696

GRADE
GRADE
Released 2008 English
Achievement Test Language Arts
43/50
86%
This document contains released test items from the 2008 Grade 6 English Language Arts
Achievement Test.

Every second year, as of the fall of 2007, a complete test for all achievement test
subjects and grades (except grades 6 and 9 Social Studies; grades 3, 6, and 9 Français/
French Language Arts; and Grade 9 Knowledge and Employability courses) will be
mailed to school administrators in conjunction with the assessment highlights report for
that year. In this way, teachers will receive complete forms of achievement tests.
The parts of those tests that are released in print form for which electronic copyright
permission is received will subsequently be posted on the Alberta Education website.
A test blueprint and an answer key that includes the difficulty, reporting category, test
section, and item description for each test item will also be included. These materials,
along with the Program of Studies and subject bulletin, provide information that can be
used to inform instructional practice.

Assessment highlights provide information about the overall test, the test blueprints, and
student performance on the 2009 Grade 6 English Language Arts Achievement Test. Also
provided is commentary on student performance on the 2009 achievement test. This
information is intended for teachers and is best used in conjunction with the multi-year
and detailed school reports that are available to schools via the extranet. Assessment
highlights reports for all achievement test subjects and grades (except grades 3, 6, and 9
Français/French Language Arts and Grade 9 Knowledge and Employability courses) will
be posted on the Alberta Education website every year in the fall.

For further information, contact Robyn Pederson, Grade 6 Humanities Examination

Manager, at [Link]@[Link]; Sandy Myshak, Grade 6 Humanities Examiner,
at [Link]@[Link]; or Jo-Anne Hug, Director, Achievement Testing, at
Jo‑[Link]@[Link] at Learner Assessment, or call (780) 427-0010. To call toll-free
from outside Edmonton, dial (780) 310-0000.

The Alberta Education Internet address is [Link].

Copyright 2009, the Crown in Right of Alberta, as represented by the Minister of Education, Alberta
Education, Learner Assessment, 44 Capital Boulevard, 10044 108 Street NW, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 5E6,
and its licensors. All rights reserved.

Special permission is granted to Alberta educators only to reproduce, for educational purposes and on a non
profit basis, parts of this document that do not contain excerpted material.

Excerpted material in this document shall not be reproduced without the written permission of the original
publisher (see credits, where applicable).
 Part B: Reading—2008 Achievement Test Readings and Questions

The readings and questions presented in this document are from the previously secured
2008 Part B: Reading Grade 6 English Language Arts Achievement Test and are
representative of the questions that form these tests. These readings and questions are
released by Alberta Education.

Grade 6 Achievement Test

2008

English Language Arts

Part B: Reading

Readings and Questions

 I. Read the excerpt from a novel below and answer questions 1 to 5.

The narrator and his friend Raymond are in the northern wilderness during the
winter. They are now returning to their cabin with the carcass of a moose tied onto
a toboggan. They spot something unusual by their cabin.

from FAR NORTH

“Winter bear,” Raymond said, his voice hushed and awed. The length and the
width of the tracks had my heart beating like thunder. My first thought was that we
had no shells left for the rifle. I looked between the trees expecting at any moment
to see the monster that made the tracks. “What’s a winter bear?” I whispered.
5 “Polar bear?”
“Grizzly,” he said quietly, looking over his shoulder. “Probably a big male,
from the size of these prints.”
“But why isn’t it hibernating?”
“It didn’t put on enough fat to hibernate. Maybe there was a bad berry crop, or
10 its teeth are too worn down.”
In frustration, I kicked at one of the cache’s1 broken stilts. Like the other two
legs, they had originally been living trees sawed off to support the cache. They’d
looked sound from the outside, but inside they were rotten. Raymond dropped his
outer mitts, then went around the toboggan undoing our slipknots. All the while he
15 was glancing over his shoulder, which struck even more terror in my heart. “We
better hurry,” he said. “Get our things into the cabin and figure out what to do with
this meat. Bears can smell like anything. It could come back.”
We threw our things inside the cabin, plus the last of the firewood—enough to
get us by when night fell. All the while we were looking over our shoulders. “Keep
20 watching,” Raymond warned. “Bears move quiet. You probably won’t hear it
coming.”
Now we turned to the meat on the toboggan. How to protect it now that the
cache was down on the ground? “On the top of the cabin?” I wondered.
“Not high enough. The roof might cave in if the bear gets up on there.”
25 “Hang pieces of it from tree branches?”
“Ravens and camprobbers would get it.”
I stood there stamping my feet and smacking my mitts together. There was
nothing left between my ears but ice. Then Raymond thought of the solution: put
the toboggan up in a tree, across a couple of branches. Tie it down, repack it, cover
30 it with the tarp and branches so the birds couldn’t get at it.
Easier said than done at fifty degrees below zero, but what choice did we have?

Will Hobbs

1
cache’s—a cache is a place where provisions such as food can be stored

Hobbs, Will. Far North. New York: Avon Books, 1996. Reproduced with permission from Will Hobbs.

2
1. The boys need to build a new cache because

A. the supports on the old one are rotten

B. the old one is too high off the ground
C. they need to put their food on the cabin roof
D. they need to store their food inside the cabin

2. The statements “We threw our things inside the cabin” (line 18) and “All the while
we were looking over our shoulders” (line 19) develop a sense of

A. defeat
B. urgency
C. excitement
D. anticipation

3. In the statement “Ravens and camprobbers would get it’’ (line 26), the word
camprobbers most likely refers to animals that

A. eat berries
B. hunt for food
C. scare birds away
D. steal items from others

4. A colon (:) is used in line 28 because it

A. introduces a quotation
B. connects two separate sentences
C. indicates that an explanation will follow
D. emphasizes the important words that follow

5. The main problem in this excerpt is that the boys

A. cannot find their cache

B. face threats to their survival
C. do not have wilderness skills
D. fail to understand signs of wildlife

3
 II. Read the poem below and answer questions 6 to 8.

A CLICHÉ

is what we all say

when we’re too lazy
to find another way

5 and so we say

warm as toast,
quiet as a mouse,
slow as molasses,
quick as a wink.

10 Think.

Is toast the warmest thing you know?

Think again, it might not be so.
Think again: it might even be snow!
Soft as lamb’s wool, fleecy snow,
15 a lacy shawl of new-fallen snow.

Listen to that mouse go

scuttling and clawing,
nibbling and pawing.
A mouse can speak
20 if only a squeak.

Is a mouse the quietest thing you know?

Think again, it might not be so.
Think again: it might be a shadow.
Quiet as a shadow,
25 quiet as growing grass,
quiet as a pillow,
or a looking glass.

Slow as molasses,
quick as a wink.
30 Before you say so,
take time to think.

Slow as time passes

when you’re sad and alone;
quick as an hour can go
35 happily on your own.

Eve Merriam
From IT DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO RHYME by Eve Merriam. Copyright © 1964, 1992 Eve Merriam. Used by permission of
Marian Reiner.

4
6. Lines 6 to 9 are italicized in order to

A. introduce new clichés

B. add variety to the writing
C. distinguish the expressions as clichés
D. suggest more appropriate expressions

7. The phrase “Soft as lamb’s wool” (line 14) is an example of

A. simile
B. alliteration
C. onomatopoiea
D. personification

8. According to the poem, clichés are most likely used because

A. people do not make the effort to choose accurate words

B. clichés do not make images in the minds of people
C. people like to speak using comparisons
D. clichés are used by lots of people

5
 III. Read the passage below and answer questions 9 to 13.

INSIDE STORY OF A CHOCOLATE BAR

RIDDLE: What grows on trees, is shaped like a melon and is full of beans?
Answer: Cacao pods, used to make the world’s favourite treat—chocolate.
You find the yellow, red or green pods on the branches or trunks of cacao trees in warm
countries like Brazil and Africa’s Ivory Coast. After picking, you split the pods open with a
5 sharp machete or knife. Inside, you find not chocolate but about 30 white beans.
You pile the beans on the ground, cover them with banana leaves and let them ferment for
several days until they become brownish-red. Then you spread them out in the sun and dry
them.
Bags of the dried beans are sent to chocolate factories. After cleaning and roasting, the
10 shells are quite brittle and loose and the beans smell like chocolate. Next the beans are put
through a machine that removes the shells and cracks the beans into small pieces, called nibs.
Another machine grinds the nibs into a fine paste, called chocolate liquor.
If you just let the chocolate liquor harden, you’ll have baking chocolate. But there are two
other things you can do with chocolate liquor—turn it into eating chocolate or separate it into
15 its two ingredients, cocoa and cocoa butter.
When you mix chocolate liquor with extra cocoa butter and sugar, you get dark eating
chocolate. If you add milk to the chocolate liquor, along with the extra cocoa butter and
sugar, you get milk chocolate. If you don’t use any chocolate liquor at all, but just mix cocoa
butter with milk and sugar, you get “white chocolate,” which isn’t really chocolate at all
20 because it doesn’t contain any chocolate liquor.
Although this may sound quite simple, the actual amount of each ingredient is a closely
guarded secret at a chocolate factory. No company wants anyone to know how their own
special brand of chocolate is made.

A chocolate bar of your own

25 You’ll need:
25 mL (2 Tbsp) powdered cocoa (the stuff you use to make cocoa from scratch)
25 mL (2 Tbsp) of sugar (table sugar is good, but fruit sugar produces a smoother result)
5 mL (1 tsp) of unsalted butter or vegetable shortening
a double boiler
30 wax paper

1. Put enough water in the bottom of the double boiler to just touch the top half when it’s in
place. Remove the top half and bring the water to a boil on the stove.
2. Turn off the heat and put the top half of the double boiler into place.
3. Put the cocoa, sugar and butter or shortening together into the top of the double boiler and
35 stir until the mixture is smooth and the sugar is dissolved.
4. Spread the wax paper on a counter near the stove.
5. Ask an adult to remove the top of the double boiler and pour the chocolate mixture onto
the wax paper.
Let it harden and taste.
40 If you made your chocolate with vegetable shortening, try another batch with butter. If you
used butter, try vegetable shortening. Which do you prefer? You can experiment with the taste
by slightly changing the proportions of cocoa, sugar and butter or shortening.

Carol Gold
Material from The Jumbo Book of Science is used by permission of Kids Can Press Ltd., Toronto.
Text © 1994 The Centennial Centre of Science and Technology.

6
 9. According to the passage, the main ingredients in dark eating chocolate are

A. cocoa butter, milk, and sugar

B. cocoa butter, cocoa, and sugar
C. chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, and sugar
D. chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, milk, and sugar

10. The question “Which do you prefer?” (line 41) is intended to encourage the
reader to

A. buy different kinds of chocolate

B. make different kinds of chocolate
C. describe different kinds of chocolate
D. share information about different kinds of chocolate

11. In context, the word “proportions” (line 42) means

A. brands
B. amounts
C. ingredients
D. temperatures

12. The main purpose of this passage is to

A. express an opinion
B. present information
C. influence the reader
D. entertain the reader

13. This article is written most like

A. a report and a recipe

B. a recipe and an experiment
C. an advertisement and a report
D. an experiment and an advertisement

7
IV. Examine the cartoon below and answer questions 14 to 19.
In this cartoon, a girl named Ruthie and her grandpa meet a man who is painting
something on a curb.

1 2

3 4 5

6 7 8

9 10 11
By permission of Rick Detorie and Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Rick Detorie
ELA6_0715 One Big Happy cartoon
(Copyright©Scanned from book
page 74
One Big Happy
All the Dirt by Rick Detorie)

8
14. The purpose of the illustration and the text in frame 1 is most likely to

A. illustrate the benefits of curb painting

B. interest the reader in making donations
C. present the cartoon title in a unique way
D. suggest that a problem will be solved in the cartoon

15. The statement “there’s no charge, but we do request a fifteen dollar

donation” (frame 5) confuses the characters most likely because

A. the painter’s request for fifteen dollars for curb painting is expensive
B. the painter’s request for a donation is the same as charging a fee
C. providing a service free of charge rarely happens
D. donations are rarely collected by painters

16. Part of the word “ah-hah!” (frame 7) is in bold text because the cartoonist
most likely wants to

A. draw attention to the speaker

B. convey the feelings of the speaker
C. indicate emphasis in the spoken word
D. stress the importance of the information that follows

17. In frame 9, Ruthie and her grandpa exchange a look most likely because they both
think that the

A. painter’s idea is clever

B. painter is making a funny face
C. answer to the painter’s question is obvious
D. question asked by the painter is hard to answer

18. The painter’s response in frame 11 indicates that he is

A. excited about helping others

B. confused by Ruthie’s question
C. doubtful that curbs can be painted
D. pleased to answer Ruthie’s question

19. Ruthie can best be described as

A. clever
B. distracted
C. inattentive
D. enthusiastic

9
 V. Read the excerpt from a magazine article below and answer questions 20 to 25.

from Family ties at Skaha Bluffs

Ten-year-old Kendra Fowler hangs slumped in her climbing harness, stalled near
the top of a narrow vertical crack up a 20-metre bluff. I can’t see her face from the
ground, but the little girl’s demeanour is starting to communicate defeat.
It would be at about this stage, a few months ago, that her father, Shaun, would
5 tire of her hangdogging and lower her to the ground. But at that time, the young
girl’s idea of climbing involved a lot of dangling at the end of the rope and not
much movement up the rock face. Now, puzzling over the rock above her, she’s
higher than she’s ever climbed before.
At my urging, the Fowler family — including Shaun’s wife, Lori, and their
10 other daughter, 12-year-old Kira — has joined my own for an Okanagan rock-
climbing holiday in the craggy hills overlooking 12-kilometre-long Skaha Lake,
immediately south of Penticton. The reputation of the Skaha Bluffs had reached us
in Calgary, where my family has been climbing for three years on the Rocky Moun-
tains’ eastern slopes.
15 “You’ve got to get up on your feet,” I call to Kendra, who’s now flailing useless-
ly at the rock with her arms while remaining seated in her harness, still supported
by the rope. She looks as if she’s trying to convince herself, and me, that the route
is unclimbable.
“If you get your feet back on the rock,” I advise, “you can push up with your
20 legs.” This is standard advice for all initiates, who invariably exhaust themselves
muscling up the rock with their arms until they reach a height where self-doubt, or
outright fear, make the undertaking seem Herculean. More important than strength
is technique: by balancing your weight on your feet, you employ leg rather than
arm muscles. With technique mastered, the climber can then move on to the mental
25 challenges. The cliff is essentially a vertical puzzle, and every movement must be
fit into place for the climber to reach the top. Confidence, too, is part of the game.
“I’m intimidated, because I don’t see myself as an athlete,” says Lori, who was the
last of the Fowler family to take up climbing. “But it was, like, if you can’t beat
them, join them.” . . .
30 Meanwhile, Kendra resumes her struggle up the rock. She wedges her left shoe
into the narrow opening of a crack, offsets the weight of her upper body by extend-
ing her right leg in the air, and strains to inch her fingers across a wide ledge just
within reach above her. With a firm hold on the ledge, she jams the toe of her right
shoe into the crack above the other foot. I take up the slack on her rope as she
35 works her way farther up the crack and onto the ledge, just below the clifftop. The
rest of the route is child’s play.
“Take,” she yells down triumphantly from the top, signalling I should tighten up
the line to support her weight. “Got,” I shout back, and she lets go of the rock. I
lower her, allowing the rope to slowly slide through my hands, watching her face
40 as she descends. I’m not sure which is brighter, the Okanagan sun or her beaming
smile.
Drew McKibben
McKibben, Drew. “Family Ties at Skaha Bluffs.” Beautiful British Columbia, vol. 44, no. 1, Spring 2002. Reproduced with
permission of Drew McKibben.

10
20. The word “hangdogging” (line 5) describes how Kendra is most likely

A. moving slowly and carefully

B. showing anger and frustration
C. dangling listlessly and silently
D. looking curious and determined

21. Which of the following statements best summarizes the main idea of the fifth
paragraph (lines 19 to 29)?

A. Attitude is an important part of rock climbing.

B. Strength is an important part of rock climbing.
C. Rock climbing requires determination and courage.
D. Rock climbing is both a physical and mental challenge.

22. The statement “The cliff is essentially a vertical puzzle” (line 25) is an example of

A. metaphor
B. hyperbole
C. synecdoche
D. personification

23. Kendra’s mother “was the last of the Fowler family to take up climbing”
(lines 27 to 28) most likely because she

A. feared heights and lacked physical strength

B. lacked confidence and feared the physical challenge
C. avoided physical activity because she did not enjoy it
D. was interested in physical activity but did not have the time

24. The sentence “The rest of the route is child’s play” (lines 35 to 36) makes it clear
that

A. a climber would have fun taking the footpath

B. the remainder of the trail is easy to climb up
C. the remainder of the trail is still challenging
D. a climber would relax in this area

25. From the beginning of the excerpt to the end, Kendra’s attitude can be
most accurately described as changing from

A. frustrated to victorious
B. happy to despairing
C. proud to ashamed
D. sad to hopeful

11
VI. Read the poem below and answer questions 26 to 29.

Smart remark

When my older sister Marilyn 30 “She hurt ME!” I complained.

came for a visit, “Did she really?” Mother asked,
She spent most of her time trying looking me in the eye.
to make us over “Oh, I guess not,” I said, thinking
5 Into some other kind of family. back over the visit.
The kind you see on TV who get all 35 “But she drove me crazy, picking at
excited and beam me . . . and . . .”
Because they’re having Lipton’s
Chicken Noodle soup for “You wanted to swat her,” Mother
10 supper. finished for me.
The kind who pick to spend the “So did we all. But you don’t swat
whole day in the new Mall. 40 butterflies, Kate.”
The kind who love to do things “If she’s a butterfly, what am I?” I
together and talk non-stop. demanded.
15 The kind we aren’t. “A mosquito,” my father joined in.
When she said, for the fifteenth “But Marilyn’s not exactly a
time, 45 butterfly, April.
“Kate, must you always have your She’s more like a . . . tent
head in a book?” caterpillar.”
20 The worm turned and I snapped,
“Yes. I must. Mother laughed.
It’s better than having no head Why didn’t she send HIM to his
—Like you!” 50 room?

Dad laughed. I know why.

25 Mother sent me to my room. He said it when Marilyn couldn’t
hear.
Afterwards, she said, In other words, behind her back.
“It was clever, Kate. It may even 55 Which makes him a spider?
have been true.
But you didn’t have to hurt her.” And Mother . . . a . . . a . . .
Queen Bee, I suppose.

Jean Little

Material from Hey World, Here I Am! by Jean Little and illustrated by Sue Truesdell, is used by permission of Kids Can Press Ltd.,
Toronto. Text © 1986 Jean Little.

12
26. In context, the word “beam” (line 7) means

A. jump
B. shout
C. smile
D. giggle

27. Lines 11 to 15 convey the idea that

A. Marilyn wants to go shopping

B. Marilyn is unhappy to be back home
C. the sisters spend a lot of time together
D. the sisters have a difference of opinion

28. The phrase “looking me in the eye” (line 32) implies that Mother wants Kate to

A. listen to her carefully

B. explain what happened
C. be content with her circumstances
D. think carefully about the situation

29. In this poem, insects are used to represent the

A. ages of the characters

B. attitudes of the characters
C. appearance of the characters
D. movements of the characters

13
VII. Read the article below and answer questions 30 to 35.

A MAMMOTH DISCOVERY

Frozen in Time
Recently, scientists began digging up the body of a woolly mammoth that had lain
frozen in the icy Siberian ground. . . . But the big news about this mammoth is that
X-rays taken through the ice show it still has its hair and skin. That means it’s the
5 first “complete” mammoth that’s ever been found! The mammoth was discovered in
1997, when some reindeer herders from a local tribe spotted two giant tusks sticking
out of the frozen ground. They removed the 45-kg (100-lb) tusks, which were
3 m (10 ft) long, and took them to a local market. There, they met French explorer
Bernard Buigues. Once he heard that the rest of the mammoth was buried in the ice,
10 he put together a team, with the help of the Discovery Channel, to dig up this big
beast.

Dig This!
Last September, Bernard and his research team got to work digging up the
mammoth. They named the 3.3 m (11-ft) male creature “Jarkov” — which was the
15 last name of the men who had found him. Digging up Jarkov wasn’t an easy task,
though. The frozen ground was as hard as cement, so the team had to dig with a
backhoe and jackhammers. To make sure they wouldn’t damage Jarkov, the team
dug a trench around him. As they got closer to him, they could smell his strong
animal odour. (Ugh!) Next a huge steel “cage” was built around and under the
20 block of ice that still surrounded Jarkov. Nobody knew how heavy he would be, so
the cage floor was made of steel beams that could support 25 tons, or the weight of
three full-grown elephants!

Up, Up, and Away

The day finally came to see if Jarkov could “fly.” So the cage holding him was
25 attached to a helicopter. But the load was so heavy that the helicopter had problems
taking off. It dragged the cage for several minutes until it finally got airborne.
Hanging beneath the helicopter, Jarkov flew 320 km (200 mi) to Khatanga, Siberia.
There, he was put in an ice cave that’s been turned into a special lab that’s kept at
about -22ºC (-9ºF). Researchers don’t want Jarkov to rot, so they’re slowly thawing
30 him out with a hair dryer. But they’ve already made some discoveries — like bugs
and plants tangled in Jarkov’s hair. These finds and future research will help us learn
more about the lives of mammoths. And that’s a big, make that mammoth, deal!

Donna Goodenough

Adapted from OWL magazine, “A Mammoth Discovery” by Donna Goodenough, May 2000. Used with permission of Bayard Presse
Canada Inc.

14
30. According to the article, Jarkov was different from other mammoths that had been
found because Jarkov

A. was fully intact

B. was totally surrounded by ice
C. weighed more than other mammoths
D. had larger tusks than other mammoths

31. According to the article, the mammoth was discovered by

A. Bernard Buigues
B. reindeer herders
C. a group of scientists
D. a Discovery Channel worker

32. Which of the following events directly led Bernard Buigues to assemble a team of
scientists to recover the mammoth?

A. “X-rays taken through the ice show it still has its hair and skin” (line 4)
B. “reindeer herders from a local tribe spotted two giant tusks” (line 6)
C. “They removed the 45-kg (100-lb) tusks, which were 3 m (10 ft) long”
(lines 7–8)
D. “he heard that the rest of the mammoth was buried in the ice” (line 9)

33. The statement “The frozen ground was as hard as cement” (line 16) is an
example of

A. simile
B. hyperbole
C. metaphor
D. exaggeration

34. The main problem encountered by the researchers when moving Jarkov was the

A. weight of Jarkov
B. strength of the cage
C. freezing temperatures
D. distance that Jarkov would be moved

35. The bugs and plants found in Jarkov’s hair will help scientists to

A. determine Jarkov’s age

B. understand what caused Jarkov’s death
C. determine what woolly mammoths ate
D. understand how woolly mammoths lived

15
VIII. Read the excerpt below and answer questions 36 to 41.

In the 1950s, the narrator of this story and his cousin Harris spend a summer together
on a farm, getting into trouble with each adventure they plan. They build a motorcycle
out of an old bicycle and a washing machine motor. In the process, they remove the
mechanical governor, which controls gasoline flow and—ultimately—speed.

from HARRIS and ME

The motor started, finally, with a stuttering put-n-put-n-put and as soon as I saw
Harris begin to move I looked down at the clock. I couldn’t have had my eyes down for
more than three seconds, but when I brought them up I was surprised to see that Harris
had already moved toward me some distance.
5 Several other things were happening by this time that would determine Harris’s fate.
The engine, starved of gasoline all its life on the washing machine by the mechanical
governor, responded in explosive gratitude for the chance at freedom. It went from the
subdued put-n-put-n-put to a healthy BAM-BAM-BAM that I could hear easily from the
end of the driveway.
10 Then, too, there was the further bad luck that somehow, in some way, everything
held together. Bolts, belts, the bicycle—everything miraculously stayed in one piece
and all of the gasoline that poured into the wide open throat of the little Briggs and
Stratton engine was translated into power at the back wheel.
Power and speed.
15 From that point on everything came in flashes, flickering scenes of disaster, like
watching a stop-action film of a flood or a hurricane hitting the coast of Florida.
To give him his due, Harris was plucky. Early on the Bendix brake had jammed and
the chain—and therefore pedals—had turned with the back wheel. Harris kept his feet
on the pedals, or tried to, but as the speed went up and the pedals began to turn faster,
20 much faster than they’d ever turned, his legs became at first a blur, then he held them
up, the pedals slapping the bottoms of his bare feet as the bike approached something
like terminal velocity with Harris just along for the ride.
It was amazing that nothing fell apart. As he got closer, his knees up alongside his
cheeks, I could see that sense had at last come into his mind and his eyes were wide,
25 huge with fear. His tongue hung out the side of his mouth, spit flying, and he turned
into a blur.
Fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty—the bike had to be doing close to fifty miles an hour
when he passed me standing at the end of the driveway.
“Helpppp meeeeee!” he yelled, the Doppler effect changing the pitch of his plea as
30 he cleared the end of the driveway, flew across in front of me, and hit the ditch on the
far side of the county road like a meteorite.
It was then, as he put it later, that he realized he was in trouble. Making the turn
onto the road was clearly impossible but he claims he still thought he could “slow her
down in the brush along the ditch.”
35 The brush slowed him, all right. It stopped the bike dead in a dazzling, cartwheel-
ing spray of engine, spokes, wheels, frame, and tangled belt. For half a second it was
impossible to tell where Harris ended and bicycle began; the whole seemed a jumbled
mass of boy and machine.
Gary Paulsen
Excerpt from HARRIS AND ME: A SUMMER REMEMBERED, copyright © 1993 by Gary Paulsen, reprinted by permission of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. This material may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior
written permission of the publisher.

16
36. Which of the following phrases is a synonym for the word “fate” (line 5)?

A. A future outcome
B. An attitude change
C. The challenge of a task
D. The enjoyment of an event

37. Which of the following statements describes the effect that the removal of the
mechanical governor from the washing machine motor has on the motorcycle?
A. The brakes become ineffective.
B. The motorcycle is difficult to steer.
C. The speed of the motorcycle is uncontrollable.
D. The weight of the motorcycle is greatly reduced.

38. The phrase “Bolts, belts, the bicycle” (line 11) illustrates the writer’s use of

A. simile
B. hyperbole
C. alliteration
D. personification

39. Which of the following quotations best demonstrates the author’s use of imagery?

A. “ It was amazing that nothing fell apart” (line 23)

B. “ he passed me standing at the end of the driveway” (line 28)
C. “ Making the turn onto the road was clearly impossible” (lines 32–33)
D. “ in a dazzling, cartwheeling spray of engine, spokes, wheels, frame, and
tangled belt” (lines 35–36)

40. In this excerpt, Harris can be described as a person who

A. tries to stay safe

B. likes to take risks
C. wants to be famous
D. thinks about consequences

41. The writer’s purpose for describing this incident is most likely to

A. warn the reader about the dangers of constructing a motorcycle

B. inform the reader about how to construct a motorcycle
C. amuse the reader by describing an unusual adventure
D. remind the reader of an enjoyable experience

17
IX. Read the excerpt from a newspaper article below and answer questions
42 to 47.
from Taking Humdrum Astronaut Food, and Kicking It Up a Notch

The first rule about cooking for astronauts is don’t make anything that crumbles. No
one wants to chase a crumb around a space station.

Although most people rarely consider what the three people who live on the
International Space Station are going to have for dinner, food scientists in Houston
5 spend their days worrying like fussy mothers over what their astronauts eat. More
than 400 people have shot into space since 1961, and none have eaten better than the
astronauts in the space station, said Vickie Kloeris, who has been with the space food
program for 21 years. “We have so much more variety,” Ms. Kloeris said. “You’re
going to have a fair number of meat-and-potatoes guys, but we’ve been incorporating
10 more ethnic food.”
A French chef has also gotten into the space food game, working on some canned
meals expected to debut in the fall. It is the first time that the European Union is
contributing to a space menu jointly supplied by Russia and the United States. The
new French food will not be on the space shuttle Atlantis. . . . The shuttle, which
15 is largely filled with construction material to expand the space station, will carry
a limited cache of food for the station astronauts, including kiwis, oranges and
nectarines. And the shuttle astronauts might donate some of their flour tortillas, if
they have any left over. Tortillas are useful in space because they can turn anything
into a sandwich and do not produce crumbs or mold as easily as bread. When a crew
20 has been stuck in space for six months, a fresh tortilla or the crunch of an apple can
make all the difference in their mood.

“If something is just a little bit irritating, it can take on huge proportions if it’s
irritating three times a day seven days a week for months,” said William S. McArthur
Jr., an astronaut and a retired Army colonel who came back in April from serving as
25 commander of the space station. He spent 190 days in orbit. One trick the NASA
food scientists use to keep the astronauts happy is to add lots of tang and spice to the
menu. (And that’s not Tang, the powdered-drink mix. Ms. Kloeris is determined to
quash the rumor that NASA invented Tang, or freeze-drying, for that matter.)

In space, the sense of smell is dulled. Weightlessness makes fluid shift from the
30 lower torso to the upper, clogging nasal passages. And an atmosphere without
gravity, fed only by filtered, recirculated air, does funny things to odors. Eating
out of the cans and plastic pouches stocked in the space station pantry also limits
the olfactory pleasures that hot food brings. After a few months of that, a bottle of
Tabasco or a raw garlic clove can be heaven. “We crave anything with a nice, sharp
35 flavor,” Colonel McArthur said. He speaks with the precision of a restaurant critic
when he describes his favorite space food dish, dehydrated shrimp cocktail. Medium
shrimp coated in sauce are plumped with a spurt of water injected into a plastic
pouch, which is massaged to mix the ingredients. Colonel McArthur does not like
to mix it too thoroughly, though. “It’s quite a treat if you encounter a little pocket
40 of horseradish,” he said. Salt and pepper can help, too, but they are in liquid form.
Grains of salt and pepper in microgravity could clog equipment or become lodged
in an astronaut’s nose or eyes. Even a fresh tomato, which the Russians often take
when it is their turn to resupply the space station, can cause problems. Instead of
biting right into one, the crew has to slice it carefully. “If a little tomato juice squirts
45 out when you bite it, we have to go track it down,” Colonel McArthur said.
Kim Severson
18
From The New York Times, August 29 © 2006 The New York Times All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the
Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written
permission is prohibited. [Link]
42. Lines 5 to 10 suggest that astronauts in the early years of space exploration had
food supplies that

A. did not last long

B. were not healthy
C. damaged a spacecraft
D. were limited in choice

43. In the phrase “add lots of tang” (line 26), the word tang refers to a

A. sharp taste
B. pleasant odour
C. freeze-dried food
D. powdered-drink mix

44. According to the excerpt, food scientists believe that astronauts like their food to be

A. colourful
B. flavourful
C. in liquid form
D. easy to unwrap

45. According to the excerpt, food is often unappealing to space station astronauts
because their environment affects their ability to

A. stay still
B. see colours
C. hold objects
D. smell odours

46. According to the excerpt, food on the space station can cause problems if

A. it affects the air quality

B. mould grows in storage containers
C. it comes into contact with equipment
D. astronauts find it awkward to prepare

47. The main idea of this excerpt is that the

A. life of an astronaut is a challenging one

B. space environment affects the five senses
C. space station is a safe environment for astronauts
D. development of food for astronauts is challenging

19
 X. Examine the cartoon below and answer questions 48 to 50.

2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

ELA9_0511 For Better or For Worse cartoon

For Better Or For Worse © 1996 Lynn Johnston Prod. Reprinted by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.

20
48. In frame 1, the thought bubble and the older girl’s expression suggest

A. boredom
B. curiosity
C. hesitation
D. amusement

49. The statement “THE TAPS, THEY LOOK LIKE EYES” (frame 3) is used to show

A. action
B. contrast
C. flashback
D. comparison

50. The frame that most clearly shows the older girl’s desire to share her discovery
with the younger girl is

A. frame 1
B. frame 3
C. frame 5
D. frame 6

21
 Part B: Reading—2008 Test Blueprint and Item Descriptions

The following blueprint shows the reporting categories and language functions by which
questions were classified on the 2008 Grade 6 English Language Arts Achievement Test.

Question Distribution by
Language Function Number and
Question Distribution by
Proportion of
Reporting Category Narrative /
Informational Questions
Poetic
9
11
Identifying and Interpreting Ideas and
23
Details
30 1 14 Questions
31 17
Students recognize explicit or implicit
32 37 (28% of Part B:
ideas and details and make inferences
35 48 Reading Total)
about the relationships between ideas and
44
details.
45
46
Interpreting Text Organization
4
6
Students identify and analyze the author’s 10 Questions
10 14
use of genre. Students identify and
13 16
analyze the author’s choice of form, (20% of Part B:
22 38
organizational structure, literary Reading Total)
39
techniques, text features, and
49
conventions.
3
7
Associating Meaning
20 15 12 Questions
24 18
Students use contextual clues to
33 26 (24% of Part B:
determine the connotative meaning of
43 27 Reading Total)
words, phrases, and figurative language.
28
36
2
Synthesizing Ideas
12 5
21 8 14 Questions
Students make generalizations by
25 19
integrating information from an entire
34 29 (28% of Part B:
selection in order to identify the purpose,
42 40 Reading Total)
theme, main idea, or mood of the
47 41
selection.
50
23 Questions 27 Questions Part B: Reading
Total
Number and Proportion of Questions
(46% of Part B: (54% of Part B: 50 Questions
Reading Total) Reading Total) (100%)

22
The table below provides information about each question: the keyed response, the
difficulty of the item (the percentage of students who answered the question correctly),
the reporting category, the language function, and the item description.

Diff. Reporting Language

Question Key Item Description
% Category Function
Identify an explicit detail in an excerpt from
1 A 83.5 ID NP
a novel
Integrate information to identify the mood
2 B 59.8 SI NP
in an excerpt from a novel
Identify the meaning of a word in an excerpt
3 D 73.0 AM NP
from a novel
Analyze the author’s use of punctuation in
4 C 75.0 TO NP
an excerpt from a novel
Integrate information to identify the main
5 B 80.31 SI NP
problem in an excerpt from a novel
Analyze the author’s purpose for using
6 C 74.3 TO NP
italics in a poem
7 A 76.5 AM NP Recognize the use of similes in a poem
Integrate information to draw a conclusion
8 A 40.2 SI NP
about the use of clichés in a poem
Identify key details in an informational
9 C 76.7 ID I
article
Analyze the author’s choice of form in an
10 B 74.5 TO I
informational article
Identify key details in an informational
11 B 80.9 ID I
article
Integrate information to identify the main
12 B 61.4 SI I
purpose of an informational article
Identify the author’s choice of form in an
13 A 70.1 TO I
informational article
Determine the purpose of text placement in
14 C 74.3 TO NP
a cartoon
Identify the connotative meaning of a phrase
15 B 74.7 AM NP
in a cartoon
Analyze the author’s use of bolding in a
16 C 48.6 TO NP
cartoon
Infer the implicit meaning of an illustration
17 C 57.5 ID NP
in a cartoon
Infer the connotative meaning of a
18 B 80.8 AM NP
character’s statement in a cartoon
Make a generalization about a character in a
19 A 85.4 SI NP
cartoon
Recognize the connotative meaning of a
20 C 58.4 AM I
word in an informational passage
Make a generalization to identify the main
21 D 59.5 SI I idea of a paragraph in an informational
article

23
 Diff. Reporting Language
Question Key Item Description
% Category Function
Recognize a literary technique used in an
22 A 67.7 TO I
informational article
Infer the implicit meaning of a detail in an
23 B 51.1 ID I
informational article
Recognize the connotative meaning of a
24 B 81.2 AM I
word in an informational article
Integrate information to identify the change
25 A 73.8 SI I in a character’s attitude in an informational
article
Determine the meaning of a word in context
26 C 63.5 AM NP
from a poem
Determine the meaning of a phrase in a
27 D 66.3 AM NP
poem
Determine the meaning of figurative
28 D 45.9 AM NP
language in a poem
Make a generalization based on information
29 B 84.9 SI NP
in an entire poem
Recognize explicit details in an
30 A 75.4 ID I
informational article
Recognize explicit details in an
31 B 75.8 ID I
informational article
Recognize the relationship between an idea
32 D 53.6 ID I
and details in an informational article
Recognize the figurative language in an
33 A 64.3 AM I
informational article
Synthesize information to identify problems
34 A 82.4 SI I
of a character in an informational passage
Infer the relationship between details and
35 D 75.3 ID I
ideas in an informational article
Identify the explicit meaning of a word in an
36 A 71.7 AM NP
excerpt from a novel
Infer the relationship between details and
37 C 64.2 ID NP
ideas in an excerpt from a novel
Recognize the use of a literary technique in
38 C 60.1 TO NP
a excerpt from a novel
Identify a literary technique in an excerpt
39 D 75.5 TO NP
from a novel
Make a generalization abut a character by
40 B 77.4 SI NP synthesizing information in an excerpt from
a novel
Integrate information to identify the author’s
41 C 52.2 SI NP
purpose for writing an excerpt from a novel
Make a generalization from information in
42 D 70.1 SI I
an informational article
Identify the contextual meaning of a word in
43 A 76.2 AM I
an informational article
Locate the key detail in an informational
44 B 74.3 ID I
article

24
 Diff. Reporting Language
Question Key Item Description
% Category Function
Identify an implicit detail in an
45 D 56.4 ID I
informational article
Locate a key detail in an informational
46 C 56.8 ID I
article
Integrate information to identify the main
47 D 68.4 SI I
idea of an informational article
Infer the meaning of an expression from the
48 B 74.5 ID NP
illustration and text in a cartoon
Recognize the use of figurative language in
49 D 73.3 TO NP
a cartoon
Integrate information from an illustration to
50 B 82.7 SI NP
infer meaning in a cartoon

25