Grade 6 Language Art

8/3/2019 Grade 6 Language Art

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V. English Language Arts,Reading Comprehension, Grade 6


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Grade 6 English Language Arts

Reading Comprehension TestThe spring 2010 grade 6 MCAS English Language Arts Reading Comprehension test was based on

learning standards in the two content strands o the Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum

Framework (2001) listed below. Page numbers or the learning standards appear in parentheses.

Language (Framework, pages 1926)

Reading and Literature (Framework, pages 3564)

The English Language Arts Curriculum Framework is available on the Department website at

www.doe.mass.edu/rameworks/current.html.

In test item analysis reports and on the Subject Area Subscore pages o the MCAS School Reports and

District Reports, ELA Reading Comprehension test results are reported under two MCAS reporting

categories: Language and Reading and Literature, which are identical to the two ramework contentstrands listed above.

Test Sessions and Content Overview

The MCAS grade 6 ELA Reading Comprehension test included two separate test sessions. Each session

included reading passages, ollowed by multiple-choice and open-response questions. Selected common

reading passages and approximately hal o the common test items are shown on the ollowing pages as

they appeared in test booklets.

Reference Materials and Tools

The use o bilingual word-to-word dictionaries was allowed or current and ormer limited English

profcient students only, during both ELA Reading Comprehension test sessions. No other reerence

materials were allowed during any ELA Reading Comprehension test session.

Cross-Reference Information

The tables at the conclusion o this chapter indicate each released and unreleased common items reporting

category and the ramework general standard it assesses. The correct answers or released multiple-choice

questions are also displayed in the released item table.


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English Language ArtsReading CompRehension: session 1

DIRECTIONS

This session contains one reading selection with five multiple-choice questions and one open-response

question. Mark your answers to these questions in the spaces provided in your Student Answer

Booklet.

In this folktale from Tuscany, a region of Italy, a shepherd tries to stay a step ahead of March weather.

Read the folktale and then answer the questions that follow.

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ne morning at the very beginning o spring, a shepherd led his sheep to graze,

and on the way he met March.

Good morning, said March. Where are you going to take your sheep to graze

today?

Well, March, today I am going to the mountains.

Fine, Shepherd. Thats a good idea. Good luck. But to himsel March said,

Heres where I have some un, or today Im going to x you.

And that day in the mountains the rain came down in buckets. It was a veritable

deluge. The shepherd, however, had watched Marchs ace very careully and noticeda mischievous look on it. So instead o going to the mountains, he had remained in

the plains. In the evening, upon returning home, he met March again.

Well, Shepherd, how did it go today?

It couldnt have been better. I changed my mind and went to the plains. A very

beautiul day. Such a lovely warm sun.

Really? Im glad to hear it, said March, but he bit his lip in vexation. Where

are you going tomorrow?

Tomorrow Im going to the plains, too. With this ne weather, I would be crazy

i I went to the mountains.

Oh, really? Fine! Farewell.

And they parted.

But the shepherd didnt go to the plains again. He went to the mountains. And

on the plains March brought rain and wind and haila punishment indeed rom

heaven. In the evening he met the shepherd homeward bound.

Good evening, Shepherd. How did it go today?

Very well indeed. Do you know? I changed my mind again and went to the

mountains ater all. It was heavenly there. What a day! What a sky! What a sun!

Im really happy to hear it, Shepherd. And where are you going tomorrow?

Marchand the

ShepherdRetold by Domenico Vittorini


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Reading Comprehension Session 1

March and the Shepherd retold by Domenico Vittorini, rom The Thread of Life: Twelve Old Italian Tales. Copyright 1958 by

Domenico Vittorini. Reprinted by permission o Carlo Vittorini.

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28

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Well, tomorrow Im going to the plains. I see dark clouds over the mountains.

I wouldnt want to nd mysel too ar rom home.

To make a long story short, whenever the shepherd met March, he always told

him the opposite o what he planned to do the next day, so March was never able

to catch him. The end o the month came, and on the last day, the thirtieth, March

said to the shepherd, Well, Shepherd, how is everything?

Things couldnt be any better. This is the end o the month and Im out o

danger. Theres nothing to ear now. I can begin to sleep peaceully.

Thats true, said March. And where are you going tomorrow?

The shepherd, certain that he had nothing to ear, told March the truth. Tomorrow,

he said, I shall go to the plains. The distance is shorter and the work less hard.

Fine. Farewell.

March hastened to the home o his cousin April and told her the whole story.

I want you to lend me at least one day, he said. I am determined to catch this

shepherd. Gentle April was unwilling but March coaxed so hard that nally she

consented.The ollowing morning the shepherd set o or the plains. No sooner had his

fock scattered than there arose a storm that chilled his very heart. The sharp wind

howled and growled, snow ell in thick, icy fakes, hail pelted down. It was all the

shepherd could do to get his sheep back into the old.

That evening as the shepherd huddled in a corner o his hearth, silent and

melancholy, March paid him a visit.

Good evening, Shepherd, he said.

Good evening, March.

How did it go today?

Id rather not talk about it, said the shepherd. I cant understand what happened.

Not even in the middle o January have I ever seen a storm like the one on the plainstoday. It seemed as i all the devils had broken loose rom hell. Today I had enough

rough weather to last me the whole year. And oh, my poor sheep!

Then at last was March satised.

And rom that time on March has had thirty-one days because, as it is said in

Tuscany, the rascal never returned to April the day he borrowed rom her.


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ID:271523 A Common

1 Which o the ollowing phrasesrom paragraph 5 is an example o

gurative language?

A. came down in buckets

B. going to the mountains

C. remained in the plains

D. upon returning home

ID:271525 B Common

2 Based on paragraph 8, what is trueabout March?

A. He wants to visit the mountains.

B. He does not mean what he says.

C. He wants the shepherd to be happy.

D. He does not think the shepherd

should leave.

ID:271530 C Common

3 Based on paragraphs 17 and 18, whatdoes the shepherd believe?

A. that March is sorry or his

earlier actions

B. that he can continue to ool

March orever

C. that March has run out o time to

bother him

D. that he can convince March to leave

him alone

ID:271529 D Common

4 Based on the olktale, which o theshepherds statements most likely

makes March the happiest?

A. I changed my mind again . . .

(paragraph 14)B. Things couldnt be any better.

(paragraph 18)

C. This is the end o the month . . .

(paragraph 18)

D. Id rather not talk about it,

(paragraph 28)

ID:271537 C Common

5 Read the sentence rom paragraph 23 inthe box below.

It was all the shepherd could do to get

his sheep back into the old.

The word fold is used as which part o

speech in the sentence?

A. preposition

B. adjective

C. noun

D. verb


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Question 6 is an open-response question.

Readthequestioncarefully.

Explainyouranswer.

Addsupportingdetails.

Double-checkyourwork.

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

ID:271539 Common

6 Based on the olktale, explain how March and the shepherd can both be considered tricksters.Support your answer with important details rom the olktale.


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English Language ArtsReading CompRehension: session 2

DIRECTIONS

This session contains one reading selection with ten multiple-choice questions and one open-response

question. Mark your answers to these questions in the spaces provided in your Student Answer

Booklet.

Dorothea Lange once said, A camera is an instrument that teaches peoplehow to see without a camera. She was committed to helping people introuble. By photographing them, she hoped to awaken and inspire the moreortunate to help, too. That is why her pictures are called documentary, aword that comes rom the Latin root docere, meaning to teach.

Dorothea became passionate about helping people during the GreatDepression, when one out o our Americans lost a job. She had a portraitbusiness in San Francisco then, but outside her window she saw unemployedmen lined up or ree ood. She thought these men were tremendously braveas they endured circumstances they could not control. She had to capture theireelings.

. . .

From 1932 to 1934, Dorothea photographed many o the millions aectedby Americas poor economic conditions. During that time, people with jobssuered because wages were low and hours long. Some protested, and insupport, Dorothea photographed their demonstrations. When Franklin D.Roosevelt was elected president in 1933, he began programs to help protectAmericans and to create jobs or the unemployed.

A year later, Dorothea exhibited her photographs publicly or the rsttime. Her show surprised people. They were not used to seeing photographs

o social problems that provoked such strong emotions. Dorothea chose justthe right person or people and setting to refect the pain o many Americans.One person who loved her work was an economics proessor named Paul

Taylor. Paul was doing research or President Roosevelts Works ProgressAdministration (or WPA). He was trying to help poor Americans in ruralareas by talking to them about their lives and then sending reports to thegovernment. When he saw Dorotheas photographs, he knew his reports

Dorothea Lange was a photographer who worked during the Depression in the 1930s, when there was

much poverty and hardship in the United States. Read the selection about Dorothea Lange and answer the

questions that follow.

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2

3

4

5

Dorothea Lange1895 1965

by Leslie Sills


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would be more eective i her work accompanied them. Dorothea likedhis idea. She was hired by the government as a typist, the only job slotavailable, and went with Paul on his eld trips.

In 1934 and 1935, thousands o armers rom Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas,New Mexico, and Arkansas let their arms because a terrible drought hadkilled their crops. The soil was so dry and the wind so erce that the areabecame known as the Dust Bowl. These armers migrated to Caliornia,hoping to nd better conditions, but there were ar too many workers or thenumber o available jobs. As the Depression continued, the arms that weresuccessul used machinestractors and harvestersinstead o workers.

Dorothea and Paulworked tirelessly, speakingto the migrants and takingpictures. The conditionswere shocking. As Untitled

(Migrant Housing,Caliornia, c. 1936) shows,the migrants homeswere made o whateverthey could nd: canvas,cardboard, twigs, andeven grasses wovenbetween poles. In onereport, Dorothea and Paulwrote, Words cannotdescribe some o the

conditions we saw.When the government ocials received the reports along with Dorotheas

photographs, they understood the suering. President Roosevelt respondedquickly. He set up camps with tents and trailers and provided ood and cleansanitary acilities. Dorotheas photographs were among the rst in America tolead to government action.

Migrant Mother, 1936, perhaps Dorotheas most amous photograph, wastaken during this time. Dorothea had been photographing or weeks and wasanxiously driving home alone in a rainstorm. She passed a sign that said PeaPickers Camp but was too weary to stop. Twenty miles down the road, she

elt she must return. She turned around and drove right in like a homingpigeon, she recalled. There she ound a rain-soaked woman trying to shelterher children. Along with twenty-ve hundred men, women, and children inthe camp, this amily was trying to survive by eating common birds killed bythe children and peas that had rozen on the vine. The amily could not leavebecause the mother had had to sell their car tires to buy ood.

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Untitled (Migrant Housing, Caliornia, c. 1936)


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Dorothea Lange (18951965) by Leslie Sills, romIn Real Life: Six Women Photographers. Copyright 2000 by Leslie Sills. Reprinted

by permission o Holiday House, Inc. Photograph o migrant housing by Dorothea Lange. Copyright the Dorothea Lange Collection, the

Oakland Museum o Caliornia. Git o Paul S. Taylor. Migrant Mother in the public domain.

Dorothea spent ten minutestaking photographs. She took sixpictures, talking very little. Shelearned only that the migrantmother was thirty-two years oldand that the ather o her sevenchildren was a native o Caliornia.Because Dorothea was unsteadyon her eet but used a large, heavycamera, each photograph had to be planned quickly. Her rst twophotographs were taken rom adistance and included a teenagedaughter. With each ollowingphotograph, Dorothea moved in

closer. While all the photos clearlyportray the pain o this amilyslie, the last photograph, knownas Migrant Mother, is the mostpowerul. Here the mother is theocus. She looks to the side with her hand held to her mouth as i she is ina state o despair. The children at her sides have turned their heads and areleaning on their mother as i or comort. Perhaps Dorothea suggested this toavoid including the childrens expressions, which she may have eared mightcompete with their mothers worried look. The baby sleeping on her motherslap is dirty, urther emphasizing their horrible conditions. This composition

became a symbol or all suering amilies o the Depression.Dorothea drove straight home and rushed to develop and print the

lm. She quickly sent copies not only to the government but also to a SanFrancisco newspaper, which distributed them along with a story about thepea pickers to other newspapers. The alarmed United States governmenthurriedly sent the migrants twenty thousand pounds o ood. Migrant Motherkept many people rom starving.

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Migrant Mother, 1936


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ID:257288 B Common

7 What is the most likely reason theauthor begins the selection with a

quotation rom Dorothea Lange?

A. to provide inormation about

photographyB. to introduce Dorothea Langes views

about photography

C. to explain what other photographers

were doing at the time

D. to compare Dorothea Langes early

photographs to her later photographs

ID:257294 A Common


Dorothea chose just the right person or

people and setting to relect the pain

o many Americans.

What does the sentence suggest about

Dorothea Lange?

A. She wanted her photographs tocommunicate a message.

B. She wanted the public to become

amiliar with photography.

C. She elt it was important to create

beauty with her photography.

D. She believed children were the best

subjects or her photographs.

ID:257298 A Common

9 Based on paragraph 5, what was themost likely reason Paul Taylor wanted

to include Dorothea Langes photographs

in his reports?

A. The photographs showed what hiswords described.

B. The photographs helped to get his

reports published.

C. The photographs allowed him to

travel to new places.

D. The photographs allowed him to

write shorter reports.

ID:257301 B Common

10 Based on paragraph 7, why were themigrants homes made o canvas, twigs,

and other unusual materials?

A. The migrants did not need

sturdy homes.

B. The migrants could not aord

better homes.

C. The migrants needed lightweight

homes because they moved oten.

D. The migrants hoped their interesting

homes would attract attention.


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ID:257304 A Common

11 According to paragraph 8, what eectdid Dorothea Langes photographs have

on President Roosevelt?

A. He began to send aid to migrant

workers.B. He encouraged armers to move to

the cities.

C. He asked armers to reduce the size

o their arms.

D. He wrote letters asking or more

support or migrant workers.

ID:287621 C Common

12 What does paragraph 9 suggestabout Dorothea Langes photograph

Migrant Mother?

A. Dorothea originally planned to

photograph another subject.

B. Dorothea hoped the photograph

would win an award.

C. Dorothea almost did not take

the photograph.

D. Dorothea elt it was not her

best photograph.

ID:257308 D Common

13 Based on the selection, what is themost likely reason Dorothea Lange

did not include the childrens aces in

Migrant Mother?

A. Dorothea Lange wanted to show howshy the children were.

B. Dorothea Lange wanted to

photograph the children individually.

C. Dorothea Lange wanted to express

the mothers love or her amily.

D. Dorothea Lange wanted to highlight

the mothers eelings about her lie.

ID:257309 C Common

14 Read the sentences rom paragraph 1 inthe box below.

She was committed to helping

people in trouble. . . . That is why her

pictures are called documentary, a

word that comes rom the Latin root

docere, meaning to teach.

Based on the sentences, why are

Dorothea Langes photographs

called documentary?

A. because they were printed on paper

B. because they were exhibited in public

C. because they showed the conditions

o real lie

D. because they looked like other

portraits o the time


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Question 17 is an open-response question.

Readthequestioncarefully.

Explainyouranswer.

Addsupportingdetails.

Double-checkyourwork.

Write your answer to question 17 in the space provided in your Student Answer Booklet.

ID:257311 D Common


As the Depression continued, the

arms that were successul usedmachinestractors and harvesters

instead o workers.

Why are the dashes () used in the

sentence?

A. to indicate an opinion

B. to show a change in topic

C. to take the place o periods

D. to set o additional inormation

ID:287622 D Common


While all the photos clearly portray

the pain o this amilys lie, thelast photograph, known asMigrant

Mother, is the most powerul.

In the sentence, what does the word

portraymost likely mean?

A. increase

B. prevent

C. change

D. show

ID:257314 Common

17 Based on the selection, explain why Dorothea Lange became a amous photographer. Supportyour answer with important details rom the selection.


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Reading Comprehension

Spring 2010 Released Items:

Reporting Categories, Standards, and Correct Answers*

Item No. Page No. Reporting Category StandardCorrect Answer

(MC)*

1 55 Reading and Literature 15 A

2 55 Reading and Literature 16 B

3 55 Reading and Literature 16 C

4 55 Reading and Literature 16 D

5 55 Language 5 C

6 56 Reading and Literature 16






12 61 Reading and Literature 13 C

13 61 Reading and Literature 13 D

14 61 Language 4 C

15 62 Language 5 D

16 62 Language 4 D

17 62 Reading and Literature 13

* Answers are provided here or multiple-choice items only. Sample responses and scoring guidelines or open-response items, which are

indicated by shaded cells, will be posted to the Departments website later this year.


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Reading Comprehension

Spring 2010 Unreleased Common Items:

Reporting Categories and Standards

Item No. Reporting Category Standard

18 Reading and Literature 13





23 Language 4











34 Language 5





39 Language 4

40 Language 5

Documents

Grade 6 Language Art