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Question 1 of 6
2026 Practice Test A English, question 18Passage Excerpt from A Voice in the Wilderness
Excerpt from A Voice in the Wilderness
by Grace Livingston Hill
With a lurch the train came to a dead stop and Margaret Earle, hastily gathering up her belongings, hurried down the aisle and got out into the night.
It occurred to her, as she swung her heavy suit-case down the rather long step to the ground, and then carefully swung herself after it, that it was strange that neither conductor, brakeman, nor porter had come to help her off the train, when all three had taken the trouble to tell her that hers was the next station; but she could hear voices up ahead. Perhaps something was the matter with the engine that detained them and they had forgotten her for the moment.
The ground was rough where she stood, and there seemed no sign of a platform. Did they not have platforms in this wild Western land, or was the train so long that her car had stopped before reaching it?
She strained her eyes into the darkness, and tried to make out things from the two or three specks of light that danced about like fireflies in the distance. She could dimly see moving figures away up near the engine, and each one evidently carried a lantern. The train was tremendously long. A sudden feeling of isolation took possession of her. Perhaps she ought not to have got out until some one came to help her. Perhaps the train had not pulled into the station yet and she ought to get back on it and wait. Yet if the train started before she found the conductor she might be carried on somewhere and he justly blame her for a fool.
There did not seem to be any building on that side of the track. It was probably on the other, but she was standing too near the cars to see over. She tried to move back to look, but the ground sloped and she slipped and fell in the cinders, bruising her knee and cutting her wrist.
In sudden panic she arose. She would get back into the train, no matter what the consequences. They had no right to put her out here, away off from the station, at night, in a strange country. If the train started before she could find the conductor she would tell him that he must back it up again and let her off. He certainly could not expect her to get out like this.
She lifted the heavy suit-case up the high step that was even farther from the ground than it had been when she came down, because her fall had loosened some of the earth and caused it to slide away from the track. Then, reaching to the rail of the step, she tried to pull herself up, but as she did so the engine gave a long snort and the whole train, as if it were in league against her, lurched forward crazily, shaking off her hold. She slipped to her knees again, the suit-case, toppled from the lower step, descending upon her, and together they slid and rolled down the short bank, while the train . . . ran giddily off into the night.
The horror of being deserted helped the girl to rise in spite of bruises and shock. She lifted imploring hands to the unresponsive cars as they hurried by her—one, two, three, with bright windows, each showing a passenger, comfortable and safe inside, unconscious of her need.
A moment of useless screaming, running, trying to attract some one’s attention, a sickening sense of terror and failure, and the last car slatted itself past with a mocking clatter, as if it enjoyed her discomfort.
Margaret stood dazed, reaching out helpless hands, then dropped them at her sides and gazed after the fast-retreating train, the light on its last car swinging tauntingly, blinking now and then with a leer in its eye, rapidly vanishing from her sight into the depth of the night.
She gasped and looked about her for the station that but a short moment before had been so real to her mind; and, lo! on this side and on that there was none!
The night was wide like a great floor shut in by a low, vast dome of curving blue set with the largest, most wonderful stars she had ever seen. Heavy shadows of purple-green, smoke-like, hovered over earth darker and more intense than the unfathomable blue of the night sky. It seemed like the secret nesting-place of mysteries wherein no human foot might dare intrude. It was incredible that such could be but common sage-brush, sand, and greasewood wrapped about with the beauty of the lonely night.
No building broke the inky outlines of the plain, nor friendly light streamed out to cheer her heart. Not even a tree was in sight, except on the far horizon, where a heavy line of deeper darkness might mean a forest. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the blue, deep, starry dome above and the bluer darkness of the earth below save one sharp shaft ahead like a black mast throwing out a dark arm across the track.
As soon as she sighted it she picked up her baggage and made her painful way toward it, for her knees and wrist were bruised and her baggage was heavy.
A soft drip, drip greeted her as she drew nearer; something plashing down among the cinders by the track. Then she saw the tall column with its arm outstretched, and looming darker among the sage-brush the outlines of a water-tank. It was so she recognized the engine’s drinking-tank, and knew that she had mistaken a pause to water the engine for a regular stop at a station.
cinders: track bed made from the residue of burnt coal
From A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS by Grace Livingston Hill—Public Domain
Question
How does Margaret’s experience in paragraph 9 emphasize a theme of the excerpt?
- AIt confirms Margaret’s understanding that she cannot rely on help from anyone else.
- BIt leads Margaret to realize that her desire to change her situation is impractical.
- CIt causes Margaret to believe that her own actions led to an unfavorable outcome.
- DIt reinforces Margaret’s frustration about her lack of control over her surroundings.
Show the answer
Correct answer: A
The question asks about the relationship between the theme and paragraph 9, where Margaret desperately tries to get someone on the train to notice her.
A. CORRECT. One important theme of this excerpt concerns Margaret’s willingness to take action to ensure that she reaches her destination. This determination, described in Option A, is why she gathers her belongings together without help, gets off the train without being assisted by employees, and then attempts to climb back on while the train employees are busy examining the engine.
B. Incorrect. While the narrator describes her screaming as useless, she does not feel that her efforts overall are useless, and she does not give up until paragraph 10.
C. Incorrect. While Margaret is feeling a sense of “failure” in paragraph 9, she does not condemn herself as the train moves away.
D. Incorrect. Margaret expresses “terror” in paragraph 9 over being unable to catch someone’s attention, not frustration about her lack of control over her surroundings.
Question analysis
This theme question asks how Margaret’s experience in paragraph 9 of A Voice in the Wilderness, as she screams and runs while the train pulls away, emphasizes a theme of the excerpt. It is a lightly reworded version of an earlier handbook question. Every choice describes a believable reaction to being left behind, so the answer depends on the excerpt’s larger pattern.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Typical grade 7 theme questions trace a given theme through a text. Here students must decide which theme one frantic paragraph supports, and all four choices describe reactions that fit the scene, so the decision draws on the whole excerpt.
- Estimated difficulty
- Among the hardest on the SHSAT: a non-obvious approach, heavy reading, or a well-hidden trap.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- Reading between the lines major
- Evidence in several places moderate
- Evidence
- Answered from the whole text
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 8, 981 words; question and choices: about grade 10, 65 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Each choice names a feeling a stranded traveler might have, and two lean on the paragraph’s own words, “useless” and “failure,” so the paragraph alone cannot decide it. Paragraph 9 must be read as the last link in a chain of trainmen, passengers and a departing train that all leave her to herself. Students who judge from that one paragraph often decide she has given up, though she soon picks up her bags and walks toward the dark shaft by the track.
Reading between the lines major Working it out
The theme is never stated; it must be drawn from paragraph 9’s cries that no one answers and from the passengers “comfortable and safe inside, unconscious of her need” in paragraph 8. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Evidence in several places moderate Working it out
The pattern begins in paragraph 2, when no trainman helps her off, and runs through the train lurching away “as if it were in league against her” in paragraph 7. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
Strategy: Sum up in a phrase what keeps happening to Margaret from the start of the excerpt to its end, then check which choice paragraph 9’s own words most clearly add to.
Traps
- Too broad or too strong: A choice overstates, generalizes, or uses absolute words the text does not support.
- Wrong tone or attitude: Misjudges the tone, attitude or point of view, such as reading admiration as criticism, or taking a character's or subject's feelings for the author's.
The wrong answers, classified
B Too broad or too strong (King et al., 2004)
Stretches the “useless screaming” of one moment into a judgment that changing her situation is impractical, though she soon gathers her bags and sets off toward the shaft ahead.
C Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Turns the “sense of terror and failure” into self-blame, though Margaret never says that her own choice to step off the train caused her trouble.
D Wrong tone or attitude (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Fits the indifferent train, but names frustration over control where paragraph 9 stresses terror at being ignored by everyone aboard.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks about a theme: a big idea a story keeps coming back to. How does what happens in paragraph 9 point to a theme? The right choice should fit a pattern across the whole excerpt.
Read paragraph 9
Paragraph 9 describes “A moment of useless screaming, running, trying to attract some one’s attention, a sickening sense of terror and failure.” Margaret screams and runs, trying to get someone to notice her. No one does. The last car rolls past “as if it enjoyed her discomfort.”
Find the same thing earlier
This is not the first time. In paragraph 2, none of the workers “had come to help her off the train.” In paragraph 8, the passengers sit “comfortable and safe inside, unconscious of her need.” That means they don’t know she needs help. Paragraph 9 is one more time when nobody comes. She will have to count on herself.
Check each choice
- A fits. Her cries go unanswered, just as before. She cannot rely on anyone else.
- B does not fit. Impractical means not sensible or workable. Her screaming fails, but she never decides that trying to change things is pointless. In paragraph 14 she “picked up her baggage” and set off again.
- C does not fit. She feels “failure,” but she never blames herself.
- D does not fit. The paragraph shows terror at being ignored, not frustration about having no control over her surroundings.
Choose the answer
Paragraph 9 adds one more moment where no one helps Margaret. So the answer is A.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
B is the closest wrong choice, because paragraph 9 calls her screaming “useless.” But one failed moment does not mean she gives up. Soon she takes her bags and walks toward the tall dark shape ahead. What stays true from paragraph 2 to paragraph 9 is that no one helps her. That is A.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from A Voice in the Wilderness” as printed (pages 128–129)
Question 2 of 6
2026 Practice Test C English, question 41Passage Excerpt from “Growing Peppers on the ISS Is Just the Start of Space Farming”
Excerpt from “Growing Peppers on the ISS Is Just the Start of Space Farming”
by Melanie Canales
The author, Melanie Canales, is a first-generation Peruvian American farmer and beekeeper based in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, on lands of the indigenous Monacan and Manahoac tribes. Her work focuses on creating healthy relationships between people and their surrounding ecosystems.
Unburdened by the constraints of gravity, red and green peppers jut out at 45-degree angles inside the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH), a sort of space terrarium not much larger than a microwave. Four chile pepper plants stand effortlessly upright, despite the dozens of glossy fruits weighing them down. These plants have lived entirely in space; their leaves have never been chewed on by insects or rustled by a summer breeze, [and] their stems are unfamiliar with bending toward the sun’s arc across the sky. Scissors glint under the tank’s white and blue lights as astronaut Mark Vande Hei and his team snip the stems of those that are ready for harvest. The peppers whirl around their heads until the astronauts catch them and tape them against a board to photograph.
Back on Earth, the Plant Habitat-04 team of engineers and plant scientists are observing and conferring with the astronauts. Of the 26 peppers in this batch, only the 14 finest will stay on the International Space Station [ISS] for consumption. The rest will be wrapped in foil, sealed in a Ziploc bag, then frozen at a brisk −80 degrees, until they can come roaring back to Earth in the next cargo capsule to be studied later. Now, after a 137-day growth cycle, the astronauts remove the plants from the module and trash them. Project Plant Habitat-04 is complete. It’s taco night on the ISS.
Since 2014, NASA1 has experimented with growing lettuces, brassicas,2 and zinnias3 in space, an endeavor that relies on highly specialized technology over 50 years in the making. [Fall 2021’s] two successful pepper harvests . . . will provide data on the nutritional and psychological benefits of growing vegetables on-craft, as well as a crop’s ability to reliably produce long-term in microgravity. While controlled environmental agriculture is not new, the APH experiment represents an evolution in specialized growth habitats. It doesn’t aim to re-create Earth’s conditions, but to perfect each isolated variable of plant growth in the clinical environment of a spaceship.
“The Advanced Plant Habitat is the most complex plant growth system on orbit today,” says Lashelle Spencer, a plant scientist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Its more than 180 sensors control and monitor temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide. The astronauts can adjust the color and intensity of the light, and how much moisture the plants’ roots are getting. It waters itself.
It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and Spencer has been at Kennedy since 5 a.m. to facilitate the peppers’ final harvest. As part of the project team, she played a crucial role in preparing the seeds that were sent hurtling into space in June and guiding the astronauts through maintaining the plants in orbit. . . . Though astronauts can spend upwards of 100 days in space, their on-mission meals come dehydrated and pre-packaged; their vitamins and minerals are isolated in supplements, which lose nutritional value the longer they’re stored. Spencer’s goal is to create the conditions necessary for cultivating healthy plants in space, so those plants can sustain healthy astronauts on long-term missions. Astronaut food is great, she says—“especially the shrimp cocktail. But you’re missing that crunch. You’re missing that fresh pop of flavor, the green flavor that’s not there in that packaged food.”
The sensory experience of growing productive crops can also help mitigate4 the psychological effects of long-term space travel. . . . Spencer says the team cracked open the door of the APH every day to observe their vegetable companions with all the tenderness of home gardeners. When harvest day came, they batted their bounty around the ISS, taking selfies and delighting in watching the fruits pirouetting around the spacecraft. . . .
“We were thinking no heat, so that [the peppers] wouldn’t be dangerous, but maybe the astronauts need a little spice in their life,” says Paul Bosland, who along with his colleagues at the Chile Pepper Institute genetically engineered5 the NuMex Española Improved chile pepper seeds grown in Plant Habitat-04. . . .
Working with NASA, Bosland cultivated a variety that could accommodate both the nutritional needs of astronauts as well as the logistics of growing a plant in space. . . .
. . . The experiment is helping gather the data necessary to determine the nutritional content of crops grown in space, and therefore how many people they can feed, and for how long. Though much is still unknown, Spencer is certain of one thing that future astronauts will need to do: “I think in an optimal world, a scientist like me would say that they would be growing plants from day one. From the day they left to the day they came back, they would be growing them.”
From “Growing Peppers on the ISS Is Just the Start of Space Farming” by Melanie Canales from WIRED, December 21, 2021. Copyright © 2021 Condé Nast. All rights reserved.
1NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
2brassicas: a large genus of herbs, such as broccoli and cabbage
3zinnias: a genus of herbs and low shrubs that have flowers at their heads
4mitigate: to make something less severe or harmful
5genetically engineered: combined parts of DNA from different plants to produce a new plant
Question
How is the quotation from Lashelle Spencer at the end of paragraph 9 relevant to the discussion of the peppers referred to in paragraph 2?
- AThe quotation indicates that larger batches of peppers need to be grown during future missions and suggests a slight criticism of the astronauts discussed in paragraph 2 for not dedicating more of their time to growing peppers during their mission.
- BThe quotation explains why the 137-day growth cycle mentioned in paragraph 2 is necessary and provides a suggestion on how to grow more peppers during the same growth cycle in future missions.
- CThe quotation helps explain why some of the peppers discussed in paragraph 2 needed to be sent back to Earth and that increasing the overall number of peppers grown in space will be important in future missions.
- DThe quotation provides context for understanding why the peppers discussed in paragraph 2 must be sealed and frozen prior to their return to Earth and suggests how this method might be improved in upcoming missions.
Show the answer
Correct answer: C
The question asks how the quotation from Lashelle Spencer at the end of paragraph 9 is relevant to the discussion of the peppers referred to in paragraph 2.
A. Incorrect. The quotation from Spencer in paragraph 9 suggests that astronauts should spend more time on growing larger and more continuous batches of peppers during long missions, but it does not criticize astronauts for discarding plants and ending the experiment after the 137-day growth cycle.
B. Incorrect. While the quotation from Spencer in paragraph 9 stresses the value of spending more time growing plants in space, it does not provide specific details about the 137-day growth cycle or offer specific methods for producing more peppers within the same time frame.
C. CORRECT. The quotation from Spencer in paragraph 9 is relevant to the discussion of the peppers on the ISS in paragraph 2 because it emphasizes the importance of expanding plant-growing efforts on future space missions. Spencer suggests that rather than ending the experiment after the 137-day growth cycle, astronauts could continually replant and replenish their food supply from the beginning to the end of a long mission.
D. Incorrect. Although the quotation from Spencer in paragraph 9 conveys the importance of dedicating more time to growing plants in space, it does not explain why the peppers were sealed and frozen, nor does it suggest how this method for preserving them might be improved.
Question analysis
This question asks how Lashelle Spencer’s quotation at the end of the space-farming excerpt, her view of what future astronauts will need to do, relates to the account in paragraph 2 of how the pepper harvest was handled. Students must connect the article’s ending to its opening, and every choice is a long two-part statement whose halves have to be checked separately.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Grade 7 readers explain how parts of a text relate, usually neighboring ones. This item links the last paragraph to the second, and its four choices run about forty words each in two parts, so it asks more than typical grade 7 work.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- Reading between the lines moderate
- A very close wrong answer moderate
- A lot to read moderate
- Evidence in several places minor
- Evidence
- Answered from several paragraphs or stanzas
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 10, 890 words; question and choices: about grade 16, 163 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Each choice has one half that sounds connected to the quotation, so students must test both halves of all four. The criticism choice is the hardest to reject, since it correctly hears a call for more growing and only then misreads Spencer’s tone. The key itself is not airtight: its first half leans on the sentence before the quotation, about gathering nutrition data, so the answer is best confirmed by ruling out the others.
Reading between the lines moderate Working it out
Spencer’s quotation never mentions paragraph 2; the link is that plants grown “from day one” to “the day they came back” contrast with one 137-day batch harvested and thrown away. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
A very close wrong answer moderate Choosing the answer
The criticism choice shares the key’s call for more growing on future missions and differs in its other half, a slight criticism of the crew that Spencer’s hopeful “in an optimal world” never makes. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
A lot to read moderate Understanding the question
The four choices run 32 to 40 words, and each joins two claims with “and,” so eight separate statements must be checked against the quotation and paragraph 2. (Kintsch, 1998; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Freedle & Kostin, 1993)
Evidence in several places minor Working it out
The two parts to connect are the excerpt’s second paragraph and its last sentence, with six paragraphs on the habitat, Spencer and Bosland in between. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
Strategy: Put Spencer’s closing quotation into your own words and recall how the pepper project ended in paragraph 2, then weigh both halves of every choice and keep the one the quotation and its paragraph best support.
Traps
- Half right: One half of a two-part choice is right and the other is not.
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
The wrong answers, classified
A Half right (King et al., 2004; Thissen, Steinberg & Fitzpatrick, 1989)
Rightly hears a call for larger, continuous harvests in “from day one,” then adds a criticism of the crew, though Spencer describes an ideal and blames no one.
B Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Connects the quotation to the 137-day cycle because both concern time, but Spencer neither explains why the cycle lasted that long nor suggests packing more peppers into it.
D Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Ties the quotation to the foil, sealing and freezing in paragraph 2 and to improving that method, though Spencer’s improvement is growing plants all mission long, not storing peppers.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This question links the end of the article to its beginning. Spencer speaks at the end of paragraph 9. Paragraph 2 tells what happened to the peppers. You need the choice that best explains how her words connect to those peppers. Each choice has two parts, and both must be true.
Recall the peppers in paragraph 2
Paragraph 2 says only “the 14 finest” peppers stay on the ISS to eat. The rest are frozen and sent “back to Earth in the next cargo capsule to be studied later.” Then, “after a 137-day growth cycle, the astronauts remove the plants from the module and trash them.” So the crew grew one batch, ate some, sent some home and threw the plants away.
Read the end of paragraph 9
Just before Spencer speaks, paragraph 9 says: “The experiment is helping gather the data necessary to determine the nutritional content of crops grown in space, and therefore how many people they can feed, and for how long.” Then Spencer says that in “an optimal world,” meaning the best possible world, astronauts “would be growing plants from day one.” She adds: “From the day they left to the day they came back, they would be growing them.”
Connect the two parts
The peppers sent home are studied. That gives the data paragraph 9 describes: how healthy space crops are and how many people they can feed. Spencer’s plan needs that data. You must know what a crop can feed before you plan meals for a whole trip. Her words also point to the future. Instead of one batch that ends in the trash, crews would grow plants all trip long. That means many more peppers.
Check each choice
- A is wrong. Spencer wants more growing, but she doesn’t criticize the crew. “In an optimal world” describes a hope, not a complaint.
- B is wrong. She never says why the cycle took 137 days. She doesn’t suggest squeezing more peppers into it, either.
- C is right. The returned peppers give the data, and growing “from day one” means more peppers in the future.
- D is wrong. She says nothing about freezing the peppers or a better way to store them.
Watch out: A gets the first half right. The criticism in its second half is what makes it wrong.
Choose the answer
Her words explain why some peppers went home to be studied and why more growing matters next time. So the answer is C, “The quotation helps explain why some of the peppers discussed in paragraph 2 needed to be sent back to Earth and that increasing the overall number of peppers grown in space will be important in future missions.”
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
A is the closest wrong answer. Like C, it hears Spencer calling for more plants on future trips. But A also says she criticizes the astronauts. She doesn’t. She calmly describes a perfect world. C keeps the right half and adds a link the paragraph supports: the peppers sent home give the data.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from “Growing Peppers on the ISS Is Just the Start of Space Farming”” as printed (pages 50–51)
Question 3 of 6
2025 Practice Test B English, question 48Passage Letter from Brooklyn
Letter from Brooklyn
by Jacob Scheier
I can already see how this will end.
How I will grow tired of the bridge’s
steep incline, and the absent-minded tourists
wandering into the bicycle path.
The weather will turn cold.
But that all happens later.
For now it is the early edge of fall,
leaves green still while the air narrows,
is slightly crisp, almost grazing
the hair of my arm like a passing stranger,
as though the air has been forced into intimacy
by the brevity of daylight.
But when it starts darkening at 4,
this closeness, I know, will be a felt distance,
like someone drawing your attention
to their lack of intimacy.
These days I am still walking at a cathedral pace
beneath the branches bending across avenues,
brownstones like rows of lived-in chapels,
like a pop-up picture book I could have had as a child,
but didn’t. How Brooklyn makes me nostalgic
for the moment I am walking inside of.
These late afternoons filled
with a loneliness that makes me feel
distinctly myself, and an awareness
of how rare that is.
“Letter from Brooklyn” from LETTER FROM BROOKLYN: POEMS by Jacob Scheier, published by ECW Press. Copyright © 2013 by Jacob Scheier All rights reserved.
brevity: briefness
cathedral: meditative
chapels: private places of prayer or worship
nostalgic: yearning for the past
Question
The poet develops the speaker’s point of view by
- Aproviding details about the speaker’s longing to be in a different place.
- Bshowing the speaker’s sense of unease about the passing seasons.
- Cincluding details about the speaker’s hope that life will remain unchanged.
- Dshowing the speaker’s desire to treasure and appreciate the changes taking place.
Show the answer
Correct answer: D
The question asks how the poet develops the speaker’s point of view.
A. Incorrect. The speaker concedes that at some point, Brooklyn will become tiresome (lines 2–4). However, the bulk of the poem reveals the speaker’s appreciation for experiencing Brooklyn, not a desire to be in some other place.
B. Incorrect. Cold weather is inevitable, and the speaker is well aware of this future shift as well as the change in attitude it will bring. Nevertheless, the speaker does not focus on this future but rather embraces the current season, describing it in vivid detail.
C. Incorrect. The speaker is not hopeful that life will remain unchanged. Rather, the speaker accepts and appreciates the seasonal changes that occur.
D. CORRECT. The speaker’s point of view is largely positive and appreciative of the shift in seasons. This point of view is developed by language that shows a close connection between the speaker and the setting. For example, the speaker uses words such as “intimacy” (line 11) and “closeness” (line 14) and the description of the “pop-up picture book” (line 20). Finally, the conclusion emphasizes the point of view: “These late afternoons filled / with a loneliness that makes me feel / distinctly myself, and an awareness / of how rare that is” (lines 23–26).
Question analysis
This point-of-view question asks how the poet develops the speaker’s point of view in “Letter from Brooklyn,” in which the speaker walks through the city at the start of fall knowing that colder, darker days lie ahead. The speaker’s thoughts move between the present and the future, so students must weigh the whole poem, and each choice names a different attitude.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Typical grade 7 point-of-view questions focus on one passage or stanza. This one asks for the speaker’s attitude across a whole poem of shifting moods, and several choices rest on real lines, so judging the overall view takes more than typical grade 7 work.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- Evidence in several places moderate
- Reading between the lines moderate
- Every choice must be checked minor
- Evidence
- Answered from the whole text
- Reading level
- Passage: 217 words (a poem; reading level not measured); question and choices: about grade 7, 54 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
The poem opens by predicting its own end and returns to the coming dark in lines 13–16, so a reader who weighs those lines heavily finds unease, and the speaker does feel some. But the speaker turns back to the present each time, with “But that all happens later” and “These days I am still walking,” and the closing lines call the moment rare. The point of view is a wish to savor what is passing, and only a choice that fits the whole poem, not its most anxious lines, matches it.
Evidence in several places moderate Working it out
The point of view has to hold from line 1 to line 26 while the poem swings between the future, tiring of the bridge and darkening at 4, and the present walk under the branches. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
Reading between the lines moderate Working it out
No line names the speaker’s attitude; it has to be drawn from “For now,” the walk “at a cathedral pace,” the nostalgia “for the moment I am walking inside of” and “how rare that is.” (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Every choice must be checked minor Choosing the answer
Three wrong choices rest on real lines, tiring of the bridge’s “steep incline,” the “felt distance” of line 14 and the nostalgia of lines 21–22, so each must be weighed against the whole poem. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987)
Strategy: Sum up in one sentence how the speaker feels about the present walk and about the season ahead, then pick the choice that holds true from the first line to the last.
Traps
- Wrong tone or attitude: Misjudges the tone, attitude or point of view, such as reading admiration as criticism, or taking a character's or subject's feelings for the author's.
- Reads too much in: A reasonable-sounding conclusion that goes further than the text allows.
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
The wrong answers, classified
A Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Turns the forecast that the speaker “will grow tired” of the bridge and the tourists into a present longing to be elsewhere, though the rest of the poem savors Brooklyn’s streets.
B Wrong tone or attitude (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Fixes on the coming cold and the “felt distance” of lines 13–16, real notes of unease, and takes them for the whole view, though “But that all happens later” sets the future aside.
C Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Reads nostalgia “for the moment I am walking inside of” as a wish that nothing change, though the speaker opens by accepting “how this will end” and treasures the moment because it passes.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks about point of view: how the speaker, the voice talking in the poem, feels about what is happening. The question is about the whole poem, not a few lines. So follow the speaker’s feelings from line 1 to line 26. The right choice must fit all of it.
Follow the speaker’s thoughts
The poem moves back and forth in time. Lines 1–5 look ahead: “I can already see how this will end.” The speaker will tire of the bridge, and “The weather will turn cold.” Line 6 turns back: “But that all happens later.” Lines 7–12 describe the cool air of early fall. Lines 13–16 look ahead again, to days that get dark at 4 o’clock. Line 17 returns to now: “These days I am still walking at a cathedral pace.”
See how the speaker treats now
The glossary says cathedral means “meditative,” or calm and thoughtful. The speaker walks slowly to take everything in. Brownstones look “like a pop-up picture book.” Lines 21–22 say “How Brooklyn makes me nostalgic / for the moment I am walking inside of.” Nostalgic means “yearning for the past.” Yet the speaker longs for right now. In the last lines, even the loneliness of late afternoon is welcome. It makes the speaker feel “distinctly myself,” and aware “of how rare that is.”
Put the point of view in words
The speaker knows this season will end. That is why each moment matters. The speaker notices the first signs of fall, like the crisp air, and savors them. To treasure something is to value it highly. So the speaker wants to treasure and appreciate the changes happening now.
Check each choice
- A does not fit. Lines 2–4 say the speaker will tire of the bridge someday. But the speaker enjoys Brooklyn now and never wishes to be elsewhere.
- B does not fit. Lines 13–16 show some unease about the dark days ahead. But each time, the speaker turns back to the present.
- C does not fit. The speaker knows from line 1 that this will end, and treasures the moment because it will pass.
- D fits. The speaker savors the early-fall walk while it lasts.
Watch out: B rests on real lines: the closeness the speaker feels now “will be a felt distance” (line 14). But that is one part of the poem, not the whole view.
Choose the answer
The speaker knows the season will change and holds on to each moment of it. So the answer is D, “showing the speaker’s desire to treasure and appreciate the changes taking place.”
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
B is the closest wrong choice, because lines 13–16 do show unease. But each time the poem looks ahead, the speaker turns back to now: “But that all happens later” and “These days I am still walking.” The poem ends by calling the moment rare. The main feeling is a wish to treasure the present, which is D.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Letter from Brooklyn” as printed (page 50)
Question 4 of 6
2024 Test B Math, question 41Question
A bag contains 2 green, 4 blue, and 3 yellow disks. Alana selects 4 disks from the bag at random, one at a time, without replacing them. What is the probability that she selects all 4 blue disks?
- A
- B
- C
- D
Show the answer
Correct answer: B
If Alana picks 4 blue disks in a row, the number of blue disks and the total number of disks will both decrease by 1 after each selection.
For the first selection, there are 4 blue disks out of 9 total disks, so the probability of selecting the first blue disk is .
The probabilities of selecting blue for the next three selections are , , and .
Question analysis
A bag holds green, blue and yellow disks, and Alana draws four of them one at a time without putting any back. Students find the probability that all four disks are blue. It tests the probability of dependent events, and the difficulty is keeping track of how the bag changes after each draw.
- NYS standards
- Grade level
- Grade 7 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Grade 7 compound probability is usually found with lists or tree diagrams for two stages. Four dependent draws, each changing the counts, are too many to list and need the multiplication rule, which grade 7 does not formally teach.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Something you must already know moderate
- Error-prone arithmetic moderate
- Solution
- 3 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 5, 37 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Students who know the multiplication rule for successive draws still have two adjustments to make on every draw, and each wrong choice skips at least one of them. Leaving the bag at 9 disks, or putting each disk back, both produce fractions over 6,561 that look as exact as the right one. Writing the four fractions in a row before multiplying, and cancelling as you go, keeps the arithmetic small.
Something you must already know moderate Working it out
The rule for successive draws without replacement is assumed: each draw's chance is multiplied in, with both the blue count and the total lowered by one. (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Error-prone arithmetic moderate Working it out
The product 4/9 × 3/8 × 2/7 × 1/6 = 24/3,024 has to be reduced to 1/126, and two wrong choices hide behind 9 to the fourth power, 6,561. (Brown & Burton, 1978; Junker & Sijtsma, 2001)
Strategy: Write the chance of blue for each of the four draws in turn, lowering both the blue count and the total by one each time, and multiply.
Traps
- Without replacement: In a second pick there is one fewer item, which changes the probability.
- Wrong operation: Adds instead of multiplying, divides the wrong way round, turns a ratio or rate upside down, or undoes a step in the wrong direction (subtracts what should be added back).
The wrong answers, classified
A Without replacement (Fischbein & Schnarch, 1997)
Lowers the blue count on each draw but keeps all 9 disks in the bag, 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 over 9 × 9 × 9 × 9, which is 24/6,561 = 8/2,187.
C Without replacement (Fischbein & Schnarch, 1997)
Uses 4/9 for every draw, (4/9) to the fourth power = 256/6,561, as if each disk were put back before the next draw.
D Wrong operation (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995; King et al., 2004)
Adds the first draw's 4/9 four times, or multiplies it by 4, instead of multiplying the draws' chances, and misses that a probability cannot exceed 1.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Probability
- P is the probability, the chance that something happens. It is a number from 0 to 1. The top counts the results you want. The bottom counts all the results that can happen. It works when every result is equally likely.
- Chance of events in a row
- A and B are two events that happen one after the other. P(A) is the chance of the first. P(B after A) is the chance of the second, counting only what is left after the first. You multiply because the second must also happen inside the share of times the first did.
Sort out the question
The bag holds 2 green, 4 blue and 3 yellow disks. That is 9 disks in all. Alana takes 4 disks, one at a time.
“Without replacing them” means a disk she takes does not go back in the bag. You need the chance that all 4 disks are blue.
Find the chance for each pick
For all 4 to be blue, each pick must be blue. After each blue pick, one blue disk is gone. One disk is gone from the total, too. So the top and the bottom each go down by 1.
Pick Blue disks left Disks left Chance of blue 1st 4 9 2nd 3 8 3rd 2 7 4th 1 6 Multiply the four chances
All four picks must go right, one after another. Use the rule for events in a row and multiply.
Simplify the fraction
Divide the top and the bottom by 24. That keeps the value the same.
Watch out: Using for every pick gives , choice C. That is right only if each disk goes back in. Keeping 9 on the bottom each time gives , choice A. Choice D is more than 1, and no chance can be more than 1.
So the answer is B, .
Check your answer
Cancel before you multiply. On top, cancels the 8 on the bottom. That leaves . Divide the top and bottom by 3 to get again.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 5 of 6
2024 Test B Math, question 17Question
A bowl contains 12 green candies, 4 yellow candies, and some red candies. The probability of choosing a green candy at random is twice as great as the probability of choosing a red candy at random. What is the probability of choosing a yellow candy at random?
- A
- B
- C
- D
Show the answer
Correct answer: A
The probability of choosing a green candy is twice as great as the probability of choosing a red candy. There are 12 green candies. Let r = the number of red candies.
So there are 6 red candies. 12 green candies + 4 yellow candies + 6 red candies = 22 total candies.
There are 4 yellow candies out of a total of 22 candies. So the probability of choosing a yellow candy is
.
Question analysis
A probability question about a bowl of 12 green candies, 4 yellow candies and an unknown number of red ones. A green candy is twice as likely to be picked as a red one, and students find the chance of picking a yellow candy. The missing red count has to be worked out before any probability can be found.
- Grade level
- Grade 6 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Simple probability is grade 6 content in New York, and grade 7 problems usually give every count. Working backward from a comparison of two probabilities to a missing count, then forward to a third probability, is more than typical grade 7 work.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Turning words into math moderate
- Combines ideas moderate
- Solution
- 3 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 7, 49 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
The question withholds the red count, and everything depends on recovering it from the comparison of probabilities. Students who cannot make that step tend to leave red out altogether, while those who find 6 red candies can still slip at the end by using the wrong total or the wrong color. Writing all three counts and the total of 22 before forming any fraction prevents both endings.
Turning words into math moderate Understanding the question
“Twice as great as the probability of choosing a red candy” must become 12 = 2 × the red count, which works only because both probabilities share one total. (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995; Koedinger & Nathan, 2004)
Combines ideas moderate Working it out
An unknown count has to be found from a ratio before any probability can be written, joining proportional reasoning with probability as a part over the total. (Embretson, 1998; Daniel & Embretson, 2010)
Strategy: Turn twice as likely into a statement about numbers of candies to find the red count, add all three colors for the total, then put the yellow count over that total and simplify.
Traps
- Answers a different question: A choice is right for another quantity: the other unknown, the rest instead of the part, the part instead of the whole.
- Numbers taken from the question: Combines the numbers in the question without a model of the situation, or is simply a number that appears in the question.
The wrong answers, classified
B Misunderstands the concept (Smith, diSessa & Roschelle, 1993; De Bock et al., 1998; Ni & Zhou, 2005)
Finds the 6 red candies but compares the 4 yellow with the 18 green and red ones, 4/18, a part-to-part ratio instead of part to whole.
C Numbers taken from the question (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995)
Leaves out the red candies, whose number is not given, and divides the 4 yellow by the 16 green and yellow candies.
D Answers a different question (King et al., 2004; Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995)
Finds the 6 red candies and the total of 22 correctly but gives the chance of red, 6/22 = 3/11, instead of yellow.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Probability
- P is the probability, the chance that something happens. The top is how many candies are the kind you want. The bottom is how many candies there are in all. Each candy is just as likely to be picked, so this fraction gives the chance.
Sort out what you know
The bowl has 12 green candies, 4 yellow candies and some red candies. You are not told how many are red. Let r be the number of red candies.
The chance of picking green is twice the chance of picking red. You need the probability (the chance) of picking yellow.
Compare green and red
Write each chance with the probability formula.
Green and red have the same bottom number, the total number of candies. So if the chance of green is twice the chance of red, there are twice as many green candies as red ones.
Find the red candies and the total
There are 6 red candies. Now add up all the candies.
There are 22 candies in all. Watch out: do not leave out the red candies just because their number was not given. Using 16 as the total gives 1/4, choice C.
Find the chance of yellow
There are 4 yellow candies out of 22.
Divide the top and the bottom by 2 to simplify. Watch out: the question asks for yellow, not red. 6/22 = 3/11 is the chance of red, choice D. The bottom must be all 22 candies. Using 18 gives 2/9, choice B.
So the answer is A, .
Check your answer
Check the clue. The chance of green is , and the chance of red is . Twelve is twice 6, so green is twice as likely. Also, the three chances add up to 1: .
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 6 of 6
2024 Test B Math, question 56Question
A rectangular field had a length of 80 meters and a width of 50 meters. The field was recently enlarged, with the length increased by 15% and the width increased by 10 meters. By what percentage was the area of the field increased?
- A26.5%
- B35%
- C38%
- D42.5%
Show the answer
Correct answer: C
The original area of the field was 4,000 square meters.
When the field was enlarged, the length increased by 15%, so the new length is 92 meters.
The width increased by 10 meters, so the new width is 60 meters.
The new area of the field is 5,520 square meters.
The percent increase is found by finding the difference between the two areas and dividing the increase by the original area.
Question analysis
A rectangular field 80 meters long and 50 meters wide has its length increased by 15 percent and its width by 10 meters. Students find the percent by which the field's area grew. It tests percent increase with rectangle area, and the tricky part is that one side changes by a percent and the other by a fixed length.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Grade 7 percent problems usually apply one percent change to one quantity. This changes a length by a percent and a width by a fixed amount, then asks for the percent change in area, a five-step chain with two kinds of change.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Combines ideas moderate
- Many steps moderate
- A very close wrong answer minor
- Solution
- 5 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 6, 39 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Each step is ordinary, but the two changes are stated in different units, one a percent and one in meters, which tempts students to force them into the same form. Adding the two percents is the most natural shortcut and lands close to the right value, because it misses only the small extra area where both changes overlap. Computing the old and new areas directly is slower but leaves nothing to chance.
Combines ideas moderate Working it out
Percent change has to be combined with area: the length grows by a percent and the width by meters, and the question asks for the percent change of their product. (Embretson, 1998; Daniel & Embretson, 2010)
Many steps moderate Working it out
Five computations are chained: the new length 92, the new width 60, the areas 4,000 and 5,520, and the increase 1,520 as a share of 4,000. (Daniel & Embretson, 2010; Enright, Morley & Sheehan, 2002)
A very close wrong answer minor Choosing the answer
The 35% from adding 15% and 20% sits only 3 points below 38%, so a rough estimate of the new area cannot rule it out. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
Strategy: Compute the new length and the new width, find the old and new areas, and divide the increase in area by the original area.
Traps
- Misunderstands the concept: A wrong belief about a concept: that percents can be added, that area grows like length, that averages can be averaged, that a bigger denominator means a bigger fraction.
- Units or scale: The answer is wanted in other units, or a rate or scale must be converted first.
The wrong answers, classified
A Units or scale (King et al., 2004)
Treats the 10-meter widening as a 10% increase, so multiplies 1.15 × 1.10 = 1.265 and reports a 26.5% rise.
B Misunderstands the concept (Smith, diSessa & Roschelle, 1993; De Bock et al., 1998; Ni & Zhou, 2005)
Adds the length's 15% to the width's 20% increase, as if percent increases in two dimensions simply add, missing the 3% where they overlap.
D Units or scale (King et al., 2004)
Treats the 15% as 15 meters, making the field 95 by 60 meters, an area of 5,700 square meters and a 42.5% increase.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Area of a rectangle
- A is the area, the flat space inside. l is the length and w is the width. Multiplying counts how many unit squares fit, row by row.
- Percent increase
- old is the starting amount, and new is the amount after. new − old is how much it grew. Dividing by old compares the growth with the start. Multiplying by 100 turns that into a percent.
Sort out the question
The field was 80 meters long and 50 meters wide. The length grew by 15%, a percent. The width grew by 10 meters, a number of meters. These are two different kinds of increase.
You need the percent by which the area grew.
Find the old area
You need the old area to compare with the new one.
The old field covered 4,000 square meters.
Find the new length and width
15% of 80 is . So the new length is meters.
The new width is meters.
Watch out: 10 meters is not 10%. Treating it as 10% leads to 26.5%, choice A. Treating 15% as 15 meters leads to 42.5%, choice D.
Find the new area
Multiply the new length by the new width.
The new field covers 5,520 square meters. That is square meters more.
Find the percent increase
The area grew by 38%. Watch out: The width grew by 20%, since 10 is 20% of 50. Adding 15% + 20% = 35% gives choice B. That misses the extra corner piece where both new strips meet.
So the answer is C, 38%.
Check your answer
Use growth factors. The length is multiplied by 1.15. The width goes from 50 to 60, so it is multiplied by 1.2. The area is multiplied by , which is 38% more.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
