WEEK 2
Grade 3:
Read the following paragraphs and then answer both parts of the question below.
Richard finally found his voice. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Aric. Commander of the Interspace Brigade. Our goal: to wipe out cosmic troublemakers. Our record:
ninety-eight percent success.”
“You’re an alien?” squeaked Richard. All those books he’d read about kids meeting aliens. And now it
looked like it was happening to him. Him! Richard Bickerstaff!
“I am a Ganoobian,” said Aric. “You are the alien.”
I’ve got to be dreaming, thought Richard. He sometimes had very exciting dreams about space travel
and large but friendly creatures from other planets who made him their leader.
Which word best describes Aric, the alien?
A.
B.
C.
D.
Joyful
Confident
Silly
Scared
Which sentence from the box above best supports your answer?
A.
B.
C.
D.
“Our record: ninety-eight percent success.”
“You’re an alien?”
“And now it looked like it was happening to him.”
“I’ve got to be dreaming, thought Richard.”
Grade 4:
3. Read the following paragraphs and then answer both parts of the question below.
About 150 years ago, many young boys and men—and some women—lived a rough, hard life as
cowboys in the western United States. Every day they rode bucking broncos, herded cattle, sheep, or
goats, roped calves, and took care of, or “doctored,” sick animals.
Many people think this type of life died out years ago. It’s true that big cities have grown up in the West.
Cars and trucks have replaced horses for transportation. Modern medicines have eliminated many
livestock diseases.
Based on the paragraph in the box above, the word “livestock” probably means
A.
B.
C.
D.
farmers
cowboys
farm animals
people living in cities
Which of the following groups of words best supports your answer?
A.
B.
C.
D.
“cattle,” “sheep,” “goats”
“Cars,” “trucks,” “transportation”
“cities,” “grown,” “West”
“people,” “life,” “years”
Grade 5:
Read the following sentences and then answer both parts of the question below.
Tyler’s twin brother, Dylan, came up behind him. “Let me guess. Rabbits?”
Tyler nodded. “They’re eating everything. How will I get my gardening badge?”
“I told you gardening was too hard.”
“At least I’ll have no trouble writing my list of garden pests.” Tyler snapped a few more pictures of what
was left of the plants. “I thought it would be cool to eat the veggies I grew when we go camping next
month.”
Dylan examined the half-chewed broccoli and grinned. “I’d rather eat s’mores.”
“I’m not giving up,” Tyler said.
“Maybe you should take a break. Let’s go for a bike ride.”
Tyler took out his bike. “While we ride, I’ll think of ways to keep the rabbits away.”
Dylan laughed. “Good luck.”
How does Dylan feel about gardening in the lines quoted above? In a sentence, write your answer in the
box below.
How does Tyler feel about gardening in the lines quoted above? In a sentence, write your answer in the
box below.
GRADE 9
1. Read the following excerpt and then answer both parts of the question below.
It would take about twenty minutes to reach Grice Bay. Once you knew gray whales returned
to the same areas each year, Darling says, “the questions were how many and how often and
why. We’re still dealing with those questions.” For years he’d presumed, along with everyone
else, that grays were strictly bottom-feeders. Darling recalls surveying in Ahous Bay on a hot
midsummer day. Inside breaking waves of maybe two or three feet, he saw a trio of whales
lying on their sides, with most of their girth and one pectoral fin out of the water. They were,
he later wrote, “wiggling back and forth with the waves breaking along their sides as if they
were jetties.” Fearing they were stranded, he was about to put on his wet suit “when, with a
couple of casual snakelike slithers, they backed out of the shallows, moved along the beach a
short distance and made their way back into the breakers to repeat the activity.” The whales
were feeding in the sand on the intertidal zone, in water about five feet deep.
In the excerpt above, why did Darling most likely assume that the whales in Ahous Bay were stranded?
A.
B.
C.
D.
The whales looked like they were having trouble breathing.
Most whales do not lie on their sides in shallow water.
Whales come to shallow water when they are ill.
Whales only wiggle around when they are stranded.
Which phrase from the excerpt provides evidence that Darling and others were misinformed about the
whales?
A. “We’re still dealing with those questions.”
B. “he saw a trio of whales lying on their sides, with most of their girth and one pectoral fin out of
the water.”
C. “Fearing they were stranded, he was about to put on his wet suit”
D. “The whales were feeding in the sand on the intertidal zone, in water about five feet deep. “
GRADE 10
Answer both parts of the question below.
Computer. Before World War II, few people outside the scientific world ever used the word. There were
computers in use at the time—slow mechanical models that were really overgrown adding machines,
plus a few electronic computers, each designed to do one thing and one thing only, such as break secret
codes. But there was no general-purpose electronic computing machine.
The army needed one. The war was inspiring rapid advances in weapons technology. But in order to
calculate the firing range of new artillery and bombs, clerks had to do hours and hours of tedious
calculation by hand. The army was desperate for fast computations so that they could use their new
weapons on the battlefield.
So the War Department sponsored a team of scientists and engineers at the University of Pennsylvania
who had proposed a machine that could do just that. The team, headed by John Mauchly and J. Presper
Eckert, was working on a new kind of electronic computing device . . . the Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer. They called it ENIAC for short. If it worked, it would be able to provide
ballistics information to the army in minutes, information that had previously taken days or weeks to
produce. But the key thing was that it wasn’t limited to ballistics information —it would be able to do
any complex numerical calculations it was programmed to do.
ENIAC was enormous. With thirty separate processing units, plus power supplies and cooling systems,
the computer weighed over thirty tons and occupied an entire building. It was a monster of snaking
wires, blinking neon lights, and humming fans. Because of its wartime mission, the design and
construction of ENIAC was surrounded by a deep shadow of secrecy. Like Houdini, the team performed
its magic out of sight of any audience.
Army scientists and personnel were trained to wire and maintain the machine. But in spite of the
urgency, ENIAC was not completed before the end of the war. The army was already convinced that
they wanted to go ahead with it, however. They could see how much they would need high-speed
computing in the future.
So now the war was over, and American know-how and can-do spirit had conquered the forces of
tyranny and aggression from sea to shining sea. The prevailing spirit was: There’s nothing we can’t
accomplish! An electronic brain? Sure! Let’s have one of those! Anything’s possible! ENIAC was prepared
for its first public demonstration on Valentine’s Day, 1946.
As the team readied the machine, Eckert had the idea to cover ENIAC’s bare blinking lights with PingPong balls cut in half. The translucent spheres gave ENIAC the glowing, flashing appearance that people
would associate with the word “computer” for decades to come. When the machine was presented to
the press and run through its demonstration, reporters were amazed.
“The War Department tonight unveiled the world’s fastest calculating machine and said the robot
possibly opened the mathematical way to better living for every man,” ran the Associated Press’s story.
That reporter could have left out the “possibly.” The electronic digital age had begun.
In the fourth paragraph, the author states that “Like Houdini, the team performed its magic out of sight
of any audience.” How was the work of creating ENIAC like that of a magician?
Write your answer in the box below.
Underline two sentences in the passage above that best support your answer.