Fill the blanks
Question 1 of 11
2026 Practice Test A Math, question 8Question
Liam and Kevin each collect stamps. Liam has twice as many stamps as Kevin. Liam gives 8 of his stamps to Kevin. Liam now has 12 more stamps than Kevin.
How many stamps did Liam start with?
Select the correct answer from each drop-down to complete the sentences.
An equation that relates the number of stamps originally in Liam’s and Kevin’s collections is .
After Liam gives 8 stamps to Kevin, the equation becomes .
By solving the equation, it can be determined that Liam started with stamps.
Choose an answer from each menu, then check. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: 2; blank 2: K + 20; blank 3: 56
Liam originally has twice as many stamps as Kevin, so the equation is .
After Liam gives 8 stamps to Kevin, the equation becomes , which simplifies to .
Substitute into the equation: .
Solve for K:
Substitute to find L: .
So, Liam started with 56 stamps.
Question analysis
This word problem about two stamp collections is answered with three drop-down menus: an equation for the starting counts, an equation for after Liam gives Kevin 8 stamps, and the number Liam started with. Students turn "twice as many" and "12 more" into algebra and solve. Tracking both boys' counts before and after the gift is the tricky part, and every menu must be right.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Grade 7 students solve one equation in one unknown. The menus lay out the equations, but the problem still ties two unknowns together before and after a gift, a grade 8 system, and all three menus must be right.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Turning words into math moderate
- Much to keep track of moderate
- Solution
- 4 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 5, 86 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 menus do much of the setting up, since each sentence already shows the shape of its equation. The second menu is the hard one: the 8 stamps leave Liam and join Kevin before the gap of 12 is measured. Solving gives Kevin's 28 first, and K + 20 then equals 48, Liam's count after the gift, which waits on the last menu beside his starting 56. Testing each starting count against the story is a quick check on the last menu.
Turning words into math moderate Understanding the question
The gift changes both counts, so "Liam now has 12 more stamps than Kevin" compares Liam's L − 8 with Kevin's K + 8, and the second menu's K + 20 holds a 20 that appears nowhere in the stem. (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995; Koedinger & Nathan, 2004)
Much to keep track of moderate Working it out
Each boy has a count before and after the gift, four numbers in all, and all three menus must be right; the last asks for Liam's start, not the 48 he has after giving 8 away. (Sweller, 1988; Carpenter, Just & Shell, 1990)
Strategy: Let K be Kevin's starting count, write each boy's count after the gift in terms of K, and set Liam's 12 above Kevin's; testing each number in the last menu is a fast check.
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.
- Follows a key word: Picks the operation from a single word rather than the situation: "removed" so subtract, "of" so multiply, "more" so add, when the situation needs something else.
- Equation written backwards: Writes a comparison the wrong way round, word for word: "six times as many students as professors" as 6S = P. The bigger quantity gets the bigger number.
The wrong answers, classified
BCB Answers a different question (King et al., 2004; Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995)
Sets up both equations and solves for Kevin's 28, then takes the value of K + 20, 48, which is Liam's count after the gift, not at the start.
BBC Follows a key word (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995)
Follows the words "12 more" to L + 12, adding 12 to Liam's own count instead of Kevin's, then finds 56 by testing the three counts against the story.
ACC Equation written backwards (Clement, Lochhead & Monk, 1981)
Writes "twice as many stamps as Kevin" backwards, as 2L = K, and picks 0.5, giving Liam half of Kevin's stamps, while the other two menus are right.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Twice as many as
- L is the number of stamps Liam starts with, and K is the number Kevin starts with. Twice as many means 2 times as many, so Liam’s count is 2 times Kevin’s. Because L and 2K are equal, you can put 2K in place of L in any equation.
- Doing the same to both sides
- a and b are the two sides of an equation, and c is any number or term. An equation is like a balanced scale. Add the same thing to both sides, or take the same thing away from both, and the scale stays level. This is how you move a term to the other side.
Sort out the question
Let L be Liam’s stamps at the start and K be Kevin’s. You know three facts:
- Liam has twice as many stamps as Kevin.
- Liam gives 8 of his stamps to Kevin.
- After that, Liam has 12 more stamps than Kevin.
The first menu finishes the starting equation. The second finishes the equation after the gift. The third is Liam’s count at the start.
Fill in the first menu
Twice as many means 2 times as many. Liam has twice as many as Kevin, so:
Pick 2 in the first menu.
Watch out: the 0.5 in the menu turns the fact around. would give Liam half as many as Kevin. Liam has more, so his count must be the bigger one.
Write both counts after the gift
The gift changes both counts. Liam loses 8 stamps, and Kevin gains those same 8.
- Liam now has stamps.
- Kevin now has stamps.
Liam has 12 more than Kevin. So Liam’s count equals Kevin’s count plus 12:
Pick K + 20 in the second menu.
Watch out: the 12 goes on Kevin’s count, not Liam’s. Picking L + 12 adds it to the wrong boy.
Solve for K
Now use the first equation. Since , put 2K in place of L:
Subtract K from both sides. Then add 8 to both sides. Each move keeps the scale level.
Kevin started with 28 stamps.
Find Liam’s starting count
Liam started with twice as many as Kevin:
Liam started with 56 stamps.
Watch out: is Liam’s count after the gift. The menu offers 48, but the question asks about the start.
So the menus read 2, K + 20 and 56.
Check your answer
At the start, Liam has 56 stamps and Kevin has 28, and 56 is twice 28. After the gift, Liam has 48 and Kevin has 36. , so Liam has 12 more. Every fact fits.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 2 of 11
2026 Practice Test A Math, question 17Question
Consider this expression:
Create an equivalent expression.
Move the correct answer to each box. Not all answers will be used.
|| − ||
On the test you drag tiles into the boxes; here, choose each box’s tile from its menu. Each tile can be used once. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: 1; blank 2: −5
To create an expression equivalent to :
Step 1: Simplify the first absolute value term.
Simplify the second absolute value term.
Therefore the equivalent expression is
.
Question analysis
This absolute value question shows an expression with two pairs of bars and asks students to build an equivalent one by placing number tiles in two boxes. It tests subtracting negative integers and understanding what absolute value bars do. Not every tile is used, and several tiles match the results of common sign mistakes.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Simplifying signed integers inside absolute value bars, including subtracting a negative, is core grade 7 work. This asks only for the values inside the bars, not the final number, but one sign slip leads straight to a wrong tile.
- Estimated difficulty
- Straightforward: two steps or one careful reading.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 1, recall and reproduction · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Error-prone arithmetic moderate
- Many steps minor
- An answer in an unexpected form minor
- Solution
- 3 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 6, 21 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
Every move here involves a sign, and the tiles are built from the usual misreadings of absolute value: 11 for making each number positive before combining, 17 for erasing every minus sign. A slip on − (−3) gives −5 for the first pair, but the second pair needs the only −5 tile, so that slip leaves a box with no tile to fit. Students who simplify each inside completely, and leave the bars untouched, finish quickly.
Error-prone arithmetic moderate Working it out
Inside the first bars, subtracting −3 must become adding 3, so −8 + 3 = −5, and adding 6 then crosses zero to reach 1; reading − (−3) as − 3 gives −5 instead. (Brown & Burton, 1978; Junker & Sijtsma, 2001)
Many steps minor Working it out
Two pairs of bars are simplified separately, and both boxes need the right tile, kept in the original order, before the answer is right. (Daniel & Embretson, 2010; Enright, Morley & Sheehan, 2002)
An answer in an unexpected form minor Choosing the answer
Each box takes what is left inside a pair of bars, not its absolute value, so the second box needs the tile −5 rather than a 5, and the expression's value, −4, is never entered. (Enright, Morley & Sheehan, 2002)
Strategy: Rewrite subtracting −3 as adding 3, then simplify the inside of each pair of bars separately, left to right; each box replaces the inside of one pair, in the same order.
Traps
- A faulty procedure: A systematic but wrong procedure: adding fractions straight across, applying an exponent to each term of a sum, dropping a sign when moving a term.
- 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.
- Negatives and direction: Arithmetic with negative numbers, the order of a subtraction, or direction on a number line. (Moving a term across the equals sign without changing its sign is a faulty procedure.)
The wrong answers, classified
EC A faulty procedure (Brown & Burton, 1978; Tatsuoka, 1983)
Takes the absolute value of each number before combining, so the first bars become 8 − 3 + 6 = 11; the same rule still gives 6 − 11 = −5 in the second.
BC Misunderstands the concept (Smith, diSessa & Roschelle, 1993; De Bock et al., 1998; Ni & Zhou, 2005)
Believes absolute value bars make everything inside positive, so it drops every minus sign and adds 8 + 3 + 6 = 17, then works the short pair 6 − 11 normally.
CA Negatives and direction (Brown & Burton, 1978)
Simplifies both insides correctly but places −5 first and 1 second, reversing the subtraction so the expression equals 5 − 1 = 4 instead of 1 − 5 = −4.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Subtracting a negative number
- a is any number, and b is a positive number, so −b is negative. Subtracting a negative number is the same as adding its opposite, the same number with the other sign. Think of money: taking away a debt of $3 leaves you $3 richer.
- Absolute value
- The bars around a number stand for its absolute value. a is any number. The absolute value is how far a is from 0 on a number line, so it is never negative. Both |5| and |−5| equal 5. Always simplify inside the bars first.
Sort out the question
The expression has two pairs of absolute value bars. The new expression keeps both pairs, with a box inside each one:
Each box gets the number you reach when you simplify inside that pair of bars. The bars stay, so you do not take the absolute value yet. Some tiles are not used.
Simplify inside the first bars
Inside the first bars is . Subtracting −3 is the same as adding 3. Work from left to right:
The first box gets the tile 1.
Watch out: the bars do not make each number positive before you combine. Changing −8 and −3 to 8 and 3 first gives 8 − 3 + 6 = 11. Dropping every minus sign gives 8 + 3 + 6 = 17. Both are tiles, and both are wrong.
Simplify inside the second bars
Inside the second bars is . You take a bigger number from a smaller one, so the result is negative:
The second box gets the tile −5.
Watch out: do not change −5 to 5. The bars are still there in the new expression, so the box holds what is inside them.
Keep the boxes in order
The first bars came first, so 1 goes in the first box and −5 in the second. The new expression has the same value as the old one:
Swapping the tiles gives , which is not equal. So the boxes get 1 and −5, making |1| − |−5|.
On the test, you drag each tile into its box. On this site, you choose it from the box’s menu.
Check your answer
Use a number line for the first pair. Start at −8 and move 3 to the right to reach −5. Then move 6 more to the right to reach 1. For the second pair, start at 6 and move 11 to the left. You land on −5. Both boxes check out.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 3 of 11
2026 Practice Test A Math, question 27Question
Complete the steps to show one way to solve the equation for x.
Move the correct answer to each box. Each answer may be used more than once. Not all answers will be used.
On the test you drag tiles into the boxes; here, choose each box’s tile from its menu. A tile can be used more than once. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: −4; blank 2: 28; blank 3: −56
Solution:
Answer for second equation: −4
Answer for third equation: 28
Answer for fourth equation: −56
Distribute the −0.5 on the right side of the equation: .
Add 4 to both sides of the equation to eliminate the −4 on the right side: .
Divide both sides by −0.5: .
Question analysis
Students complete a step-by-step solution of the equation 24 = −0.5(x + 8) by dragging number tiles into three boxes: one after distributing, one after collecting the constants, and one for x. It tests solving a two-step linear equation with a negative decimal. Tiles may be reused, and many come in positive and negative pairs, so every sign counts.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Solving equations of the form p(x + q) = r with rational numbers is named in the grade 7 standards. Here the steps are laid out, but the negative decimal factor forces a sign decision at every one of the three boxes.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 1, recall and reproduction · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Error-prone arithmetic moderate
- A very close wrong answer minor
- Many steps minor
- An answer in an unexpected form minor
- Solution
- 3 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 3, 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
The layout settles the method, so the question comes down to one sign at each box. The printed plus before the first box nudges students toward the positive 4, and the pool then supplies every number that follows from it, down to −40. Students who distribute correctly can still lose the item at the last box by dividing 28 by 0.5. Substituting −56 back, −0.5 × (−48) = 24, confirms the final box.
Error-prone arithmetic moderate Working it out
Two of the three boxes turn on a negative decimal: −0.5 times 8 must give −4, and dividing 28 by −0.5 means multiplying by −2, which doubles the size and makes it negative. (Brown & Burton, 1978; Junker & Sijtsma, 2001)
A very close wrong answer minor Choosing the answer
The pool pairs −4 with 4, −40 with 40 and −56 with 56, so a box filled with the right size and the wrong sign looks just as finished; estimating cannot separate −56 from 56. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
Many steps minor Working it out
The three boxes form a chain and all three must be right, so a slip in the first carries through; the pool even holds the whole wrong chain 4, 20 and −40. (Daniel & Embretson, 2010; Enright, Morley & Sheehan, 2002)
An answer in an unexpected form minor Choosing the answer
The second line prints a plus sign before its box, so the distributed −0.5x − 4 must be written as −0.5x + (−4), with the negative tile in the box. (Enright, Morley & Sheehan, 2002)
Strategy: Multiply −0.5 by both x and 8, undo the constant term by doing the opposite operation to both sides, then divide by −0.5, which is the same as multiplying by −2.
Traps
- Order of operations: Working left to right, or distributing a minus sign wrongly, gives a choice.
- Negatives and direction: Arithmetic with negative numbers, the order of a subtraction, or direction on a number line. (Moving a term across the equals sign without changing its sign is a faulty procedure.)
- A faulty procedure: A systematic but wrong procedure: adding fractions straight across, applying an exponent to each term of a sum, dropping a sign when moving a term.
The wrong answers, classified
DEB Order of operations (Brown & Burton, 1978)
Gives the minus of −0.5 to x but not to 8, writing −0.5x + 4, then correctly reaches 20 = −0.5x and x = −40 from that wrong start.
CFH Negatives and direction (Brown & Burton, 1978)
Distributes and adds 4 correctly to reach 28 = −0.5x, then divides 28 by 0.5 instead of −0.5, dropping the negative and entering 56.
CEB A faulty procedure (Brown & Burton, 1978; Tatsuoka, 1983)
Distributes correctly to −4 but moves it to the left side without changing its sign, so 24 − 4 = 20, and 20 ÷ (−0.5) = −40.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- The distributive property
- a is the number in front of the parentheses, and b and c are the terms inside. Multiply a by each term inside. If a is negative, the minus sign goes into every product. It works because a groups of b + c is the same as a groups of b plus a groups of c.
- Signs when you multiply or divide
- A negative number times a positive number gives a negative result. A negative times a negative gives a positive result. The same rules hold when you divide. Use them at every step where a negative number appears.
- Doing the same to both sides
- a and b are the two sides of an equation, and c is any number (not zero when you divide). An equation is like a balanced scale. Doing the same thing to both sides keeps it level. That is how you get x by itself.
Sort out the question
You solve by filling three boxes:
- Box 1 comes after , once the parentheses are gone.
- Box 2 is the number equal to .
- Box 3 is the value of x.
A tile can be used more than once, and some tiles are not used.
Distribute the −0.5
Multiply −0.5 by each term inside the parentheses. A negative times a positive is negative:
So . The line already shows a plus sign, so box 1 gets −4.
Watch out: the −0.5 multiplies the 8 too. Writing 4 instead starts a wrong chain: 4, then 20, then −40. Every number in that chain is a tile.
Add 4 to both sides
You want −0.5x alone on one side, and the −4 is in the way. Adding 4 undoes subtracting 4, so add 4 to both sides:
Box 2 gets 28.
Watch out: taking 4 away from 24 instead gives 20, another tile.
Divide both sides by −0.5
Now x is multiplied by −0.5. Dividing undoes multiplying, so divide both sides by −0.5:
Dividing by 0.5 is the same as multiplying by 2, since every whole holds two halves. A positive divided by a negative is negative. So .
Watch out: dropping the minus sign gives 56, which is also a tile.
Name the three tiles
From top to bottom, the finished steps read:
So the boxes get −4, 28 and −56, in that order. On the test, you drag each tile into its box. On this site, you choose it from the box’s menu.
Check your answer
Put back into the first equation. . Then , since a negative times a negative is positive. That gives 24, the left side, so −56 is right.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 4 of 11
2026 Practice Test B Math, question 2Question
The list shows the results of a survey. A survey was taken to see whether students like basketball, soccer, both, or neither. These were the results:
- 25 students like basketball.
- 19 students like soccer.
- 7 students like both basketball and soccer.
- 10 students don’t like either basketball or soccer.
Use the information provided to determine how many students were surveyed and how many like only soccer.
Move the correct answer to each box.
There were students surveyed, and students like only soccer.
On the test you drag tiles into the boxes; here, choose each box’s tile from its menu. Each tile can be used once. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: 47; blank 2: 12
There were 47 students surveyed, and 12 students like only soccer.
To determine how many students were surveyed, start with the total number of students who like basketball and soccer separately and subtract the number of students who were counted twice.
There were 25 students who like basketball, 19 students who like soccer, and 7 students who like both basketball and soccer.
So, the total number of students who like basketball or soccer is .
Then, add the students who don’t like either basketball or soccer: 10 students don’t like either sport.
Total students surveyed:
To determine how many students like only soccer, subtract the number of students who like both basketball and soccer from the total number of students who like soccer.
Students who like only soccer:
Question analysis
This survey problem lists how many students like basketball, soccer, both sports or neither, and students drag number tiles into two boxes: how many were surveyed and how many like only soccer. It is a Venn diagram counting question. Keeping track of the students who like both sports, who appear in two of the listed counts, is the tricky part.
- NYS standards
- 7.SP.8b sample spaces for compound events
- Grade level
- Grade 7 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Overlapping groups like these are seldom taught on their own in grade 7, though the arithmetic is simple whole-number addition and subtraction. Two results come from the same four facts, and both boxes must be right to score.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Much to keep track of moderate
- Turning words into math minor
- Solution
- 4 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 6, 78 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 arithmetic is light; the work is keeping track of one overlap that touches both answers. Students often remove the 7 for one box and not the other, and the pool holds 54 and 19, the tiles those half-finished methods produce. A sketch of two overlapping circles, with 7 in the middle, 18 and 12 beside it and 10 outside, turns both boxes into reading off the picture.
Much to keep track of moderate Working it out
The 7 students who like both sports sit inside the 25 and inside the 19, so they come out once for the total and again for only soccer, and both boxes must be right to score. (Sweller, 1988; Carpenter, Just & Shell, 1990)
Turning words into math minor Understanding the question
The list never says that the 25 basketball fans already include the 7 who like both sports, and only the word “only” in the question separates the 12 from all 19 soccer fans. (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995; Koedinger & Nathan, 2004)
Strategy: Sketch two overlapping circles, write the students who like both sports in the middle, fill each outer part by subtraction, then add every region and the students who like neither.
Traps
- Overlapping groups: Things in two groups at once are counted twice, or not subtracted.
- Misreads the question: Misses or misreads a condition or a word in the question: "at least", "each", "remaining", "not".
The wrong answers, classified
FA Overlapping groups (King et al., 2004)
Adds 25 + 19 + 10 = 54 for the total, counting the 7 fans of both sports twice, yet takes them out of the soccer fans correctly to get 12.
EB Misreads the question (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995)
Removes the overlap correctly to find the 47 surveyed, then fills the second box with all 19 soccer fans, overlooking “only” and the 7 of them who also like basketball.
FB Overlapping groups (King et al., 2004)
Ignores the line about the 7 who like both sports, adding 25 + 19 + 10 = 54 and copying the 19 soccer fans straight from the list.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Counting two groups that overlap
- B is the number who like basketball, and S is the number who like soccer. The students who like both are inside B and inside S, so B + S counts them twice. Subtract them once to fix that. Then add the students who like neither sport, since they are in neither group.
- Only one group
- S is everyone who likes soccer, and both is the number who like both sports. Only soccer means the soccer fans who do not also like basketball. Take the both group out of the soccer group to find them.
Sort out the question
The survey gives you four facts:
- 25 students like basketball.
- 19 students like soccer.
- 7 students like both sports.
- 10 students like neither sport.
You need two numbers. The first box is how many students were surveyed in all. The second box is how many like only soccer, which means soccer but not basketball. Each tile can be used once.
See who is counted twice
The 7 students who like both sports are part of the 25 basketball fans. They are also part of the 19 soccer fans. So if you add 25 and 19, those 7 students get counted two times.
A Venn diagram shows this. It is a picture of two circles that overlap. The 7 go in the middle, where the circles share space.
Count who likes at least one sport
Use the overlap rule. Add the two groups, then take away the 7 who were counted twice:
So 37 students like basketball, soccer or both.
Add the students who like neither
The 10 students who like neither sport are not in either group. They were still surveyed, so add them:
So 47 students were surveyed.
Watch out: adding 25 + 19 + 10 = 54 counts the 7 students twice. The tile 54 is waiting for that mistake.
Find who likes only soccer
The 19 soccer fans include the 7 who like basketball too. Take those 7 away:
So 12 students like only soccer.
Watch out: the word only matters. The tile 19 counts every soccer fan, not just the ones who like only soccer.
Fill in both boxes
On the test, you drag the tile 47 into the first box and the tile 12 into the second box. On this site, you choose each tile from its box’s menu.
So the boxes get 47 and 12: there were 47 students surveyed, and 12 students like only soccer.
Check your answer
Split the students into four groups that do not overlap. Only basketball is . Both sports is 7. Only soccer is 12. Neither is 10. Add the four groups: . That matches the first box.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 5 of 11
2026 Practice Test C English, question 40Passage 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
What is the relationship between the scientists and the astronauts in carrying out the plant-growing experiments?
Move the correct answer to each box.
Scientists on earth are primarily responsible for for conducting plant experiments in space, while the astronauts aboard the International Space Station are responsible for for the experiment.
On the test you drag tiles into the boxes; here, choose each box’s tile from its menu. Each tile can be used once. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: developing the materials and systems; blank 2: growing the plants to harvest
The question asks for the two phrases that should be added to the sentence to explain the relationship between the scientists and the astronauts in carrying out the plant-growing experiments.
CORRECT. The phrase “growing the plants to harvest” should be added to the second box in the sentence. Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the excerpt show that astronauts aboard the ISS are responsible for tending to the plants in the system and harvesting them after the growth cycle is complete.
Incorrect. The phrase “documenting the nutritional goals” should not be added to either box in the sentence. While the excerpt does mention that the experiment is helping gather data about the nutritional value of the peppers, there is no evidence that either the scientists on Earth or the astronauts aboard the ISS are tasked with documenting specific nutritional goals.
Incorrect. The phrase “analyzing the environment” should not be added to either box in the sentence. Although the experiment requires control of environmental factors like light and moisture, the excerpt does not describe or primarily focus on describing how either the scientists on Earth or the astronauts aboard the ISS are responsible for formally analyzing the environment of the habitat as part of the experiment.
CORRECT. The phrase “developing the materials and systems” should be added to the first box in the sentence. The excerpt explains that the scientists on Earth create and prepare the systems, seeds, and equipment needed for the plant-growing experiments in space.
Incorrect. The phrase “determining the most nutritional plants” should not be added to either box in the sentence. Although growing nutritious plants is important, the excerpt does not focus on the scientists on Earth or the astronauts aboard the ISS evaluating or selecting plants based on their nutritional value.
Question analysis
This question asks students to complete a sentence describing how scientists on Earth and astronauts aboard the International Space Station divided the work of the pepper-growing experiment. On the test students drag phrase tiles into two boxes, choosing from five. Each group’s role must be pieced together from details spread across the excerpt, and each tile names a task in general words that must be matched to the text.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Explaining how the people in an informational text relate to one another is grade 7 work. Filling two boxes from five tiles with all-or-nothing credit adds some demand, but the excerpt shows the two groups doing clearly different jobs.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- The right answer is reworded moderate
- Evidence in several places moderate
- Much to keep track of minor
- Evidence
- Answered from several paragraphs or stanzas
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 10, 890 words; question and choices: about grade 13, 50 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 astronauts’ box is the easy half, since the excerpt opens with the crew snipping and catching ripe peppers. The scientists’ box is where points are lost: the right tile is abstract, while the tempting ones name nutrition and the environment, both prominent in the article. Students who match a tile to a phrase they remember, rather than to everything the people on Earth are shown doing, fill the first box wrongly.
The right answer is reworded moderate Choosing the answer
The scientists’ tile, “developing the materials and systems,” sums up preparing seeds, engineering a variety and building the habitat in words the excerpt never uses, while the nutrition tile echoes paragraph 9. (Freedle & Kostin, 1993; Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
Evidence in several places moderate Working it out
The scientists’ work is scattered: the habitat’s technology in paragraphs 3 and 4, Spencer preparing seeds in paragraph 5, Bosland’s engineered variety in paragraphs 7 and 8; the crew’s tending and harvest fill paragraphs 1 and 2. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
Much to keep track of minor Working it out
Two boxes must both be right from five tiles that cannot be reused, so each group’s whole role must be held in mind while three plausible-sounding tiles are rejected. (Sweller, 1988; Carpenter, Just & Shell, 1990)
Strategy: List what the people on Earth did and what the crew in orbit did, then fill each box with the tile that sums up its list, not one that echoes a single word of the excerpt.
Traps
- Word match: Repeats striking words or phrases from the text, so it looks supported, but its meaning does not fit the question.
- 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
EA Word match (Freedle & Kostin, 1993)
Matches “determining the most nutritional plants” to paragraph 9’s “determine the nutritional content of crops,” though the scientists engineered one variety rather than picking the most nutritious among many.
CA Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Gives the scientists “analyzing the environment” because paragraph 2 shows them “observing and conferring,” though the excerpt shows them preparing seeds and systems while the habitat’s sensors monitor conditions.
DC Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Fills the scientists’ box correctly but gives the crew “analyzing the environment,” since they can adjust the light and moisture, though their job is tending the plants through to harvest.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
You need to finish a sentence about who did what. The first box tells what the scientists on Earth did. The second box tells what the astronauts in space did. On the test you drag a tile into each box. Here, you pick each box’s tile from a menu. Each tile can be used only once, and three tiles are left over.
List what the scientists did
- Spencer played “a crucial role in preparing the seeds that were sent hurtling into space” (paragraph 5).
- Bosland and his colleagues “genetically engineered” the pepper seeds (paragraph 7). The footnote says they “combined parts of DNA from different plants to produce a new plant.”
- Growing plants in space “relies on highly specialized technology over 50 years in the making” (paragraph 3).
So the scientists made and got ready what the experiment needed: seeds and machines.
List what the astronauts did
- They “can adjust the color and intensity of the light” for the plants (paragraph 4).
- “The team cracked open the door of the APH every day” to check on the plants (paragraph 6).
- They “snip the stems of those that are ready for harvest” (paragraph 1).
- They finish “after a 137-day growth cycle” (paragraph 2).
So the astronauts cared for the plants until the peppers were ripe, then picked them.
Match a tile to each list
The scientists’ list is about making things: seeds, a new pepper and a high-tech habitat. The tile developing the materials and systems sums that up. Materials are the things you use, like seeds. Systems are machines with many parts, like the habitat. The astronauts’ list is about care and picking. The tile growing the plants to harvest sums that up.
Rule out the other tiles
- documenting the nutritional goals: no one in the article writes down nutrition goals.
- analyzing the environment: the habitat’s sensors “control and monitor” conditions. The crew adjusts light and water, but that is caring for plants, not studying them.
- determining the most nutritional plants: paragraph 9 says the data will “determine the nutritional content of crops.” But no one picks the healthiest plants. Bosland made one special kind.
Watch out: The last tile repeats words from paragraph 9, so it is tempting for the first box. Matching a word is not the same as matching the job.
Fill in both boxes
Scientists on Earth develop the materials and systems for the experiment. Astronauts grow the plants to harvest. So the first box gets developing the materials and systems, and the second box gets growing the plants to harvest.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
The most tempting wrong tile for the first box is determining the most nutritional plants, because it echoes paragraph 9. But the scientists in the article prepared seeds, engineered a new pepper and built the habitat. That is developing materials and systems. Nobody compares plants to find the most nutritious one.
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 6 of 11
2026 Practice Test C Math, question 44Question
A smartphone screen is designed to be 72 millimeters wide. The quality control team allows for a variation of in the width. Select the minimum and maximum screen widths that fall within the acceptable range of screen widths, in millimeters.
Select the correct answer from each drop-down to complete the sentence.
The acceptable screen width is from to millimeters.
Choose an answer from each menu, then check. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: 69.12; blank 2: 74.88
A variation of in the width means that the width of the smartphone can be from 4% less than the standard of 72 mm to 4% greater than 72 mm.
The least allowed measure is
The greatest allowed measure is
Therefore, the allowable range is from 69.12 mm to 74.88 mm in width.
Question analysis
A smartphone screen is designed to be 72 millimeters wide, and quality control allows a variation of plus or minus 4%. Students choose the minimum and maximum acceptable widths from two drop-down menus. It tests finding a percent of a quantity, and the 4% has to be turned into millimeters before it is added or subtracted.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Finding a percent of a number and adding or subtracting it is grade 7 percent work. The ± sign, the decimal result and two linked menus, which must both be right, add a little to the usual demand.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Error-prone arithmetic moderate
- Turning words into math minor
- A very close wrong answer minor
- Many steps minor
- Solution
- 3 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 8, 59 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 rewards turning the percent into millimeters before doing anything else. Students who treat ±4% as ±4 millimeters find the two whole-number options at either end of the menus, 68.00 and 76.00, which look like a natural pair. Those who compute 2.88 correctly can still lose the item on the maximum by rounding to 3 and picking 75.00. Multiplying 72 by 0.96 and by 1.04 is a quick double-check.
Error-prone arithmetic moderate Working it out
Four percent of 72 is 0.04 × 72 = 2.88, a decimal product, and taking it from 72 means borrowing across the decimal point to reach 69.12. (Brown & Burton, 1978; Junker & Sijtsma, 2001)
Turning words into math minor Understanding the question
The phrase “a variation of ±4% in the width” has to become 4% of 72 millimeters, a length of 2.88 mm, before anything is added or subtracted. (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995; Koedinger & Nathan, 2004)
A very close wrong answer minor Choosing the answer
The second menu lists 75.00 just 0.12 above 74.88, so a rounded estimate of 72 + 3 lands on the wrong option, and estimating cannot separate the two. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
Many steps minor Working it out
Both menus must be right to score, so the minimum and the maximum each need their own subtraction or addition after the shared percent is found. (Daniel & Embretson, 2010; Enright, Morley & Sheehan, 2002)
Strategy: Find 4% of the 72-millimeter design width first, then subtract that amount for the minimum and add it for the maximum, before looking at the menus.
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.
- Rounds too early: Rounds a value partway through, or rounds the wrong way, so the final answer drifts from the exact one.
The wrong answers, classified
AD Misunderstands the concept (Smith, diSessa & Roschelle, 1993; De Bock et al., 1998; Ni & Zhou, 2005)
Reads ±4% as ±4 millimeters, so the widths run from 72 − 4 = 68.00 to 72 + 4 = 76.00.
BC Rounds too early (King et al., 2004)
Finds the 69.12 minimum, then estimates the maximum by rounding the 2.88 change up to 3, so 72 + 3 = 75.00 is picked over 74.88.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Percent of a number
- The percent is how many out of 100. Dividing it by 100 turns it into a decimal, so 4% becomes 0.04. The whole is the amount you take the percent of. The part is the amount that the percent stands for.
Sort out the question
The screen is designed to be 72 millimeters (mm) wide. The sign ±4% means plus or minus 4%. So a screen may be up to 4% narrower or up to 4% wider than 72 mm.
You need the minimum, the smallest allowed width, and the maximum, the largest. You pick each one from a drop-down menu.
Find 4% of 72 mm
Use the percent formula. 4% is :
So the width may change by up to 2.88 mm either way.
Watch out: 4% is not 4 mm. Taking 4 away and adding 4 gives 68.00 and 76.00. Both are in the menus, and both are wrong.
Find the minimum width
Take the change away from the design width:
The narrowest allowed screen is 69.12 mm wide.
Find the maximum width
Add the change to the design width:
The widest allowed screen is 74.88 mm wide.
Watch out: rounding 2.88 up to 3 gives 75.00. That is in the second menu too, but it is too wide.
Choose from each menu
Open the first drop-down menu and choose 69.12. Open the second one and choose 74.88.
So the sentence reads: the acceptable screen width is from 69.12 to 74.88 millimeters.
Check your answer
Use multipliers. A screen 4% narrower keeps 96% of the width: . A screen 4% wider is 104% of it: . Both match. Also, both ends are the same 2.88 mm away from 72.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 7 of 11
2026 Practice Test C Math, question 49Question
The box plot illustrates the number of hours eighth-grade students spend on screens during a typical week. What is the difference between the range and the interquartile range (IQR) of the screen time data?
Move the correct answer to each box. Not all answers will be used.
The range of screen time hours is hours.
The IQR is hours.
The difference between the range and the IQR is hours.
On the test you drag tiles into the boxes; here, choose each box’s tile from its menu. Each tile can be used once. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: 15; blank 2: 7; blank 3: 8
Determine the range by subtracting the minimum value on the box plot from the maximum value on the box plot:
Maximum value , Minimum value
Determine the interquartile range by subtracting the lower quartile value on the box plot from the upper quartile value on the box plot:
Upper Quartile Value , Lower Quartile Value
Determine the difference between the range (15 hr) and the interquartile range (7 hr):
Question analysis
A box plot shows how many hours a week eighth-grade students spend on screens, on a number line marked every hour. Students move number tiles to complete three sentences: the range, the interquartile range, and the difference between them. Each tile can be used only once, and keeping the range and the interquartile range apart is the tricky part.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Reading a box plot and finding its range and interquartile range are grade 7 statistics skills. The values sit on labeled whole-number ticks and the three sentences lead through the steps, a typical grade 7 task.
- Estimated difficulty
- Straightforward: two steps or one careful reading.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Something you must already know minor
- Many steps minor
- Solution
- 3 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 4, 69 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- A missing comma in the explanation was restored.
- 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 plot is drawn on whole-hour ticks, and the three sentences lay out the steps, so this is a direct check of two definitions. The main risk is taking a value off the plot, such as the lower quartile of 8, for a spread between two values. Because the four tiles allow only one use each, a student who confuses the measures can still fill every box, which hides the error.
Something you must already know minor Working it out
The sentences name the range and the IQR but never define them; students must know the range spans the whiskers and the IQR spans only the box. (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Many steps minor Working it out
Three boxes must all be right, the third depends on the first two, and each tile can be used once, so one mix-up spreads to a second box. (Daniel & Embretson, 2010; Enright, Morley & Sheehan, 2002)
Strategy: Read the five key values off the plot, subtract the least from the greatest for the range, subtract the lower quartile from the upper for the IQR, then subtract those results.
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.
- Wrong formula: Uses a related but wrong formula: perimeter for area, diameter for radius, area for volume, or a misremembered one.
The wrong answers, classified
DCB Misunderstands the concept (Smith, diSessa & Roschelle, 1993; De Bock et al., 1998; Ni & Zhou, 2005)
Takes the lower quartile, 8, as the interquartile range, reading a value off the box instead of its width, so the difference becomes 15 − 8 = 7.
BDC Wrong formula (King et al., 2004)
Swaps the two measures, giving the box’s width, 7, as the range and the whiskers’ spread, 15, as the IQR, while the difference stays 8.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Explanation: The DOE’s explanation runs two values together: “Maximum value = 20 hr Minimum value = 5 hr”. Its next line is “Upper Quartile Value = 15 hr, Lower Quartile Value = 8 hr”, and Question 32’s explanation has “Maximum value = 84° F, Minimum value = 39° F”. The site adds the comma.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Range
- The maximum is the greatest value, at the right end of the right whisker. The minimum is the least value, at the left end of the left whisker. The range tells how far the whole set of data spreads.
- Interquartile range (IQR)
- Q3 is the upper quartile, the right edge of the box. Q1 is the lower quartile, the left edge of the box. The IQR is the width of the box. It tells how far the middle half of the data spreads.
Sort out the question
The box plot shows the hours of screen time for eighth graders in a week. You need three numbers: the range, the IQR, and the difference between them.
There are four tiles: 5, 7, 8 and 15. Each tile is used at most once, and one tile is left over.
Read the five values
The number line has a tick at every hour, and every value sits on a tick:
- The left whisker starts at 5. This is the minimum.
- The box starts at 8. This is the lower quartile, the middle of the lower half of the data.
- The line inside the box is at 12. This is the median, the middle value.
- The box ends at 15. This is the upper quartile, the middle of the upper half.
- The right whisker ends at 20. This is the maximum.
Find the range
Use the range formula with the two ends of the whiskers:
The screen times spread over 15 hours, from the least to the most.
Find the IQR
Use the IQR formula with the two edges of the box:
The middle half of the students spend between 8 and 15 hours, a spread of 7 hours.
Watch out: the IQR is a width, not a point on the plot. The tile 8 is the lower quartile. Putting it in the IQR box also makes the last box 7, which is wrong.
Find the difference
Subtract the IQR from the range:
Watch out: do not swap the two measures. The range uses the whiskers’ ends, and the IQR uses only the box.
Fill in the three boxes
On the test, you drag a tile into each box. On this site, you choose each tile from its box’s menu. The range box gets 15, the IQR box gets 7, and the difference box gets 8. The tile 5 is not used.
So the boxes get 15, 7 and 8.
Check your answer
The difference is just the two whiskers added together. The left whisker is hours long. The right whisker is hours long. , which matches the third box.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 8 of 11
2026 Practice Test D Math, question 43Question
Two student clubs are selling snacks as part of a fundraiser. The Art Club sells a 24-pack of granola bars for $12.00. The Science Club sells a 10-pack of granola bars for $6.50. To the nearest cent, what is the difference in cost per bar between the two clubs?
Select the correct answer from each drop-down to complete the sentences.
The cost for the Art Club’s bar is per bar.
The cost for the Science Club’s bar is per bar.
The difference between the cost of the bars is .
Choose an answer from each menu, then check. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: $0.50; blank 2: $0.65; blank 3: $0.15
To determine the cost per bar from the Art Club, divide the total cost by the total number of bars:
To determine the cost per bar from the Science Club, divide the total cost by the total number of bars:
To find the difference in price per bar, subtract the cost per bar for the Art Club from the cost per bar for the Science Club:
Question analysis
Two clubs sell granola bars for a fundraiser: the Art Club a 24-pack for $12.00 and the Science Club a 10-pack for $6.50. Students complete three sentences with drop-down menus, giving each club's cost per bar and the difference between them. It tests unit prices with money, and all three menus must be right.
- Grade level
- Grade 6 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- Below grade 7 Comparing unit prices is grade 6 rate work. The menus split it into three short steps, two divisions of money amounts and one subtraction, which is lighter than typical grade 7 work.
- Estimated difficulty
- Routine: one familiar step, little to misread.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 1, recall and reproduction · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Many steps minor
- Error-prone arithmetic minor
- Solution
- 3 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 3, 87 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- The order of the answers in the DOE’s key was corrected.
- 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 menus guide the work, one sentence per step, and every option is a reasonable price, so the question rewards accurate division more than planning. No common misconception leads to the wrong options; they catch slips, such as misreading a pack size or subtracting carelessly. Checking that 24 bars at the first price cost $12.00 and 10 bars at the second cost $6.50 confirms both menus before the subtraction.
Many steps minor Working it out
Three menus must all be right to score: two divisions for the costs per bar, then a subtraction that uses both, so a slip in either division spoils the third menu. (Daniel & Embretson, 2010; Enright, Morley & Sheehan, 2002)
Error-prone arithmetic minor Working it out
Each division is with money, $12.00 ÷ 24 and $6.50 ÷ 10, so the decimal point must be placed carefully, though the menus offer only sensible amounts. (Brown & Burton, 1978; Junker & Sijtsma, 2001)
Strategy: Divide each pack's price by the number of bars in it, then subtract the smaller cost per bar from the larger; checking that 24 bars at your first price make $12.00 catches slips.
Traps
- Misreads the question: Misses or misreads a condition or a word in the question: "at least", "each", "remaining", "not".
- An arithmetic slip: The right method with a plausible arithmetic error: a digit, a place value or a times-table fact.
The wrong answers, classified
CBA Misreads the question (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995)
Divides $12.00 by 20 instead of 24, misreading the size of the Art Club’s pack, so $0.60 a bar leaves a gap of only $0.05.
BBB An arithmetic slip (Junker & Sijtsma, 2001)
Finds both costs per bar correctly, then slips in the subtraction, taking $0.65 − $0.50 as $0.10, the option beside the right one.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Answer key: The DOE’s explanation opens with the key “($0.65; $0.50; $0.15)”, which puts $0.65 in the first drop-down and $0.50 in the second. Neither is possible: the first menu (the Art Club’s cost per bar) offers $0.40, $0.50, $0.60 and $0.75, and the second (the Science Club’s) offers $0.55, $0.65, $0.75 and $0.85. The explanation’s own working gives the Art Club $12.00 ÷ 24 = $0.50 and the Science Club $6.50 ÷ 10 = $0.65, so the key is $0.50, $0.65, $0.15. The site’s key was already in that order; the DOE’s key line is not shown on the site.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Cost of one item
- The price of the pack is what you pay for all the bars together. Dividing shares that price equally among the bars. The result is the price of one bar, called the unit price.
Sort out the question
You know:
- The Art Club sells 24 bars for $12.00.
- The Science Club sells 10 bars for $6.50.
There are three menus. The first is the Art Club’s cost per bar. The second is the Science Club’s. The third is the difference, how much more one bar costs than the other.
Find the Art Club’s cost
Share $12.00 among 24 bars:
Each bar costs $0.50. That makes sense: 24 half-dollars make $12. Pick $0.50 in the first menu.
Watch out: dividing by 20 instead of 24 gives $0.60, which is also in the menu.
Find the Science Club’s cost
Share $6.50 among 10 bars. Dividing by 10 moves the decimal point one place to the left:
Each bar costs $0.65. Pick $0.65 in the second menu.
Find the difference
Subtract the smaller cost from the larger one:
The bars differ by $0.15. Pick $0.15 in the third menu.
Watch out: $0.10 sits right next to $0.15 in the menu. A slip in the subtraction lands there.
Fill in the three menus
On the test and on this site, you choose each answer from a drop-down menu.
So the menus read $0.50, $0.65 and $0.15.
Check your answer
Multiply back. and , so both costs per bar match the pack prices. And , so the difference fits too.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 9 of 11
2026 Practice Test D Math, question 46Question
A company charges $3.00 to ship a 4-pound package. The cost includes a base fee of $1.50 plus $0.50 for each pound over the first pound. The table below illustrates how the cost depends on the total weight of the package. Complete the table by matching each total weight to its correct total shipping cost.
Move the correct answer to each box. Not all answers will be used.
SHIPPING COSTS
| Total Weight (pounds) | Total Cost to Ship (dollars) |
|---|---|
| 2 | |
| 2.50 | |
| 6 | |
| 5.50 |
On the test you drag tiles into the boxes; here, choose each box’s tile from its menu. Each tile can be used once. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: 2; blank 2: 3; blank 3: 4; blank 4: 9
| Total Weight (pounds) | Total Cost to Ship (dollars) |
|---|---|
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 2.50 |
| 6 | 4 |
| 9 | 5.50 |
Let x represent the weight of the package in pounds. The first pound is included in the base fee of $1.50, so represents the number of pounds that cost $0.50 each.
The cost equation can be written as
- The cost for a 2-pound package is
- The cost for a 6-pound package is
-
The weight of a package that costs $2.50 to ship can be found by solving
-
The weight of a package that costs $5.50 to ship can be found by solving
To check:
Given that the total cost is $3.00 for the initial package
pounds fits the linear pattern of the table
Question analysis
A shipping company charges a base fee plus 50 cents for each pound over the first, and a 4-pound package costs $3.00. Students drag number tiles into a table to complete two costs and two weights, with some tiles left unused. It tests building and using a linear rule, and the wording about the first pound must be applied in every row.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 content, by NYS standard
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Grade 7 students solve word problems with equations like p(x + q) = r. This table needs that rule four times, twice run backward from a cost to a weight, and the phrase about the first pound must be applied every time.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly apply
- What makes it hard
- Turning words into math moderate
- Many steps minor
- Solution
- 4 steps
- Reading level
- Question and choices: about grade 4, 75 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 rule is stated in words and confirmed by the 4-pound example, so the work is applying it consistently in both directions. Charging every pound breaks the $3.00 example at once, since 4 pounds would cost $3.50, and models that ignore the wording leave costs or weights with no matching tile. A shortcut helps: each extra pound adds $0.50 to the $3.00, so the table can be filled by counting up or down from 4 pounds.
Turning words into math moderate Understanding the question
The phrase “$0.50 for each pound over the first pound” means the first pound is covered by the $1.50 fee, so a package of x pounds pays for only x − 1 of them. (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995; Koedinger & Nathan, 2004)
Many steps minor Working it out
Four boxes must all be right, two found forward from a weight and two backward from a cost, and the backward rows need the first pound added back. (Daniel & Embretson, 2010; Enright, Morley & Sheehan, 2002)
Strategy: Write the rule as the base fee plus $0.50 times the pounds after the first, check it against the 4-pound example, then use it forward for the costs and backward for the weights.
Traps
- Misreads the question: Misses or misreads a condition or a word in the question: "at least", "each", "remaining", "not".
- 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.
- Stops one step early: A choice is a number from partway through the solution.
The wrong answers, classified
BAEH Misreads the question (Hegarty, Mayer & Monk, 1995)
Charges $0.50 for every pound, first included, so 2 pounds cost $2.50 and $2.50 ships 2 pounds; no tile fits its $4.50 or 8, so it settles for 4 and 9.
ACFH Misunderstands the concept (Smith, diSessa & Roschelle, 1993; De Bock et al., 1998; Ni & Zhou, 2005)
Triples the 2-pound cost for the 6-pound package, $2 × 3 = $6, treating the cost as proportional to weight though the base fee is paid only once.
ACBH Stops one step early (King et al., 2004; Gierl et al., 2017)
Charges $0.50 for each of the 5 pounds over the first for the 6-pound package but stops there, leaving out the $1.50 base fee and entering 2.5.
Worked solution, step by step
Formulas used
- Shipping cost
- C is the total cost in dollars, and w is the weight in pounds. The $1.50 base fee is paid once, and it covers the first pound. Each pound after the first costs $0.50. There are w − 1 of those pounds.
Sort out the question
The base fee of $1.50 covers the first pound. Each pound over the first adds $0.50. A 4-pound package costs $3.00.
You fill four boxes: the costs for 2 and 6 pounds, and the weights that cost $2.50 and $5.50. Each tile is used once at most, and four tiles are not used.
Test the rule on 4 pounds
Check the rule with the example. A 4-pound package has 3 pounds over the first:
That is $3.00, so the rule fits.
Watch out: charging $0.50 for every pound, the first one too, gives $3.50 for 4 pounds. That does not match.
Find the two costs
For 2 pounds, 1 pound is over the first:
For 6 pounds, 5 pounds are over the first:
The costs are the tiles 2 and 4.
Watch out: 6 pounds is 3 times 2 pounds, but the cost is not 3 times $2. The base fee is paid once. Tripling gives the tile 6. Leaving out the base fee gives the tile 2.5.
Work back to the two weights
For $2.50, take off the base fee: . At $0.50 a pound, $1.00 pays for 2 extra pounds. Add the first pound: pounds.
For $5.50: . $4.00 pays for 8 extra pounds. Add the first pound: pounds.
Watch out: forgetting to add back the first pound gives 2 and 8.
Fill in the four boxes
From top to bottom, the boxes get 2, 3, 4 and 9. The tiles 2.5, 3.5, 6 and 7 are not used. On the test, you drag each tile into its box. On this site, you choose it from the box’s menu.
Check your answer
Each extra pound adds $0.50, so count from 4 pounds at $3.00. Going down: 3 pounds cost $2.50 and 2 pounds cost $2.00. Going up: 5 pounds $3.50, 6 pounds $4.00, 7 pounds $4.50, 8 pounds $5.00 and 9 pounds $5.50. All four boxes match.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
Question 10 of 11
2025 Practice Test A English, question 16Passage Excerpt from Winter Wheat
Excerpt from Winter Wheat
by Mildred Walker
Ellen, the narrator, is preparing to leave her parents and the family farm for college the next day.
I love Dad’s way of talking that makes him seem different from other ranchers. He’s lived here twenty-three years, but he still says “back East where I come from.” He’s the one who gets excited when I do about spring coming or a serial running in the magazine we’re both reading, but it’s what Mom says that I depend on. When Mom used to say “Don’t worry” about my pet chicken or dog or new calf, it always got well. Dad is always talking of going some place, not now, but next year, maybe. Mom seems to think of nothing farther away than today or perhaps yesterday or tomorrow morning.
Mom folded the ironing board and put it inside their bedroom that was just off the kitchen. She carried in the freshly ironed clothes. Dad went back to his paper. When Mom came back she took beans from the cupboard to soak for tomorrow. Dad always said Mom could make all the dishes he’d had back in Vermont as well as though she were a New Englander herself, instead of a Russian. All of a sudden, I realized that tomorrow when those beans would be ready to eat I’d be going away. It gave me a funny feeling.
“I’ll be taking the train tomorrow night,” I said aloud, more to hear it myself.
“We can drive you into town in the afternoon,” Dad said, dropping his paper on the floor.
“There’s no need to go to town; she can catch the train at Gotham just as well. We haven’t nothing to take us into town for,” Mom said.
“Well, we don’t have to decide tonight,” Dad said, but I knew he wanted to go into Clark City. It wouldn’t be so flat as just seeing me go off on the train from Gotham. My going away was hard on both of them; they were so different—and I was part of them both. It made me uncomfortable to think of leaving them.
While I was getting ready for bed in my room that’s off the front room, I saw how it would be if I left from town. We’d go in right after dinner and go around to the stores, Dad going one way and Mom and I another. Dad would probably have his hair cut at the barbershop and stop in the bank and meet someone he knew to talk to. Then we’d meet at the big store on the corner and go to the cafeteria for supper. The train stops ten minutes or so at the station in town and there are other people and excitement and you have time to wave from the platform and then again from your window by your seat. We went to the station in Clark City to see the Goodals off when they went back to Iowa.
If I left from Gotham, we’d just drive down in the truck and wait till the train came. It only stops long enough for you to get on and you hardly have time to taste the flavor of going away.
I sat on the bed in my pyjamas with my arms around my knees. I couldn’t keep from thinking of that time Dad went back East. I tried to, and then I just sat still and looked straight at it. Sometimes that’s better than working so hard to keep from looking at what’s in your mind.
Dad went all the way back to Vermont. . . . It was in November and it was already dark when the train came through Gotham. Even now, I could feel how cold and dark it was. I held Mom’s hand. Dad was so dressed-up he seemed strange. . . . We stood there without saying anything until Dad told Mom to remember to call Mr. Bardich, our neighbor, if the cow didn’t calve tomorrow.
“I’ll manage,” Mom snapped back.
“I wish you could go, Anna,” Dad said to Mom, “and we could take Ellen.” . . .
“Good-by, Anna Petrovna,” he said, looking at Mom. I had never heard him call her by two names before.
“Good-by,” Mom said, standing still, without smiling.
Then he was gone and the crossroads were darker than ever. The train light shone on the high window in the top of the grain elevator for a moment and then that too was dark. We got into our old Ford and Mom drove back to the house. My throat ached all the way. The name Dad had called Mom kept saying itself in my ears: “Anna Petrovna, Anna Petrovna.” . . .
Our house seemed lonely when we came back to it. It seemed to be hiding under the coulee. I went with Mom to put the truck in the barn that was bigger than the house. I think Mom was prouder of our barn than the house, anyway. We walked back to look at the cow that was going to calve. She was just a big light blob in the dark, waiting. I had thought she was exciting this morning, but now she seemed sad, too.
The wind blew when we walked across the open space to the house and I couldn’t help shivering with the cold. Inside the house it was warm, but empty.
“Bring your nightgown in here and I heat you some milk,” Mom said.
I drank the milk sitting on a stool in front of the stove. It tasted good, but the lonely ache in my throat was still there. I picked up my clothes and hung them neatly behind the stove and put my cup on the sink board. Mom was fixing oatmeal for tomorrow morning.
“Good night, Mom,” I said almost timidly, standing beside her. She seemed wrapped around in a kind of strangeness. Then she turned around and drew me to her. The front of her dress was warm from the stove. I felt the comfortable heat through my gown. She laid her hand against my face and it felt rough and hard but firm. I dared ask her something I wanted to know.
“Mom, was that really your name—what Dad called you?”
Her voice sounded surprised. “Why, Yeléna, you know that; Anna Petrovna. You know I am born in Russia, in Seletskoe.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know your other name,” I said.
“Anna Petrovna Webb.” She pronounced it slowly. “Once I think what a funny name Ben Webb is!” She laughed. Her laugh was warm and low like our kitchen, and comfortable. The house seemed natural and right again. . . .
But now that I am grown, I feel the wall of strangeness between them, more than when I was a child. I wondered how they would get along without me.
From WINTER WHEAT by Mildred Walker, published by University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 1944 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc. Copyright renewed 1971 by Mildred Walker. All rights reserved.
serial: story published in short segments at regular intervals
coulee: small gulch or ravine
Question
Which sentence from the excerpt supports the idea that Ellen understands what her father is really thinking, and which sentence supports the idea that Ellen and her father share similar interests?
Move the correct answer to each box.
Supports the idea that Ellen understands what her father is really thinking
Supports the idea that Ellen and her father share similar interests
On the test you drag tiles into the boxes; here, choose each box’s tile from its menu. Each tile can be used once. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: “Well, we don’t have to decide tonight,” Dad said, but I knew he wanted to go into Clark City.” (paragraph 6); blank 2: “He’s the one who gets excited when I do about spring coming or a serial running in the magazine we’re both reading” (paragraph 1)
The question asks for the identification of one sentence that supports the idea that Ellen understands what her father is really thinking, and one sentence that supports the idea that Ellen and her father share similar interests.
A. Incorrect. (“I love Dad’s way of talking that makes him seem different from other ranchers.” [paragraph 1]) This sentence from paragraph 1 presents a unique quality that Ellen loves about her father, but it does not provide evidence for the idea that Ellen and her father share similar interests or that Ellen understands what her father is really thinking.
B. CORRECT. (“He’s the one who gets excited when I do about spring coming or a serial running in the magazine we’re both reading” [paragraph 1]) This sentence from paragraph 1 shows that Ellen and her father both get excited about the coming of spring and share an enthusiasm for reading magazine serials (stories published in serial installments). Thus, it provides clear evidence for the idea that Ellen and her father share similar interests.
C. CORRECT. (“ ‘Well, we don’t have to decide tonight,’ Dad said, but I knew he wanted to go into Clark City.” [paragraph 6]) This sentence from paragraph 6 provides evidence that Ellen and her father share the same unspoken wish to go to Clark City rather than for Ellen to catch the train at Gotham, as suggested in paragraph 5 by Ellen’s mother. This quotation reveals that Ellen understands the true preference that her father is not expressing aloud, thereby providing evidence for the idea that Ellen understands what her father is really thinking.
D. Incorrect. (“We’d go in right after dinner and go around to the stores, Dad going one way and Mom and I another.” [paragraph 7]) Although this sentence from paragraph 7 indicates that Ellen can predict how her father would behave in a particular scenario, it does not show that Ellen understands what her father is really thinking, nor does it provide evidence for the idea that Ellen and her father share similar interests.
Question analysis
This evidence question on an excerpt from Mildred Walker’s 1944 novel Winter Wheat asks for one quotation showing that Ellen understands what her father is really thinking and another showing that the two share interests. On the test students drag two of four sentence tiles into labeled boxes, so each quotation’s exact wording decides where it belongs, if anywhere.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Matching quotations to ideas about a character is grade 7 evidence work, and the novel’s language is plain. Placing two of four tiles, with credit only when both are right, adds a step, and every tile mentions Ellen’s father.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly evaluate
- What makes it hard
- Much to keep track of moderate
- Reading between the lines minor
- Evidence
- Answered from several paragraphs or stanzas
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 4, 1179 words; question and choices: about grade 9, 61 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- A repeated word in the explanation was corrected.
- 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 box has a tile that matches it closely, so the question is less about finding evidence than about not being drawn by the near misses. Ellen’s detailed picture of the town trip in paragraph 7 shows she knows her father’s habits, which can pass for knowing his mind, and the tiles about shared excitement and a shared wish can each seem to fit the other box. Because credit needs both placements, one doubtful tile costs the whole question.
Much to keep track of moderate Working it out
Two boxes must both be right, and all four tiles mention Dad, so each tile has to be held against two different ideas before the two that fit neither can be set aside. (Sweller, 1988; Carpenter, Just & Shell, 1990)
Reading between the lines minor Working it out
The first box turns on the gap between what Dad says and what Ellen knows: “Dad said, but I knew he wanted” marks a wish he does not speak aloud. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Strategy: Treat the boxes as two separate evidence questions: restate each idea in your own words, then test all four tiles against it before placing one, since two tiles fit neither box.
Traps
- Supports only part of the claim: In a question about evidence: a line that backs one half of the claim but not the other, or a related point rather than the claim itself.
- Reads too much in: A reasonable-sounding conclusion that goes further than the text allows.
The wrong answers, classified
DB Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Puts the town-trip tile in the first box because Ellen can foresee how Dad will spend the afternoon in town, though foreseeing his errands is not knowing an unspoken wish.
BC Supports only part of the claim (King et al., 2004; Thissen, Steinberg & Fitzpatrick, 1989)
Swaps the right tiles, reading Dad’s excitement, which he shows openly, as a hidden thought Ellen grasps, and their one shared wish for Clark City as a shared interest.
CA True but not the answer (King et al., 2004; Embretson & Wetzel, 1987)
Fills the first box correctly but puts Ellen’s love of Dad’s way of talking in the second, though admiring how he speaks is her feeling, not an interest they share.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Explanation: The DOE’s explanation of Option D says the sentence does not “provide evidence for the idea that that Ellen and her father share similar interests,” with “that” printed twice. The site prints it once.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This question has two boxes, and each needs a different idea. Box 1: Ellen knows what Dad is really thinking, even when he doesn’t say it. Box 2: Ellen and Dad like the same things. On the test you drag a tile into each box. On this site you pick each box’s tile from a menu. Two tiles are left over.
Find a hidden thought for box 1
In paragraph 5, Mom says Ellen can catch the train at Gotham, the nearby stop. Then paragraph 6 says “ ‘Well, we don’t have to decide tonight,’ Dad said, but I knew he wanted to go into Clark City.” Dad’s words put off the choice. But Ellen knows his real wish, the trip into town. The word “but” marks the gap between what he says and what she knows.
Find a shared interest for box 2
Paragraph 1 says Dad is “the one who gets excited when I do about spring coming or a serial running in the magazine we’re both reading.” A serial is a story printed in parts, one part in each issue of a magazine. Ellen and Dad look forward to spring together, and they read the same story. Those are shared interests.
Rule out the other two tiles
- “I love Dad’s way of talking that makes him seem different from other ranchers.” (paragraph 1) This is Ellen’s feeling about how Dad talks. It is not a hidden thought, and it is not an interest they share.
- “We’d go in right after dinner and go around to the stores, Dad going one way and Mom and I another.” (paragraph 7) Ellen pictures how a trip to town would go. Knowing Dad’s habits is not knowing his unspoken wish. And here they split up.
Watch out: Don’t swap the two right tiles. Dad shows his excitement openly, so it is not a hidden thought.
Fill in both boxes
- Box 1, Ellen understands what her father is really thinking: “Well, we don’t have to decide tonight,” Dad said, but I knew he wanted to go into Clark City.” (paragraph 6)
- Box 2, Ellen and her father share similar interests: “He’s the one who gets excited when I do about spring coming or a serial running in the magazine we’re both reading” (paragraph 1)
Both boxes must be right to get the point.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
The town-trip tile is the closest wrong choice for box 1. In paragraph 7, Ellen can picture just what Dad would do in town. But that shows she knows his habits. In paragraph 6, Dad says one thing, and Ellen knows he wants another. That is knowing what he is really thinking.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from Winter Wheat” as shown on the test
Question 11 of 11
2025 Practice Test A English, question 24Uses the passage above: “Excerpt from Winter Wheat”.
Question
What is Ellen’s primary mood at key points in the excerpt?
Move the correct answer to each box in the table.
| Paragraphs | Ellen’s Primary Mood |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | |
| 7–8 | |
| 9–10 |
On the test you drag tiles into the boxes; here, choose each box’s tile from its menu. Each tile can be used once. The DOE has not published how answers with several parts are scored; this site counts one right only when every part is right.
Show the answer
Correct answer: blank 1: Affectionate; blank 2: Wishful; blank 3: Worried
The question asks for identification of Ellen’s primary mood in key points in the excerpt—paragraphs 1–2, paragraphs 7–8, and paragraphs 9–10.
B. Affectionate: CORRECT. Ellen’s primary mood in paragraphs 1–2 is affectionate. She states in the first sentence of paragraph 1 that she loves her father’s way of talking and then describes with affection her mother’s reassuring certainty and her father’s appreciation of her mother’s cooking.
E. Wishful: CORRECT. Ellen’s primary mood in paragraphs 7–8 is wishful as she pictures the two departure scenarios available to her. She expresses in detail her longing for the “other people and excitement” at the train station in town, along with her wish to have plenty of “time to wave from the platform and then again from your window by your seat,” and her dislike of the idea of leaving from Gotham, where the train “only stops long enough for you to get on and you hardly have time to taste the flavor of going away.”
C. Worried: CORRECT. Ellen’s primary mood in paragraphs 9–10 is worried. Her worry is suggested by the description of her posture in the first sentence of paragraph 9 (“I sat . . . with my arms around my knees”). In the next sentence, she reveals that she “couldn’t keep from thinking,” or worrying, about her concern that her departure will be as tense as the time her father left for a trip to Vermont.
A. Calm: Incorrect. Ellen’s mood is not primarily calm in any of the paragraphs in the table. In paragraphs 1–2, her reflections might seem to focus on calm times, but any mood of calm is shattered by her sudden realization that she’d “be going away” the next day. Similarly, although paragraph 7 describes what might be a calm or routine day of shopping in town, she is imagining the scene in great detail as a way of making a difficult decision about where she would prefer to catch the train. Finally, in paragraphs 9–10, Ellen is far from calm as she forces herself to look “straight at” an upsetting childhood memory of seeing her father off on a long train trip.
D. Jealous: Incorrect. Ellen’s mood is not primarily jealous in any of the paragraphs in the table. In paragraphs 1–2, she admires and enjoys the positive atmosphere created by her father’s praise of her mother, rather than expressing jealousy. The contrast in paragraphs 7–8 between her narration of the two possible departure plans might seem to suggest that Ellen is jealous of the family whom she and her parents once watched depart from the town, but instead, her narration reflects Ellen’s wishful desire to recreate that pleasurable town visit as part of her own departure. In paragraphs 9–10, her flashback memory is focused on the stiffness of her parents’ behavior and includes no indications that she feels jealousy of either parent.
Question analysis
This question on the Winter Wheat excerpt asks students to identify Ellen’s primary mood at three points in the story: paragraphs 1–2, 7–8 and 9–10. On the test students drag mood words from five tiles into a table, and each stretch of the story mixes more than one feeling, so they must judge which feeling dominates each one.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Tracking how a narrator’s feelings change across a story is grade 7 work, and the writing is plain. Placing three tiles with all-or-nothing credit, where each stretch holds mixed feelings, raises the demand only somewhat.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly understand
- What makes it hard
- Reading between the lines moderate
- Much to keep track of moderate
- Evidence
- Answered from several paragraphs or stanzas
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 4, 1179 words; question and choices: about grade 6, 24 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- The punctuation of an ellipsis in a quotation was corrected.
- 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 stretch of the story holds more than one feeling, so the word “primary” does the work. The quiet evening of paragraphs 1–2 and Ellen sitting still in paragraph 9 both invite Calm, though the first is full of her fondness for her parents and the second shows her forcing herself to face a painful memory. With three placements that must all be right, a student who settles for the setting’s mood in either row loses the question.
Reading between the lines moderate Working it out
No mood is named: affection must be read from “I love Dad’s way of talking,” wishfulness from Ellen picturing waving from the platform, and worry from her arms around her knees. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Much to keep track of moderate Working it out
Three rows, five tiles that cannot be reused, and credit only when all three are right: each stretch must be judged on its own while the two leftover moods are kept out. (Sweller, 1988; Carpenter, Just & Shell, 1990)
Strategy: Reread each stretch of paragraphs by itself and name Ellen’s main feeling in your own words before looking at the tiles, then place the closest tile; two tiles will be left over.
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.
The wrong answers, classified
BEA Wrong tone or attitude (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Reads Ellen sitting still and looking “straight at” the memory in paragraph 9 as calm, though she has just failed to stop thinking of Dad’s leaving and is bracing to face it.
AEC Wrong tone or attitude (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Puts Calm in the first row because paragraphs 1–2 show a quiet evening of ironing and reading, taking the scene’s mood for Ellen’s, which is warm affection for both parents.
BDC Wrong tone or attitude (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Puts Jealous in the middle row, reading envy into Ellen’s memory of seeing another family off from the town station, when she is only wishing for a send-off like theirs.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Explanation: The DOE’s explanation of “Worried” quotes the first sentence of paragraph 9 as “I sat. . . with my arms around my knees,” with the first dot set against “sat,” as if a sentence ended there. The words are left out from the middle of the sentence, so the site spaces the ellipsis as the DOE’s explanations do elsewhere: “I sat . . . with my arms around my knees.”
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This table asks for Ellen’s primary mood, her main feeling, in three parts of the story. Each part may hold more than one feeling, so pick the strongest. On the test you drag a tile into each box. On this site you pick from a menu in each row. Each tile is used once, so two are left over.
Read paragraphs 1–2
Ellen begins by saying she loves the way Dad talks. She likes that he gets excited about the same things she does. She admires how sure Mom is that things will turn out well. She tells how Dad praises Mom’s cooking. These details are warm and loving. Affectionate means showing love and fondness. So the mood is Affectionate.
Read paragraphs 7–8
Ellen pictures leaving from Clark City. The family would shop and eat supper in town. At the station there would be “other people and excitement.” She would have “time to wave from the platform and then again from your window by your seat.” At Gotham, the train “only stops long enough for you to get on.” She longs for the big send-off. So the mood is Wishful.
Read paragraphs 9–10
Paragraph 9 begins “I sat . . . with my arms around my knees.” People often curl up like that when they feel uneasy. Ellen “couldn’t keep from thinking” of the night Dad left on a trip. That parting was sad and tense. She fears her own leaving may be like it. So the mood is Worried.
Rule out the two extra tiles
- Calm does not fit any row. In paragraph 9, Ellen sits still. But she is bracing herself to face a painful memory, not resting. And the quiet evening of paragraphs 1–2 is full of warm feeling for her parents.
- Jealous does not fit any row. Ellen remembers seeing another family off at the town station. She wants a send-off like theirs, but she doesn’t resent them.
Watch out: Sitting still is not the same as feeling calm.
Fill in the table
- Paragraphs 1–2: Affectionate
- Paragraphs 7–8: Wishful
- Paragraphs 9–10: Worried
All three rows must be right to get the point.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
Calm is the closest wrong tile, for paragraphs 9–10. Ellen sits still, and that can look calm. But she has just tried and failed to stop thinking about Dad’s leaving. Her arms are wrapped around her knees. She is facing a memory that upsets her, so Worried fits better.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
