Common

●14 Which of the following best explains whythe article is a biography?

A. It includes pictures.

B. It takes place in the past.

C. It gives facts about a person’s life.

D. It describes details of a person’s friends.

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ID:298701 D Common

●16 Read the words from the article in thebox below.

fortunetellerfingertipsdoorstepnewspaper

What do the words in the box have in common?

A. They are adjectives.

B. They are contractions.

C. They are proper nouns.

D. They are compound words.




ID:298690 A Common

●15 Based on paragraphs 5 and 6, what is ascholarship?

A. a way to pay for school

B. a way to travel the world

C. a plan to make oneself better

D. a plan for what to study in school

ID:298700 Common

●17 Based on the article, explain what people thought of Louis Braille. Support your answer withimportant information from the article.

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(MC)*

1 29 Reading 3 D

2 29 Reading 3 B

3 30 Reading 3 B

4 30 Reading 2 C

5 30 Language 5 D

6 31 Reading 2

7 35 Reading 3 A

8 35 Reading 3 C

9 35 Reading 3 A

10 35 Reading 1 A

11 36 Reading 3 A

12 36 Reading 2 D

13 36 Reading 5 A

14 36 Reading 8 C

15 37 Language 4 A

16 37 Language 2 D

17 37 Reading 2

* Answers are provided here for multiple-choice items only. Sample responses and scoring guidelines for the open-response items,which are indicated by the shaded cells, will be posted to the Department’s website later this year.

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18 Reading 6

19 Language 5

20 Reading 1

21 Reading 5

22 Reading 8

23 Language 4

24 Reading 2

25 Reading 3

26 Reading 4

27 Reading 3

28 Reading 1

29 Reading 1

30 Reading 8.a

31 Reading 6

32 Language 2

33 Language 1

34 Language 5

35 Reading 3

36 Reading 1

37 Reading 4

38 Reading 2

39 Reading 8.a

40 Language 4

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IV. English Language Arts, Reading Comprehension, Grade 5

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The spring 2014 grade 5 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension test was based on Pre-K–5 learning standards in two content strands of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy (March 2011) listed below. Page numbers for the learning standards appear in parentheses.








Reference Materials


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DIRECTIONSThis session contains two reading selections with fifteen multiple-choice questions and two open-response questions. Mark your answers to these questions in the spaces provided in your Student Answer Booklet.


1 “Five minutes!” 2 Brenda froze. 3 Once, she had watched a TV show about zebras. The narrator said

that sometimes a lion gets real close to a zebra and stares at it, and the zebra is so terrified it doesn’t try to run. It just stands there waiting to be devoured.

4 How dumb, thought Brenda at the time. She did not understand the zebra. Now she did. Now an even meaner beast came stalking, ready to pounce, ready to swipe away her very life. And she was paralyzed with fear.

5 “Four minutes!” 6 Four minutes. Two hundred and forty seconds. 7 She squeezed her pillow to her chest. She tried to concentrate on her

TV, on the figures speaking and moving, but she could not. The screen was like a half-remembered dream.

8 When first she heard about it, she had scoffed. Impossible, she said. It would never happen. A date had been set, and a time, but it was so long off it did not seem real. It could not be seen coming down the street. It could not be heard. In her room things were as they had always been. Her beanbag chair. The bed. Ace Monahan, Weird Kid, as always on the tube at 6:30 Sunday. She simply could not believe that anything horrible was on the way.

9 “Three minutes!”10 At times like this in the movies, some people would try to look on

the bright side. They would say something like, “Well, it’s been a good life.”

11 How stupid!12 The convict on death row — in the final minutes of a movie or before

the commercial — that’s who she related to. Sweaty palms clutching cell bars — the raw, terrified stare — the footsteps of priest and warden — the faint buzz that means they’re testing the electric chair — the seconds ticking louder, louder — yes, that

Read “Day 1” and answer the questions that follow.

Day 1from The Library Card

by Jerry Spinelli

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13 “Two minutes!”she understood. In one movie a man being strapped to the chair cried out, “Just give me one more minute!” How silly, she had thought then.

14 Her hands and feet were spongy. She was tortured by thoughts that she might have done something to stop this. Had she tried everything? Had she cried? Yes. Pouted? Refused to speak? Refused to eat? Refused to move? Yes, yes, but nothing stopped it. It was a ten-ton steamroller squashing every protest in its way, crunching.

15 “One minute!”16 So fast. She had never known time was so fast. It did not help

to remind herself that she was not alone, that it was happening all over town. She had heard once that the greatest fear was fear of the unknown.

17 “Thirty seconds.”18 She could hear footsteps now, on the stairs, rising, in the hallway

now, closer, on the other side of the bedroom door now . . . the warden, the priest . . . A lock! She should have gotten a lock!

19 “Ten seconds.”20 Had it been a good life?21 The doorknob turned. She opened her eyes as wide as she could,

swallowing, gorging herself on the glowing screen, the beautiful screen. 22 “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”23 The door swung open. Her father walked in. He looked at her. She

clutched at the bedspread, she wailed, “One more minute! Pleeeeeese!”24 The warden smiled a weak, regretful smile. “Sorry, kiddo,” he said

and pushed the power button: plink. The picture shrank to a point and vanished. Flushed. Gone. Herself with it.

25 Was it her imagination, or could she really hear ten thousand plinks all over town?

26 The Great TV Turn-Off had begun.

27 It was 7:00 p.m. Sunday. Brenda had already done the arithmetic. She would have to go without TV for one hundred and sixty-eight hours. Or ten thousand and eighty minutes. Or six hundred and four thousand, eight hundred seconds.

28 One week.29 At the moment the numbers meant nothing to Brenda. Nothing meant

anything. She was numb. Dead.30 And so was her beloved TV. The voices, the laughter, the bright

leaping colors — gone with the flick of a father’s finger. Where moments before Ace Monahan was filling the screen, now there was only a flat gray nineteen-inch square. A shroud.* A tombstone.

* shroud — a sheet used to cover a body for burial

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31 Brenda knew she was in shock. She knew this from hospital and emergency room dramas she watched. Even zebras facing lions went into shock. It was nature’s way of shielding its creatures from the extremest moments of agony.

32 But shock was not a healthy state either — let it go on too long and you might never come out of it. That’s why doctors always said of someone in shock: “Keep him warm. Raise his legs.” Brenda got under the covers and put the pillow under her feet.

33 The red numbers of her digital clock said 7:01. Ten thousand and seventy-nine minutes to go. She groaned aloud.

“Day 1” by Jerry Spinelli, from The Library Card. Copyright © 1997 by Jerry Spinelli. Reprinted by permission of Scholastic Inc.

ID:283505 D Common

●1 Based on paragraph 12, how does Brendarelate to the “convict on death row”?

A. Brenda remembers she has missed her favorite program.

B. Brenda thinks she has been unfairly accused.

C. Brenda believes she will be trapped indoors.

D. Brenda feels anxious about what is to come.

ID:283507 A Common

●2 In paragraph 24, who is the “warden”?

A. Brenda’s father

B. Brenda’s teacher

C. a person from a prison

D. a character in a program

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ID:283508 B Common

●3 What is the main purpose of paragraph 26?

A. to present a flashback

B. to reveal the main problem

C. to change the story’s setting

D. to show a character’s thoughts

ID:283509 D Common

●4 In paragraph 27, what does “Brenda had already done the arithmetic” mean?

A. She completed her homework.

B. She estimated how long she had been alive.

C. She counted how many hours of TV she had watched.

D. She knew how long the Great TV Turn-Off would last.

ID:283510 B Common

●5 In paragraph 30, what does the contrast between bright colors and a gray tombstone suggest?

A. how late at night it is

B. how unhappy Brenda is

C. how quickly time has passed

D. how sleepy Brenda has become

ID:283516 Common

●6 Based on the selection, describe Brenda’s feelings about the Great TV Turn-Off. Support your answer with important details from the selection.

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Planting the Trees of Kenyaby Claire A. Nivola

Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) lived in the African nation of Kenya. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work to improve the environment. Read the selection and answer the questions that follow.

1 As Wangari Maathai tells it, when she was growing up on a farm in the hillsof central Kenya, the earth was clothed in its dress of green.

2 Fig trees, olive trees, crotons, and flame trees covered the land, and fish filled the pure waters of the streams.

3 The fig tree was sacred then, and Wangari knew not to disturb it, not even to carry its fallen branches home for firewood. In the stream near her homestead where she went to collect water for her mother, she played with glistening frogs’ eggs, trying to gather them like beads into necklaces, though they slipped through her fingers back into the clear water.

4 Her heart was filled with the beauty of her native Kenya when she left to attend a college run by Benedictine nuns in America, far, far from her home. There she studied biology, the science of living things. It was an inspiring time for Wangari. The students in America in those years dreamed of making the world better. The nuns, too, taught Wangari to think not just of herself but of the world beyond herself.

5 How eagerly she returned to Kenya! How full of hope and of all that she had learned!

6 She had been away for five years, only five years, but they might have been twenty—so changed was the landscape of Kenya.

7 Wangari found the fig tree cut down, the little stream dried up, and no trace of frogs, tadpoles, or the silvery beads of eggs. Where once there had been little farms

Wangari Maathai, pictured in 1988, inspiredthousands of Kenyans to care more for the land.

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growing what each family needed to live on and large plantations growing tea for export, now almost all the farms were growing crops to sell. Wangari noticed that the people no longer grew what they ate but bought food from stores. The store food was expensive, and the little they could afford was not as good for them as what they had grown themselves, so that children, even grownups, were weaker and often sickly.

8 She saw that where once there had been richly wooded hills with grazing cows and goats, now the land was almost treeless, the woods gone. So many trees had been cut down to clear the way for more farms that women and children had to walk farther and farther in search of firewood to heat a pot or warm the house. Sometimes they walked for hours before they found a tree or bush to cut down. There were fewer and fewer trees with each one they cut, and much of the land was as bare as a desert.

9 Without trees there were no roots to hold the soil in place. Without trees there was no shade. The rich topsoil dried to dust, and the “devil wind” blew it away. Rain washed the loose earth into the once-clear streams and rivers, dirtying them with silt.

10 “We have no clean drinking water,” the women of the countryside complained, “no firewood to cook with. Our goats and cows have nothing to graze on, so they make little milk. Our children are hungry, and we are poorer than before.”

11 Wangari saw that the people who had once honored fig trees and now cut them down had forgotten to care for the land that fed them. Now the land, weak and suffering, could no longer take care of the people, and their lives became harder than ever.

12 The women blamed others, they blamed the government, but Wangari was not one to complain. She wanted to do something. “Think of what we ourselves are doing,” she urged the women. “We are cutting down the trees of Kenya.

13 “When we see that we are part of the problem,” she said, “we can become part of the solution.”

14 She had a simple and big idea.15 “Why not plant trees?” she

asked the women.16 She showed them how to

collect tree seeds from the trees that remained. She taught them to prepare the soil, mixing it with manure. She showed them how to wet that soil, press a hole in it with a stick, and carefully insert a seed. Most of all she taught them to tend the growing seedlings, as if they were babies, watering them twice a day to make sure they grew strong.

Wangari’s movement relied on the efforts of many, including these women meeting in Muranga, Kenya, in 2001.

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Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola. Copyright © 2008 by Claire A. Nivola. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Photograph 1 copyright © William Campbell/Sygma/CORBIS. Photograph 2 copyright © Wendy Stone/CORBIS.

17 It wasn’t easy. Water was always hard to come by. Often the women had to dig a deep hole by hand and climb into it to haul heavy bucketfuls of water up over their heads and back out of the hole. An early nursery in Wangari’s backyard failed; almost all the seedlings died. But Wangari was not one to give up, and she showed others how not to give up.

18 Many of the women could not read or write. They were mothers and farmers, and no one took them seriously.

19 But they did not need schooling to plant trees. They did not have to wait for the government to help them. They could begin to change their own lives.

20 All this was heavy work, but the women felt proud. Slowly, all around them, they could begin to see the fruit of the work of their hands. The woods were growing up again. Now when they cut down a tree, they planted two in its place. Their families were healthier, eating from the fruit trees they had planted and from the vegetable plots filled again with the yams, cassava, pigeon peas, and sorghum that grew so well. They had work to do, and the work brought them together as one, like the trees growing together on the newly wooded hills.

21 The men saw what their wives, mothers, and daughters were doing and admired them and even joined in.

22 Wangari gave seedlings to the schools and taught the children how to make their own nurseries.

23 She gave seedlings to inmates of prisons and even to soldiers. “You hold your gun,” she told the soldiers, “but what are you protecting? The whole country is disappearing with the wind and water. You should hold the gun in your right hand and a tree seedling in your left. That’s when you become a good soldier.”

24 And so in the thirty years since Wangari began her movement, tree by tree, person by person, thirty million trees have been planted in Kenya—and the planting has not stopped.

25 “When the soil is exposed,” Wangari tells us, “it is crying out for help, it is naked and needs to be clothed in its dress. That is the nature of the land. It needs color, it needs its cloth of green.”

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ID:286685 A Common

●7 What is the most likely reason theauthor describes Wangari’s childhood in paragraphs 1–3?

A. to show Wangari’s early connection to nature

B. to contrast Wangari’s country with other places

C. to explain why Wangari had to go away to school

D. to show how hard Wangari worked as a young girl

ID:286686 C Common

●8 Based on paragraphs 4 and 5, howdid Wangari’s years in America most affect her?

A. She decided to become a teacher.

B. She met people who came from other places.

C. She learned new ideas that she would use later on.

D. She was able to compare her country with other countries.

ID:286687 C Common

●9 In paragraph 6, why did it seem as ifWangari had been away from Kenya for twenty years?

A. She had missed her family.

B. Her memories were confusing.

C. Her country had changed so much.

D. She had grown used to living in another place.

ID:286689 D Common

●10 What do paragraphs 9 and 10 describe?

A. how the solutions would work

B. what people hoped to achieve by their actions

C. that people need to control the forces of nature

D. that many unplanned results can come from one cause

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ID:286692 B Common

●11 Reread paragraph 14. Based on the selection, how can an idea be both simple and big?

A. It can be new and interesting.

B. It can be basic and important.

C. It may require many people to help.

D. It may take a long time to carry out.

ID:286694 B Common

●12 According to paragraph 20, what was an unexpected benefit of Wangari’s work?

A. The women received more money.

B. The women became part of a team.

C. The women met people from other areas.

D. The women learned new ways of preparing food.

ID:286695 D Common

●13 What do Wangari’s comments in paragraph 23 suggest?

A. Kenya needed to assign soldiers to harder jobs.

B. Kenya needed to train people to guard themselves.

C. Kenya needed to focus more on developing its military.

D. Kenya needed to be improved so it would be worth defending.

ID:286697 C Common

●14 Based on the selection, what did Wangari’s project prove?

A. People need a lot of money to be successful.

B. Every person has the right to state an opinion.

C. Individuals can make a difference in the world.

D. We must study something to truly understand it.

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ID:286700 D Common


Her heart was filled with the beauty of her native Kenya . . .

In the sentence, the word native refers to

A. a place that is undeveloped.

B. a place that is shrinking.

C. a person’s childhood.

D. a person’s homeland.

ID:286701 A Common


An early nursery in Wangari’s backyard failed; almost all the seedlings died.

In the sentence, the word nursery refers to a place where

A. plants are grown.

B. ill people are taken.

C. children are cared for.

D. experiments are performed.

ID:286706 Common

●17 Based on the selection, explain a lesson that can be learned from the actions of Wangari Maathai. Support your answer with important details from the selection.

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Grade 5 English Language Arts ReadingComprehension

Spring2014ReleasedItems: ReportingCategories,Standards,andCorrectAnswers*

ItemNo. PageNo. ReportingCategory StandardCorrectAnswer

(MC)*

1 44 Reading 3 D

2 44 Reading 4 A

3 45 Reading 2 B

4 45 Reading 1 D

5 45 Reading 6 B

6 45 Reading 3

7 49 Reading 3 A

8 49 Reading 1 C

9 49 Reading 2 C

10 49 Reading 1 D

11 50 Reading 4 B

12 50 Reading 3 B

13 50 Reading 1 D

14 50 Reading 2 C

15 51 Language 4 D

16 51 Language 4 A

17 51 Reading 2

* Answers are provided here for multiple-choice items only. Sample responses and scoring guidelines for the open-response items,which are indicated by the shaded cells, will be posted to the Department’s website later this year.

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Grade 5 English Language Arts ReadingComprehension

Spring2014UnreleasedCommonItems: ReportingCategoriesandStandards

ItemNo. ReportingCategory Standard

18 Reading 5

19 Reading 1

20 Reading 3

21 Reading 3

22 Reading 8

23 Language 5

24 Reading 8

25 Reading 1

26 Reading 1

27 Reading 6

28 Reading 3

29 Reading 4

30 Reading 3

31 Reading 8.a

32 Reading 4

33 Language 4

34 Language 1

35 Reading 6

36 Reading 3

37 Reading 4

38 Reading 1

39 Reading 3

40 Language 4

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V. English Language Arts, Reading Comprehension, Grade 6

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The spring 2014 grade 6 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension test was based on grades 6–12 learning standards in two content strands of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy (March 2011) listed below. Page numbers for the learning standards appear in parentheses.







The grade 6 ELA Reading Comprehension test included two separate test sessions. Each session included reading passages, followed by multiple-choice and open-response questions. Selected common reading passages and approximately half of the common test items are shown on the following pages as they appeared in test booklets. Due to copyright restrictions, certain reading passages cannot be released to the public on the website. For further information, contact Student Assessment Services at 781-338-3625.

Reference Materials


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English Language ArtsREADING COMPREHENSION

56

DIRECTIONSThis session contains two reading selections with fifteen multiple-choice questions and one open-response question. Mark your answers to these questions in the spaces provided in your Student Answer Booklet.

After World War II, the people of Germany were in great need of food and supplies. The United States wanted to help but could not reach the city of Berlin by land because of a blockade by the Soviet Union. Therefore, the United States used planes to deliver supplies in an action known as the Berlin Airlift. During the airlift, an American pilot named Lieutenant Halvorsen saw a group of children behind a fence at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport and had an idea. Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.

from Candy Bomberby Michael O. Tunnell

1 The lieutenant’s eyes panned the thirty hungry faces, and his heart skipped a beat. These were the children he was here to save—children who’d grown up knowing little else but war. “I’ve got to go, kids,” he said reluctantly. He knew the jeep was waiting to take him through the rubble-strewn streets of Berlin for more photos.

2 Fifty yards away from the fence, Lt. Halvorsen stopped. He couldn’t get those youngsters out of his head. He knew because of the war they hadn’t tasted candy in years. In other parts of the war-torn world, kids begged American servicemen for sweets, yet not one of these kids had asked him for something. He reached into his pocket and felt two sticks of Doublemint chewing gum. Turning back to the fence, he broke the sticks in half, wondering if it was a mistake to give the four puny pieces to thirty sugar-starved boys and girls.

3 Expecting the children to squabble over the gum, the lieutenant watched what happened in amazement: there was no fi ghting. The lucky four who had plucked the half sticks from his fi ngers kept the gum, but they ripped the wrappers into strips, passing them around so everyone could breathe in the sweet, minty smell. “In all my experience, including Christmases past,” he recalls, “I had never witnessed such an expression of surprise, joy, and sheer pleasure.”

4 Just then another C-54 roared overhead and landed, tires screeching on the runway. “The plane gave me a sudden fl ash of inspiration,” Halvorsen remembers. “Why not drop some gum, even chocolate, to these kids out of our airplane the next daylight trip to Berlin?” Of course, the lieutenant knew he might never get permission from his commanding offi cer for such a stunt, but why not do it anyway? Just once. Surprising himself, Halvorsen hurried back to the fence and announced his plan to the eager children. He told them that if they would agree to share equally, he’d drop candy and chewing gum for everyone from his plane the next day.

5 There was excited whispering. Then after some prodding from the others, the blue-eyed girl asked how they would know which aircraft he’d be fl ying. That was a problem, of course. There were so many planes coming and going.

6 “When I get overhead, I’ll wiggle the wings,” said Lt. Halvorsen. It was the way he’d greeted his parents when fl ying a small plane over their Utah farm.

7 The girl wrinkled her nose in confusion. “Vhat is viggle?” she asked in her accented English.

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8 Lt. Halvorsen held out his arms and rocked them back and forth, making the children laugh. Now that they understood the signal, some suggested he leave right away and get ready for the candy drop.

9 After his jeep tour of Berlin, Lt. Halvorsen hitched a ride back home to Rhein-Main Air Force Base in West Germany on an empty cargo plane.1 Because his next flight to Tempelhof was at 2:00 am, he tried to get some rest. However, thoughts of candy kept him awake. American airmen received weekly ration cards to buy a few sweets, and his allotment wasn’t enough for thirty kids. He needed to talk his crew into donating their rations as well. But candy was like currency in war-ravaged Germany, so they might not be willing to part with it. An airman could hire a German woman to do his weekly wash for a couple of Hershey bars. If he saved up his candy ration, he could even pick up a camera on the black market.2 And that was in West Germany—in Berlin, a chocolate bar had ten times the value.

10 Nevertheless, when Lt. Halvorsen announced his plan, his crew quickly agreed to donate their candy, even though they might be making trouble for themselves by not asking permission. But how should they go about dropping the sweets? One package, though not large, dropped at 115 miles (185 kilometers) per hour would be a dangerous missile. Halvorsen decided on three smaller packages suspended on parachutes made from handkerchiefs.

11 Later the next day, as the lieutenant came in for a noon landing at Tempelhof, he spotted his thirty kids waiting, necks craned to the sky. He wiggled the wings of his Douglas C-54, and they went wild, waving and cheering and running in circles.

12 “Now!” Lt. Halvorsen cried to Sergeant Elkins, the crew chief, who thrust the three handkerchiefs into the tube for releasing emergency flares. The little parachutes shot out of the tube “like popcorn.” But had the candy drifted lazily into eager fingers or settled on roofs or even on the runway?

13 The answer came a few minutes later. Soon after German volunteers had emptied the Skymaster’s cargo hold of its flour, Halvorsen started up the engines. The steady stream of air traffic demanded a quick turnaround—unload and get back in the air. As their plane rumbled down the taxi strip, the crew spotted three white handkerchiefs fluttering through the wire fence.

14 “The little parachutes were being waved . . . at every crew as each aircraft taxied3 by,” Halvorsen recalls. “Behind the three with the parachutes were the rest of the cheering section with both arms waving above their heads and every jaw working on a prize.”

1 cargo plane — an airplane that carries supplies2 the black market — an unofficial, often secretive way to purchase goods3 taxied — drove on the ground

In the beginning Halvorsen’s fellow airmen kept Operation Little Vittles going by contributing their candy rations and handkerchiefs.

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Candy parachutes scatter from a C-54. Though Halvorsen initially jettisoned only three candy-laden handkerchiefs, later drops released hundreds or even thousands of parachutes at a time.

15 During the next two weeks Lt. Halvorsen and his crew made two more drops to the kids, who waited patiently until they spotted the plane with the wiggling wings. The group at the end of the runway swelled in size each time. Then the mail began to pour into Tempelhof Central Airport: letters addressed to Onkel Wackelflügel (Uncle Wiggly Wings) or Der Schokoladen-flieger (The Chocolate Pilot). All the publicity made the crew nervous. “Holy cow!” Lt. Halvorsen exclaimed when he first laid eyes on the stacks of envelopes waiting for him at Tempelhof. Now he was certain trouble was knocking at the door. The sheer volume of mail was enough to tip off his superior officers about the candy drops. So Halvorsen and the rest of the crew decided that the next load of six parachutes would be their last—but it was already too late.

16 The day after what they thought was their last candy drop, the commanding officer summoned Halvorsen to his office at Rhein-Main Air Force Base. “What in the world have you been doing?” Colonel Haun demanded. He plopped a newspaper from Frankfurt, Germany, on the desk. “You almost hit a reporter in the head with a candy bar in Berlin yesterday. He’s spread the story all over Europe.”

17 Standing before the peeved superior officer, Lt. Halvorsen thought his flying days might be over. Then Colonel Haun said, “The general called me with congratulations, and I didn’t know anything about it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

18 The reporter had nicknamed the candy drops “Operation Little Vittles” and praised the pilot’s efforts. Apparently the US Air Force loved the good publicity, because Lt. Halvorsen was ordered to appear at an upcoming international press conference. The colonel was only upset that General Tunner had caught him off guard. “Keep flying,” he told Halvorsen, “keep dropping, and keep me informed.”

Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift’s “Chocolate Pilot” by Michael O. Tunnell. Copyright © 2010 by Michael O. Tunnell. Text and photographs reprinted by permission of Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc.

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ID:303175 D Common

●1 In paragraph 1, the phrase “his heart skipped a beat” most likely means that Lt. Halvorsen felt

A. lonely.

B. curious.

C. exhausted.

D. sympathetic.

ID:303178 A Common

●2 Based on paragraphs 2 and 3, what worried Lt. Halvorsen when he gave his gum to the children?

A. They might argue about it.

B. They might ask for more of it.

C. They would not like the taste of it.

D. They would not know what to do with it.

ID:303193 A Common

●3 Read the phrases from the passage in the box below.

• Just then• After his jeep tour• Later the next day• During the next two weeks

The phrases show that the passage is mostly organized

A. in chronological order.

B. in order of importance.

C. by presenting solutions to a problem.

D. by listing topics with supporting details.

ID:303184 D Common

●4 Based on the passage, which of the following most likely describes the living conditions of the American airmen?

A. They struggled as they tried to follow German customs.

B. They lived much as they would have in the United States.

C. They worked hard, but they barely had enough to survive.

D. They received what they needed, but luxuries were scarce.

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ID:303186 C Common

●5 What is the main purpose of paragraph 11?

A. to suggest that the children were unsupervised

B. to explain that the lieutenant was uncertain

C. to show the children’s excitement

D. to describe the lieutenant’s plan

ID:303189 A Common

●6 Based on the passage, why was the crewconcerned about receiving a large amount of mail?

A. They did not want to attract attention to the drops.

B. They did not think they could find more candy.

C. They did not know how to answer the letters.

D. They did not have time to read the letters.

ID:303181 D Common

●7 Which detail from the passage best showsthat Lt. Halvorsen was daring?

A. He wiggled the wings of his airplane.

B. He met with his commanding officer.

C. He made small parachutes without help.

D. He dropped the candy without permission.

ID:303194 B Common

●8 Read the phrases from the passage in thebox below.

• couldn’t get those youngsters outof his head

• watched what happened inamazement

• thoughts of candy kept him awake

The phrases suggest that one of the author’s main purposes is to

A. present factual information.

B. describe a human experience.

C. convince the reader of an opinion.

D. entertain the reader with unusual events.

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ID:303196 C Common


“Why not drop some gum, even chocolate, to these kids out of our airplane the next daylight trip to Berlin?”

How are the commas used in the sentence?

A. to separate items in a list

B. to connect two complete ideas

C. to insert an additional thought

D. to set apart an introductory phrase

ID:303187 C Common


The little parachutes shot out of the tube “like popcorn.”

What is the purpose of this sentence in the passage?

A. to describe some damage to the candy

B. to suggest that the candy would be delicious

C. to provide an image of the drop from the plane

D. to explain that the drop from the plane was risky

ID:303199 Common

●11 Based on the passage, explain whether Lt. Halvorsen made good decisions. Support your answer with important details from the passage.

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Students read an excerpt from Finding Fish and then answered questions 12 through 16 that follow on pages 64–65 of this document.

Due to copyright restrictions, the selection cannot be released to the public over the Internet. For more information, see the copyright citation below.

Finding Fish by Antwone Quenton Fisher and Mim Eichler Rivas. Copyright © 2001 by Antwone Quenton Fisher and Mim Eichler Rivas. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

In this selection from his autobiography Finding Fish, Antwone Quenton Fisher describes how his experiences in a new school helped bring about changes in his life. Read the selection and then answer the questions that follow.

from FINDING FISHby Antwone Quenton Fisher

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Due to copyright restrictions, the excerpt that appeared on this page cannot be released to the public over the Internet. For more information, see the citation on the previous page.

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ID:266494 B Common

●12 According to the selection, why does Fish change his mind about his nickname?

A. He likes it because it is short.

B. He likes the image it presents.

C. He thinks his friends will like it.

D. He thinks it is easy to remember.

ID:266498 C Common

●13 In the selection, which event is an important turning point for Fish?

A. Mrs. Profit helps him clean out his desk.

B. Mrs. Profit praises him when he puts forth effort.

C. Mrs. Profit rearranges the desks in the classroom.

D. Mrs. Profit individually greets students entering the classroom.

ID:266509 B Common

●14 Based on the selection, Mrs. Profit would most likely agree with which of the following statements?

A. Students learn best when they study independently.

B. Teacher encouragement helps students do their best.

C. Years of experience are needed to successfully teach students.

D. The most capable students should serve as role models for others.

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ID:266510 D Common

●15 Based on the selection, what is the mostlikely reason Fish chose to write about Mrs. Profit?

A. She was the first teacher he had.

B. She became a member of his family.

C. She inspired him to become a teacher.

D. She was an important person in his life.

ID:266527 B Common


She . . . rewarded the whole class for our overall positive efforts with impromptu parties, field trips, and other celebrations.

In the sentence, the word impromptu is used as which part of speech?

A. adverb

B. adjective

C. preposition

D. conjunction

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(MC)*

1 59 Reading 4 D

2 59 Reading 1 A

3 59 Reading 5 A

4 59 Reading 1 D

5 60 Reading 5 C

6 60 Reading 3 A

7 60 Reading 3 D

8 60 Reading 6 B

9 61 Language 2 C

10 61 Language 5 C

11 61 Reading 3

12 64 Reading 3 B

13 64 Reading 2 C

14 64 Reading 3 B

15 65 Reading 6 D

16 65 Language 4 B

* Answers are provided here for multiple-choice items only. Sample responses and scoring guidelines for open-response items, which areindicated by the shaded cells, will be posted to the Department’s website later this year.

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17 Reading 1

18 Reading 4

19 Reading 6

20 Reading 7

21 Language 4

22 Reading 2

23 Reading 3

24 Reading 5

25 Reading 4

26 Reading 1

27 Reading 1

28 Reading 2

29 Reading 3

30 Reading 3

31 Language 4

32 Language 4

33 Reading 3

34 Reading 1

35 Reading 1

36 Reading 6

37 Reading 5

38 Reading 6

39 Language 4

40 Reading 9

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VI. English Language Arts, Grade 7

A. CompositionB. Reading Comprehension

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Grade 7 English Language Arts TestTest Structure

The grade 7 English Language Arts test was presented in the following two parts:

■ the ELA Composition test, which used a writing prompt to assess learning standards from theWriting strand in the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts andLiteracy (March 2011)

■ the ELA Reading Comprehension test, which used multiple-choice and open-response questions(items) to assess learning standards from the Reading and Language strands in the MassachusettsCurriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy

A. CompositionThe spring 2014 grade 7 ELA Composition test and Composition Make-Up test were based on learning standards in the grades 6–12 Writing strand of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy (March 2011). The learning standards for the grades 6–12 Writing strand appear on pages 53–59 of the Framework, which is available on the Department website at www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/current.html.

Each grade 7 ELA writing prompt assesses standard 1, 2, or 3 in the grades 6–12 Writing strand in the 2011 Framework. All grade 7 writing prompts assess standards 4 and 5 in the grades 6–12 Writing strand.

ELA Composition test results are reported under the reporting categories Composition: Topic Development and Composition: Standard English Conventions.


The ELA Composition test included two separate test sessions, administered on the same day with a short break between sessions. During the first session, each student wrote an initial draft of a composition in response to the appropriate writing prompt on the next page. During the second session, each student revised his or her draft and submitted a final composition, which was scored in the areas of Topic Development and Standard English Conventions. The Scoring Guides for the MCAS English Language Arts Composition are available at www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/student/elacomp_scoreguide.html.

Reference Materials

At least one English-language dictionary per classroom was provided for student use during ELA Composition test sessions. The use of bilingual word-to-word dictionaries was allowed for current and former English language learner students only. No other reference materials were allowed during either ELA Composition test session.

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ID:305031 Common


WRITING PROMPT

There are times when someone sacrifices or gives up something important for a good reason.

In a well-developed composition, describe a time when you decided to give something up for a good reason. Explain what happened, why you made your decision, and how you felt afterward.

Grade 7 Writing Prompt

Grade 7 Make-Up Writing Prompt

WRITING PROMPT

Everyone dreams of what his or her future will be, but most people have to work hard to make their dreams come true.

In a well-developed composition, write a detailed description of your dreams for your future. Explain how you plan to achieve these dreams.

ID:299586 Common

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B. Reading ComprehensionThe spring 2014 grade 7 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension test was based on grades 6–12 learning standards in two content strands of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy (March 2011) listed below. Page numbers for the learning standards appear in parentheses.








Reference Materials


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DIRECTIONSThis session contains two reading selections with sixteen multiple-choice questions and two open-response questions. Mark your answers to these questions in the spaces provided in your Student Answer Booklet.


Insects have become very specialized in the ways they avoid being eaten by other animals. Read this article and answer the questions that follow.

Surviving, for Betterand Worse

by Marc Zabludoff

1 Nearly all insects are hunted as food, and not just by other insects. Birds, mammals, lizards, snakes, frogs, toads, and especially spiders all depend on insect meals for their survival.

2 Insects, naturally, have developed a few ways to avoid joining any of these companions for dinner. Their principal response to attack is to try to escape. No matter how well-armed or -legged an insect might be, it is always far better to flee than to fight. The need to escape predators was surely at least one of the pressures behind the development of insect wings. Wings enable insects to accomplish several other important tasks, of course, such as finding food, mates, and new territory. But their value as an escape tool is very high.

3 Certain insect bodies have developed other specialized parts for escaping a hungry predator’s claws and jaws. These include jumping legs in froghoppers, for example, or “ears” in certain night-flying moths that can hear the echolocating calls of bats. (Echolocation is the sound-wave process some animals use to identify and locate objects.) More generalized features include the flattened body of roaches and bugs that allow them to squeeze into impossibly narrow hiding places.

C H E M I C A L W E A P O N R Y

4 A large variety of insects try to avoid predators by making themselves extremely unpleasant to eat. Most children have learned that grasshoppers, for instance, spit “tobacco juice” when threatened. The juice is actually the partly digested food from the insect’s crop, and it is not so much spit as vomited. It is as unappealing to some predators as it sounds (though not to all—some predators have no taste). Other insects have similar defenses. Stinkbugs, for example, simply stink. Certain water beetles fire pellets of waste from their rear ends as they swim away from pursuing fish.

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5 These are all mild forms of chemical warfare. Bombardier beetles go in for a more serious version. These insects get their name from their ability to “bomb” an attacker with a series of gas explosions from their abdomen. A mixture of chemicals inside their body results in the emission of a hot, brownish spray that can burn any predator that gets too near. Other beetles ooze out peppery liquids, some from their legs, others from glands inside their forewings. These substances are often powerful enough to burn human skin.

6 Many insects make sure they are not just bad tasting but poisonous. Monarch butterflies, when caterpillars, gorge1 themselves on the leaves of milkweed plants. A chemical in the leaves guarantees that a predator foolish enough to eat a monarch caterpillar will soon vomit up its meal. If it does not, it will die. Adult butterflies continue to carry the milkweed poison they ate as youngsters.

7 Of course, this method of defense does little for the butterfly that has already been eaten. By the time the predator learns its lesson, the butterfly is history. But it does protect other butterflies in the future. And poisonous insects usually try to get their message across before being eaten. Most of them are brightly colored or marked with bold black-bordered stripes.

M I M I C R Y A N D C A M O U F L A G E

8 The monarch’s poison defense is so effective that another butterfly, the viceroy, uses it also. Unlike the monarch, though, the viceroy cannot eat milkweed. In fact, any predator can munch on a viceroy with no ill effects whatsoever—no vomiting, no dying. However, the viceroy has evolved so that it sports the same orange wings with black lines and white spots that adorn the monarch. Birds that have learned to avoid the poisonous monarch will avoid the non-poisonous viceroy as well.

9 This kind of defense is called mimicry, and it is not limited to butterflies. Stinging insects, for example, like bees, are often marked by black and yellow stripes that predators quickly grow wary of. The drone fly has taken advantage of this by evolvinga striped body similar to that of a bee. Many predators, seeing the drone fly’s black and yellow outfit, simply let it pass. In fact the drone fly is harmless, its weaponry non-existent.

1 gorge — to eat large amounts

When threatened, a bombardier beetle mixes an array of chemicals in a chamber in its abdomen. Combined, the chemicals explode out in a hot spray that sends predators running.

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10 Other insects try not so much to look like something else as to look like nothing at all. They camouflage themselves so that they fade into the background. Stick insects blend in among twigs and bark. Treehoppers look, and often feel, like thorns. Leaf butterflies look convincingly like dead leaves. Some caterpillars look like bird droppings.

11 No matter what defense an insect relies on, the brutal truth is that very few of them will die of old age. Insects are a vast food source for animals of every kind, including the insects themselves. In addition, despite the exquisite2 design of the insect body, it is still a small fragile thing when compared with the physical forces of weather. Insects can avoid some of the effects of nature. Most can go into a resting, or hibernating, state as an egg or larva or even as an adult. Ladybugs in California, for example, gather in huge colonies to hibernate in the mountains in winter, then return to the valleys in the spring. While they are resting, each ladybug releases a small amount of a predator-repelling substance. The total volume of it protects them all. Other insects migrate to avoid the cold. Monarch butterflies escape winter by flying south—sometimes as much as 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from Canada to Mexico.

12 Still, the weather takes its toll, and what the elements do not kill, the predators will. Only a relatively few insect eggs ever hatch. Few of those that do ever make it to adulthood. The odds against an insect egg developing into an insect parent are very, very high. Of course, insects lay a staggering number of eggs. And the world is still populated by a staggering number of insects.

“Surviving, for Better and Worse” by Marc Zabludoff, from The Insect Class. Copyright © 2006 by Marc Zabludoff. Reprinted by permission of Marshall Cavendish. Photograph copyright © Handout/Reuters/Corbis.

2 exquisite — finely detailed

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ID:304140 B Common

●1 Which sentence from paragraphs 1 and 2 best states the main idea of the article?

A. “Birds, mammals, lizards, snakes, frogs, toads, and especially spiders all depend on insect meals for their survival.”

B. “Insects, naturally, have developed a few ways to avoid joining any of these companions for dinner.”

C. “No matter how well-armed or -legged an insect might be, it is always far better to flee than to fight.”

D. “The need to escape predators was surely at least one of the pressures behind the development of insect wings.”

ID:304135 D Common

●2 Based on paragraph 7, what function do the bold markings on most poisonous insects serve?

A. They provide a disguise.

B. They help to locate food.

C. They attract possible mates.

D. They warn enemies of danger.

ID:304138 C Common

●3 Based on the article, which method of defense involves blending into the environment?

A. flight

B. mimicry

C. camouflage

D. echolocation

ID:304139 B Common

●4 Based on paragraph 12, how do insects best defend themselves against extinction?

A. by adapting to their habitat

B. by producing many offspring

C. by remaining carefully hidden

D. by developing toxic chemicals

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ID:304141 A Common

●5 Throughout the article, what does the author mainly use to support statements about the defense systems of insects?

A. factual examples

B. personal narratives

C. opinions from scientists

D. conclusions from experiments

ID:304143 A Common


Certain water beetles fire pellets of waste from their rear ends as they swim away from pursuing fish.

In the sentence, what part of speech is the word fire?

A. verb

B. noun

C. adverb

D. pronoun




ID:304146 Common

●7 Explain how the information in the article supports the title, “Surviving, for Better and Worse.” Support your answer with important and specific details from the article.

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1 had to breathe in short puffs as we waited at the front door of the Ogilvie mansion. The stays1 bit into my stomach and my shift2 was already sweat-soaked. If this was how the

upper class felt all the time, no wonder they were all so cross. 2 Mother tugged at my bodice to straighten it. 3 “Try not to look so pained,” she said. “We won’t stay long. Knowing your grandfather, he’ll

be giving away the silver on the street corner when we return.” 4 She licked her thumb and wiped a smudge of dirt off my cheek. “You might turn out to be

a beauty after all,” she said. “You’ve grown so quickly. I want the best for you.” 5 I looked at her closely, unaccustomed to the gentle tone of her voice. Mother bent down

suddenly to brush off the bottom of her gown. 6 “Look at this dust,” she exclaimed. “When I was young, my family had a lovely carriage,

and we always rode to tea. We arrived fresh and clean.” 7 She turned around and swatted the hem of my skirt. The door opened and an Ogilvie maid

stared at the backside of my grumbling mother. 8 “Ma’am?” she asked. 9 Mother stood up hastily.10 “Mrs. William Cook Junior and Miss Matilda Cook are here for tea with Mrs. Ogilvie,”

she told the maid. “The invitation arrived this morning.”11 The maid showed us into a drawing room as large as the entire first floor of the coffee

shop. The long windows were covered with shimmering damask curtains. A crystal chandelier hung over a gleaming mahogany table, around which were clustered a half-dozen Chippendale chairs. Very expensive.

12 “Lucille, my dear Lucille, how wonderful to see you!” exclaimed Pernilla Ogilvie. She sailed across the room like a man-of-war, showing the brocaded tips of her shoes and layers of lace-trimmed, starched petticoats. Her overpowdered hair left a trail behind her that settled like smoke on the carpet.

13 Mother’s face sagged as she took in Pernilla’s gown of gunpowder gray silk, striped with white and blue. Her hand strayed to a stubborn coffee stain just over her hip.

14 “I’m so glad you could come,” Pernilla continued. “I’m about to die from lack of company!”

from Fever 1793by Laurie Halse Anderson

In 1793, after the death of her father, Matilda Cook and her mother, Lucille, run a coffeehouse in Philadelphia. In this excerpt, they visit Lucille’s friend Pernilla Ogilvie and her two daughters. During this time, a dangerous disease, yellow fever, is infecting and killing many people. Read the excerpt and answer the questions that follow.

1 stays — strips of bone, plastic, or metal used to stiffen a dress2 shift — a woman’s undergarment

I

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15 “Good afternoon, Pernilla. It was very kind of you to invite us. Allow me to present my daughter, Matilda.”

16 I curtsied slightly, conscious of the few threads barely holding me together.17 “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ma’am,” I said.18 “Oh, poor little Matilda. I recall your father well. He was such a handsome man, would

have gone far if he had been educated. But it won’t do to think about tiresome things today. I declare this has been the worst summer of my life, and I’m counting on you both to lighten my mood.”

19 She squeezed Mother’s arm. Mother gritted her teeth.20 “I’m parched. Let’s have tea and I’ll tell you all about this wonderful house that Robert

built for me.” Mrs. Ogilvie rang a tiny bell on the sideboard. “Girls?”21 The Ogilvie daughters, Colette and Jeannine, swept into the room, dressed in matching pink

and yellow bombazine gowns, wearing their curled hair piled on top of their heads. I should have let Eliza curl my hair. Dash it all.

22 Colette was the oldest. Her skin was as pale as clean ice, and dark circles ringed her eyes. Jeannine’s head only came up to my shoulder, but she looked sixteen, at least. Her cheeks shone pink and chubby as a baby pig’s. Jeannine whispered something into Colette’s ear. Colette closed her eyes briefly, then snapped them open again. I wondered why she was so tired. No doubt exhausted from being waited on hand and foot.

23 The mothers sat down first, then Colette and Jeannine flopped carelessly onto the Chippendale chairs. I sat carefully so as not to pop any stitches. After two servants brought in silver trays of rolls and bite-sized frosted cakes, Mrs. Ogilvie poured the tea.

24 “Colette and Jeannine have just finished lessons with their French tutor,” Mrs. Ogilvie said. “Are you studying French, Matilda?”

25 Mother jumped in before I could open my mouth. “You know how old-fashioned my father-in-law is, Pernilla. He prohibits French, no matter how much I implore him. You are so fortunate to have an understanding husband. Do your sons study French as well?”

26 “Of course. We’ve had the French ambassador here to dine any number of times.”27 While Mrs. Ogilvie recounted what she thought was a hilarious story about “Monsieur

L’Ambassadeur,” I tried to reach the cake plate. My fingers fell just short. If I stretched all the way across the table, the seam under my arm would split open. Jeannine saw my dilemma, picked up the plate, and passed it in the opposite direction to her mother.

28 “Why, thank you, dear, how kind,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. She chose three cakes and handed the plate to Mother, who took two. As Mother handed the plate to Colette, it tilted and the cakes slid to the floor. A tiny dog with a red ribbon between its ears rushed in and gobbled the fallen cakes. My stomach rumbled.

29 “So tell me, Lucille, what have you been doing for company this tedious August?” Pernilla asked. “Everyone, simply everyone, has rushed out to their country retreats. It is most annoying.”

30 I struggled to keep a straight face as I pictured Mother amidst the weeds, horseflies, and dead mice in our garden.

31 Mrs. Ogilvie prattled on.

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32 “President Washington and Martha will soon leave for Virginia, of course, the Nortons and Hepstrudels are in Germantown, and my own sister took her family to New York. Did you know that I planned a gala ball and only two families responded? The rest of society has vanished!”

33 Jeannine unfolded a silk fan and waved it, blowing a cloud of curls off her forehead. Shielding her mouth from her mother with the fan, she stuck her tongue out at me. Her wretched dog nipped at my shoe under the table.

34 “The only people left in Philadelphia seem to be shopkeepers and wharf rats. Robert has an appointment with the mayor this very day to insist that he put an end to the rumors of yellow fever.”

35 “I heard a man died of the fever in the middle of the street, and three black crows flew out of his mouth,” said Jeannine.

36 “Don’t be vile, Jeannine,” snapped her mother. “Those filthy refugees and creatures who live in the crowded hovels by the river, they’re always sick with something. But it is a gross injustice that my gala should suffer because the lower class falls ill. Don’t you agree, Lucille?”

37 Mother struggled to keep the smile on her face as she changed the subject.38 “Are your sons still in town, Pernilla?” she asked.39 Jeannine’s eyebrows went up and her mouth opened. Why did Mother have to be so obvious

in her intent? Why not just hang a signboard around my neck: Available—foul-mouthed daughter?

40 “All of my brothers are away at school, Mrs. Cook,” Jeannine answered quickly. “It’s a shame they aren’t here to meet you, Matilda. I’m sure you would amuse one of them.”

41 I flinched.42 “Colette has recently become engaged to Lord Garthing’s son,” Jeannine continued. “The

gala was to have celebrated the engagement. Have you been courted yet, Matilda?”43 “Matilda is a bit young for suitors,” interjected Mother. “But I must congratulate you on

your good fortune, Colette. When is the wedding to be held?”44 Colette dabbed her napkin on her forehead. “Mama, it is rather warm in here.”45 “Colette always flushes when we discuss the wedding. She is such a delicate creature.

Sensitive nerves.” Mrs. Ogilvie had icing on the end of her nose.46 “Colette tried to avoid our lesson this morning by complaining of a mysterious illness,”

tattled Jeannine. “She just wants to lie about and read dreadful novels.”47 “Has any of your sons found a bride?” asked Mother, determined not to let her subject

slip away.48 Mrs. Ogilvie poured out another cup of tea. “We have many discussions, as you might

imagine. My children are a blessing, to be sure, but it requires a great effort to secure the future of each one.”

49 Jeannine picked up the last cake on her plate, slowly bit into it, and licked the icing off her fingers.

50 “Mother,” I said through my teeth. We did not belong here. I did not belong here. Mother may have grown up with carriages and gowns, but I had not. I had to clasp my hands in my lap to keep from slapping Jeannine or shaking the life out of her mangy dog.

51 Mother ignored me and plowed ahead.52 “Has any of your sons shown an interest in business?”

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Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. Copyright © 2000 by Laurie Halse Anderson. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division.

53 Colette brought her tea cup to her lips, but spilled the tea into her lap. Mrs. Ogilvie didn’t notice.

54 “Trade?” she replied. “Robert thinks that our sons should go into law or banking. Trade is hardly suitable for someone of our background.”

55 Jeannine threw her fan down on the table. “Oh, Mama, must you be so thick-headed? Mrs. Cook is asking if you might consider Miss Cook as a wife for one of our brothers. And I imagine their filthy little tavern is part of the deal.”

56 I stood so quickly that the seams under my arms ripped open with a snarl. The dog barked shrilly.

57 “It’s not a tavern, it’s a coffeehouse!” I said.58 “Grog shop,” taunted Jeannine.59 At that insult my mother rose. A grog shop was where criminals and the other dregs of

society gathered to drink whiskey and fight.60 “A coffeehouse,” Mother explained. “With respectable customers who mind their manners

far better than you.”61 “Oh, girls, ladies,” fluttered Mrs. Ogilvie.62 Colette grasped the edge of the table and pulled herself to her feet, knocking over the

cream pitcher.63 “I fear,” she said, panting heavily.64 We all turned to stare at her.65 “Sit down, Colette,” said Jeannine.66 “I fear,” Colette tried again.67 “Pernilla, that girl does not look well,” said Mother.68 “I’m burning,” whispered Colette. She crumpled to the flowered carpet in a faint.69 While Mrs. Ogilvie shrieked, Mother knelt down and laid the back of her hand against

Colette’s forehead. “The fever!”

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ID:285654 D Common

●8 What do paragraphs 1–4 mainly show about Matilda?

A. She is tall for her age.

B. She is angry at her mother.

C. She is worried about her grandfather.

D. She is uncomfortable in the situation.

ID:285655 B Common

●9 In paragraphs 5–7, what does the reader discover about Lucille?

A. She is annoyed by the hot weather.

B. She is frustrated by how her life has changed.

C. She is nervous about leaving the coffeehouse.

D. She is shocked at the attitude of her daughter.

ID:285656 A Common

●10 What does the description in paragraph 11 mainly emphasize?

A. the Ogilvies’ wealth

B. the simplicity of the house

C. the peacefulness of the house

D. the Ogilvies’ dislike of strangers

ID:285657 D Common


She sailed across the room like a man-of-war, showing the brocaded tips of her shoes and layers of lace-trimmed, starched petticoats.

What does the simile in the sentence show about Pernilla?

A. She is sloppy.

B. She is unsteady.

C. She has a warm personality.

D. She has a powerful presence.

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ID:285658 D Common

●12 In paragraph 13, why does Lucille’sface sag?

A. She is upset by Pernilla’s comments.

B. She is sympathetic to Pernilla’s troubles.

C. She worries her daughter will fight with Pernilla’s daughters.

D. She feels her clothing is shabby compared with Pernilla’s clothing.

ID:285662 A Common

●13 Read the sentences from paragraph 22in the box below.

I wondered why she was so tired. No doubt exhausted from being waited on hand and foot.

What does the sarcasm in the sentences show about Matilda?

A. She resents how the sisters are spoiled.

B. She is curious about Colette’s hobbies.

C. She is anxious about Colette’s health.

D. She fears catching the fever.

ID:285663 C Common

●14 In paragraph 25, what is the most likelyreason Lucille jumps in before Matilda can answer the question?

A. Lucille wants to steer the conversation toward Colette’s lessons.

B. Lucille wants to brag about her father-in-law’s traditional values.

C. Lucille wants to respond in a way that saves the family embarrassment.

D. Lucille wants to offer her opinion about the advantages of studying French.

ID:285665 C Common

●15 Which of the following examples fromthe excerpt best reveals Jeannine’s character?

A. “Jeannine’s head only came up to my shoulder, but she looked sixteen, at least.” (paragraph 22)

B. “Jeannine whispered something into Colette’s ear.” (paragraph 22)

C. “Jeannine saw my dilemma, picked up the plate, and passed it in the opposite direction to her mother.” (paragraph 27)

D. “Jeannine unfolded a silk fan and waved it, blowing a cloud of curls off her forehead.” (paragraph 33)

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ID:285671 D Common

●16 Which of the following events is the climax of the excerpt?

A. Jeannine tells the story about the black crows. (paragraph 35)

B. Jeannine asks about Matilda’s suitors. (paragraph 42)

C. Colette spills her tea. (paragraph 53)

D. Colette faints. (paragraph 68)

ID:285664 A Common

●17 What is the meaning of the word implore as it is used in paragraph 25?

A. beg

B. trick

C. flatter

D. punish

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ID:285675 Common

●18 Explain how the author builds tension in the excerpt. Support your answer with important and specific information from the excerpt.

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(MC)*

1 75 Reading 2 B

2 75 Reading 1 D

3 75 Reading 1 C

4 75 Reading 1 B

5 76 Reading 8 A

6 76 Language 1 A

7 76 Reading 2

8 81 Reading 1 D

9 81 Reading 1 B

10 81 Reading 3 A

11 81 Reading 4 D

12 82 Reading 1 D

13 82 Reading 4 A

14 82 Reading 6 C

15 82 Reading 6 C

16 83 Reading 5 D

17 83 Language 4 A

18 84 Reading 5

* Answers are provided here for multiple-choice items only. Sample responses and scoring guidelines for open-response items, which are indicated by the shaded cells, will be posted to the Department’s website later this year.

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19 Reading 5

20 Reading 4

21 Reading 8.a

22 Reading 2

23 Language 4

24 Reading 3

25 Reading 1

26 Reading 3

27 Reading 5

28 Reading 3

29 Reading 2

30 Reading 3

31 Reading 6

32 Reading 5

33 Language 4

34 Reading 2

35 Reading 1

36 Reading 2

37 Reading 4

38 Reading 4

39 Reading 2

40 Language 2

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VII. English Language Arts, Reading Comprehension, Grade 8

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The spring 2014 grade 8 English Language Arts Reading Comprehension test was based on grades 6–12 learning standards in two content strands of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy (March 2011) listed below. Page numbers for the learning standards appear in parentheses.








Reference Materials


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DIRECTIONSThis session contains two reading selections with ten multiple-choice questions and two open-response questions. Mark your answers to these questions in the spaces provided in your Student Answer Booklet.

In this article, Deborah Franklin describes how a connection with nature can influence people’s lives. Read the article and answer the questions that follow.

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Inviting the Outdoors Inby Deborah Franklin

After enduring one of the wettest winters in Seattle history, Judith Heerwagen, an environmental psychologist and a great believer in the power of nature to restore a weary soul, had to admit last February that 33 straight days of rain had been enough to swamp even her enthusiasm for the great outdoors.

“It got to be pretty grim,” Heerwagen recalls. Day after day, her usually splendid window views of trees and a leafy garden were a soupy, storm-battered mess. “Still,” she insists, “I’d much rather have a window view of constant rain than no window at all.”

And, apparently, so would the rest of us. In the two decades since Harvard University biologist E.O. Wilson first suggested that fascination with nature might be hardwired into the human brain, health researchers and psychologists such as Heerwagen have amassed significant evidence that he was right.

The powerful affinity that Wilson

and others have named “biophilia” is more than just puppy love. In hospital studies, Texas A&M University psychologist Roger Ulrich found that surgical patients randomly assigned to a room with a window view of trees not only required less pain medication, but also healed faster and were discharged more quickly than if they had no window or had a view of a brick wall.

Tapping into the power of biophilia may also boost a company’s bottom line. In Heerwagen’s own research, Michigan office and factory workers were both happier with their work environment and 20 percent more productive after their firm moved into a building that had skylights and windows that opened onto views of restored prairie with meandering footpaths and wetlands rather than sterile, office park surroundings.

“Instead of the big expanse of a clipped lawn and staid fountain that you usually find at a corporate headquarters,

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Research shows that regular contact with nature boosts physical and mental health as well as productivity; with a little imagination, even people who are stuck inside can reap these benefits.

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this large furniture manufacturer, Herman Miller, put in a pond and restored acres of prairie around the building with huge windows looking out from the factory showroom,” Heerwagen says. “The building is still just off the highway, and it’s noisy from the manufacturing, but the workers can look outside and see great blue herons in the pond.”

In ongoing efforts to tease out what it is about some landscapes that makes them particularly appealing, researchers have discovered through cross-cultural studies that certain features — the broad, spreading canopies of clustered trees, colorful flowers or sparkling water, for example — are pleasing to people throughout the world. “People are aesthetically drawn to environmental features that have proven instrumental to human survival,” writes Yale University social ecologist Stephen Kellert in his 2005 book Building for Life: Designing and Understanding the Human-Nature Connection. Such features, Kellert continues, include “clean flowing water, promontories that foster sight and mobility, areas that offer refuge and shelter, and bright flowering colors that frequently signify the presence of food.” The premium price that people are willing to pay for mountain or water views in hotels or homes provides further anecdotal evidence, he says.

But you don’t need a big budget or floor-to-ceiling windows to bring the benefits of the outdoors in. With a little creativity, even worker bees toiling in windowless cubicles or residents of basement apartments can strengthen their healing connections to the outside world. To see for yourself, try these biophilia-based home decorating tips:

Value the vista: No window? No problem. Though nothing can truly replace the sounds, fragrances, fresh air and stimulation we get through genuine windows overlooking a glorious nature scene, we can’t all live and work in Yosemite. If you don’t have an actual view of the horizon, put up photographs, paintings, nature calendars or even postcards that simulate a long view of sky and earth.

Let there be light: Studies of office workers show that it’s not just being able to see outside that they crave, it’s also the movement of air and, especially, the shifting patterns of light that signal changes in the time of day and season. Access to daylight, where possible, or glowing or dappled light from track lights or sconces that scatter light against a wall can lift mood and productivity. Improved lighting need not cost more; research shows that energy-saving fluorescent bulbs can be just as effective, if properly deployed.

Plant a posy: Houseplants and window boxes of fragrant herbs or flowers literally add life to a room. Watching potted plants grow from tender shoots to pie-ready strawberries or succulent tomatoes may be a particularly sweet way to have your nature and eat it, too. Warning: Toss cut flowers before they wither and smell, and also get rid of what Heerwagen calls “prisoner plants” — the lone, spindly, leafless specimens huddling in a too-small pot in a dark corner. “Live plants and flowers are comforting,” she says. “Dead ones don’t make anyone feel better.”

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Play with color: Even a single fresh bloom can add inexpensive delight to a table or desk, and that makes sense evolutionarily: In the wild, flowers are soon followed by fruit. Visit a farmer’s market for local blooms. Exotic choices can be attractive, Kellert says, but the familiar flowers closer to home will likely strike a deeper emotional chord.

Talk to the animals: Research has repeatedly shown that friendly interaction with animals can ease depression, reduce blood pressure, and otherwise buffer stress and boost self-esteem. No time or space for pets? Put a hummingbird feeder outside your window or offer to walk or play ball with a neighbor’s dog.

Sway with the seasons: No matter how many hours you spend in a virtual world, each physical locale has distinctive scents and sounds that shift with the seasons. Taking note of the seasonal clues in your neighborhood and incorporating some into your decor — a blooming cactus, a rosy branch of redbud — can help ground you in place and time. Fragrant plants — lilac or lavender in spring or summer, say, or rosemary or pine in December — are especially evocative.

Hide when you need to: Biophilia isn’t just a love of pleasant nature; it’s also about feeling safe from danger.

Peripheral gloom can feel threatening even when no danger lurks; drawing the shades across windows at night, or adding standing, light-colored screens around a conversation area, can lend coziness to an exposed space.

Walk in the park: Make spending time outdoors a priority. In studies of college students by Uppsala University psychologist Terry Hartig, those who spent 40 minutes walking through a park were more accurate in subsequent proofreading tests and much more likely to say they felt refreshed than those who spent 40 minutes strolling through city streets or those who sat quietly inside reading or listening to music. Such findings would not have surprised 19th century American naturalist Henry David Thoreau, who advised a daily walk “to re-ally ourselves with nature.”

The next step in architecture and other forms of design, Kellert says, is to more fully integrate the principles of biophilia into notions of “sustainable” technology. “I’ve started thinking of it as ‘restorative environmental design’ — a concept that incorporates all those principles,” he says. “It can’t just be about avoiding having negative effects on the environment. We need to think about taking advantage of nature’s benefits, too.”

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“Inviting the Outdoors In” by Deborah Franklin, from National Wildlife Magazine (June/July 2006). Copyright © 2006 by Deborah Franklin. Reprinted by permission of the author.

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ELA Reading Comprehension ELA Reading Comprehension

ID:271610 C Common

●1 Based on the article, why would a company most want to improve its work environment?

A. Maintaining beautiful grounds attracts customers.

B. Providing opportunities to be with animals reduces stress.

C. Creating a pleasant space increases efficiency and profits.

D. Constructing an enclosed conversation area makes people feel safe.

ID:271604 D Common

●2 According to the article, which of the following is most important to improving a home or an office?

A. large amounts of money to spend

B. the opportunity to consult experts

C. the authority to make changes to a building

D. some imagination in using simple materials

ID:271611 C Common

●3 Based on the article, which of the following would most help create a healing connection to nature?

A. making an arrangement of dried flowers

B. listening to beautiful and relaxing music

C. increasing the quantity and quality of light

D. displaying pictures of friends and loved ones

ID:271606 A Common

●4 What is the effect of the alliteration in the headings of paragraphs 10, 11, 12, and 15?

A. It creates a playful tone in the article.

B. It mimics the sounds found in nature.

C. It emphasizes the importance of music.

D. It gives a professional feel to the article.

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ID:271609 B Common

●5 Which of the following statements provides the best support for the article’s main idea?

A. “Day after day, her usually splendid window views of trees and a leafy garden were a soupy, storm-battered mess.”

B. “. . . surgical patients randomly assigned to a room with a window view of trees not only required less pain medication, but also healed faster . . .”

C. “Improved lighting need not cost more; research shows that energy-saving fluorescent bulbs can be just as effective . . .”

D. “. . . drawing the shades across windows at night, or adding standing, light-colored screens around a conversation area, can lend coziness to an exposed space.”

ID:271618 B Common

●6 What does the word simulate mean as it is used in the last sentence of paragraph 10?

A. extend

B. imitate

C. encourage

D. recommend

ID:271621 Common

●7 Explain how the concepts in the article could be applied to a school environment. Support your answer with relevant and specific information from the article.

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from Night Hoopsby Carl Deuker

1 at the next practice o’leary moved trent and me to the first team, and the up-tempo style that suited us was back, too.

2 There is nothing I like more than creating in the open court, and Trent had become a dream finisher. I fed him the ball again and again. Everything was working for him: the drives, the jumper, even the three-pointer.

3 At the end of practice, O’Leary had me wait on the court until all the guys were in the locker room. “That was solid, Nick. Real solid,” he said. “I like the way you and Trent play. You have a feel for each other, and that’s something you can’t coach.”

4 “We’ve been practicing together,” I explained. “I know where and when he likes the ball.”

5 “Yeah? Well, that’s good. That’s real good. Only don’t forget about Luke and Darren. Those guys can score, too, and they get itchy when they’re not getting their shots.”

6 “Trent was hot today,” I said, defending myself. “So I got him the ball. I’ll get them the ball when they’re hot.”

7 He nodded. “Fair enough. Find the hot hand and feed it—you do that and you’ll be starting at point guard for the next three years. Guaranteed. Now go shower up.”

. . .

8 The victory over Roosevelt was just the beginning. Against Woodinville Trent had

ten rebounds and twenty-two points, while I added eight points and dished out eight assists. The Juanita Rebels were next. Again Trent had a double double—twenty-four points and eleven rebounds. I handed out nine assists, seven of them to him. After that we avenged our earlier loss to the Eastlake Wolves, then beat the two dogs of our league, Redmond and Lake Washington. Our overall record was a mediocre 8–6, but in the league we were 8–3, and we still had two games left against first-place Garfield.

9 You put together a winning streak like that, and the locker room should be a wild place. Guys singing, towels snapping, water splashing everywhere. But the energy in our locker room wasn’t that much greater than when we’d been losing. Sure, guys congratulated each other, said “Good game” and all that. But they dressed quickly and left in little groups of two and three.

10 On the day of our first game against Garfield, I was sitting alone eating a grilled cheese sandwich and soup in the cafeteria. Luke spotted me and came over. “You mind if I sit here?”

In this excerpt from Night Hoops, Nick Abbott, a star player on his high school basketball team, faces a difficult challenge. Read the excerpt and answer the questions that follow.

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11 “No problem,” I said, glad for the company.12 We talked about the food, the game coming up, school. I wanted to relax, have

it be the way it was early in the year, but there was a tightness to his jaw that made me uncomfortable. He had something to say, something I wasn’t going to like. He finished off his milk shake and put the cup down on the table. “We can’t keep winning this way, you know.”

13 “What do you mean?” I asked, even though I knew.14 He tipped the empty cup back and forth. “Come on, Nick. The other coaches

aren’t stupid. They read the papers, check the box scores, scout the games. It’s Trent and you, and the rest of us just run up and down the court. That works against lousy teams, but a great team like Garfield will shut one or both of you down, and that’ll be that.”

15 “It hasn’t happened yet,” I said.16 “It will. We’re not a real team, Nick.”17 His words hung there for a moment, like a ball hanging on the rim. I swallowed.

“Okay. If you get open, I’ll get you the ball. The same thing with Darren, with everybody.”

18 Luke stuck his hand out across the table. I reached out and shook it. Then he left.19 I finished my lunch alone. The tomato soup was watery, the milk was warm, and

the grilled cheese looked and tasted like yellow rubber. It was the best-tasting lunch I’d had in weeks.

Night Hoops by Carl Deuker. Copyright © 2000 by Carl Deuker. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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ID:291455 A Common

●8 According to the excerpt, what is the flaw in Nick’s style of play?

A. He relies too heavily on Trent.

B. He does not play aggressively enough.

C. He focuses too much on what O’Leary says.

D. He does not have enough confidence in himself.

ID:291453 A Common

●9 What is the main conflict in the excerpt?

A. The team is not working well together.

B. The team is losing interest in basketball.

C. The team is not happy with their schedule.

D. The team is under pressure to keep winning.

ID:294184 C Common

●10 In the excerpt, what is the main effect of using the first person point of view?

A. The reader can understand the motivation of the team.

B. The reader can imagine the sights and sounds of basketball.

C. The reader can understand the narrator’s thoughts and feelings.

D. The reader can observe the narrator’s relationship with his coach.

ID:291462 A Common

●11 Which of the following is a compound sentence?

A. “There is nothing I like more than creating in the open court, and Trent had become a dream finisher.”

B. “But the energy in our locker room wasn’t that much greater than when we’d been losing.”

C. “On the day of our first game against Garfield, I was sitting alone eating a grilled cheese sandwich and soup in the cafeteria.”

D. “He finished off his milk shake and put the cup down on the table.”

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ID:291463 Common

●12 Based on the excerpt, explain how Nick changes. Support your answer with relevant andspecific details from the excerpt.

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(MC)*

1 92 Reading 2 C

2 92 Reading 1 D

3 92 Reading 1 C

4 92 Reading 4 A

5 93 Reading 2 B

6 93 Language 4 B

7 93 Reading 2

8 96 Reading 1 A

9 96 Reading 2 A

10 96 Reading 6 C

11 96 Language 1 A

12 97 Reading 3

* Answers are provided here for multiple-choice items only. Sample responses and scoring guidelines for open-response items, which are indicated by the shaded cells, will be posted to the Department’s website later this year.

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13 Reading 5

14 Reading 3

15 Reading 1

16 Reading 4

17 Reading 2

18 Reading 3

19 Reading 3

20 Reading 6

21 Reading 3

22 Language 5

23 Reading 5

24 Reading 1

25 Reading 4

26 Reading 1

27 Reading 1

28 Reading 4

29 Reading 1

30 Reading 4

31 Reading 6

32 Language 4

33 Language 3

34 Reading 3

35 Reading 3

36 Reading 1

37 Reading 5

38 Reading 3

39 Reading 5

40 Language 4

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English Language Arts Grade 3 Release Item …...Hear This 12 B oth dogs and wolves can hear better...

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