Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System Practice Test English Language Arts Reading Comprehension GRADE 4 Student Name School Name District Name [Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System [MCAS] Logo] This is a practice test. Your responses to practice test questions must be recorded on your Practice Test Answer Document. Mark only one answer for each multiple-choice question. If you are not sure of the answer, choose the answer you think is best. HOW TO ANSWER OPEN-RESPONSE QUESTIONS * READ the question carefully. * PLAN your answer. * FIND details from the selection to support your answer. Reading Comprehension DIRECTIONS This practice test contains one reading selection with two multiple-choice questions and one open-response question. Mark your answers to these questions in the spaces provided on page 6 of your Practice Test Answer Document. Earl Weber lived on a small farm during the Great Depression, a time when many people in the United States did not have jobs or much money. Read how the Weber family lived through these hard times. Answer the questions that follow. [Photograph of author and his family. Caption reads:] Our family poses in front of the barn after returning from church. My brother and sister stand on a barrel, which will become the support for a seesaw later in the morning. [Photograph of author and his brother as children. Caption reads:] My younger brother (right) and I model nightgowns that Momma made from feed sacks. Waste Not, Want Not By Earl M. Weber 1 When I was growing up in the 1930s, the period of the Great Depression, I didn’t think of our family as poor, even though we never seemed to have money. I lived on a small farm in Pennsylvania with my parents, two older sisters, and younger brother. We had an old horse, a cow, a few pigs, a flock of chickens, and a big garden. Food was not a problem. We had our own supply of milk, meat, eggs, fresh vegetables, and Momma’s homemade bread. But money was scarce. 2 On Sunday mornings, Momma would give each of us two pennies for our Sunday School offerings. Carefully knotting my two cents in the corner of a handkerchief, she would hand it to me and caution me to "be careful not to lose it." Today, two pennies won’t buy much of anything, but in the 1930s every penny was important. 3 As a boy of nine, I had only a vague idea of what it meant to live during hard times. The weekly newspaper would carry pictures of people standing in line for bread, and the evening newscast on our tabletop Crosley radio would tell about the huge number of jobless people and their hardships. But these reports referred to people in the cities, and we lived in the country. We never went to bed hungry, and we didn’t stand in line for bread. 4 Although my father was fortunate to have a job at the feed mill, his salary of eighteen dollars a week was barely enough to pay the farm mortgage and the electric bill, and to buy necessities like the flour and yeast Momma needed to bake her bread. 5 Momma earned a few dollars baking pies and bread, which she sold at the local market. Twenty cents for a pie and ten cents for a loaf of bread! Sometimes I helped at the market, and if we had a good day, Momma would give me a nickel for an ice-cream cone. 6 Momma used the market money to buy clothing for the family. With four children and two adults to clothe, she seldom bought anything new. One day when I walked to the mailbox at the end of our lane, I was excited to see a package from Sears, Roebuck and Company. That usually meant new clothing for one of us. As it turned out, I was the lucky one this time, with a brand-new pair of brown tweed knee- length knickers. Although we always went to school looking neat and clean, most of our clothing was patched, darned*, or mended. So to me, a new pair of knickers was very special. 7 Christmas was special, too, because then we got new socks, and for a little while we wouldn’t have to wear socks darned in the toes and heels. 8 Momma made some of our clothing, using a treadle (foot-powered) sewing machine. To make nightgowns, she used the muslin sacks that our chicken feed came in. I wore a nightgown with "PRATT’S CHICKEN FEED" printed in big black letters on the front. (It wasn’t until years later when my high-school class went on an overnight trip that I got my first store-bought pajamas.) Some companies actually put their feed in sacks made of colorfully patterned calico. Momma liked this material for making aprons and dresses. 9 When a piece of clothing was worn out, it wasn’t thrown away. First, all the buttons were removed, sorted by size and color, and put in cans or glass jars. Then the clothing was examined, and the best parts were cut into strips and saved for making rugs. [Photograph of author with his younger brother and older sisters, caption reads:] The four of us dressed up for Sunday School on a spring morning. We had to wear garters, which were a nuisance, to hold up our long stockings. 10 Almost nothing in our house was thrown away. Store parcels were generally tied with string. We saved this string by winding it on a ball. One of my jobs was to wash and flatten used tin cans. We nailed these pieces of tin over holes in the barn roof to stop the leaks and over holes in the corncrib to stop the mice and rats from eating the corn. 11 A wooden crate was considered a real prize. We would take it apart for future projects, being careful not to split the boards. We even straightened the bent nails and stored them in a tin can. 12 Although we tend to think of recycling as something fairly new, in the 1930s it was part of everyday life. "Waste not, want not" was a familiar and often repeated phrase during those Depression years. Yesterday and Today In the 1930s, a chocolate bar cost five cents. A single-dip ice-cream cone was also five cents. If that sounds good, consider that children living in the country, if they were lucky enough to have a job, earned only ten cents an hour for farm labor. Kids today pay around a dollar for an ice-cream cone and about the same for a chocolate bar. But some can earn five dollars an hour baby-sitting or mowing lawns. * darned - repaired with thread or yarn Copyright 2001 by Highlights for Children, Inc., Columbus, Ohio. 1 According to the article, why did many people who lived in the country have enough food during the Great Depression? A. They waited in long bread lines for hours to get food. B. They could buy the food they needed at the feed mill. C. They had plenty of money to buy food at the market. D. They could grow many kinds of food on their farms. 2 In paragraph 10, what does the author most likely mean when he says, "Almost nothing in our house was thrown away"? A. The family used very little. B. The family sold things they made. C. The family ate everything they grew. D. The family reused almost everything. Question 3 is an open-response question. * Read the question carefully. * Explain your answer. * Add supporting details. * Double-check your work. Write your answer to question 3 in the space provided on page 6 of your Practice Test Answer Document. 3 Based on the article, describe four ways the author’s family benefited from reusing items. Use important and specific information from the article to support your answer. MASSACHUSETTS COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM Grade 4 English Language Arts Practice Test Answer Document School Name: District Name: Last Name of Student: First Name of Student: Marking Instructions * Use a No. 2 pencil only. * Do not use ink, ballpoint, or felt tip pens. * Make solid marks that fill the circles completely. * Erase cleanly any marks you wish to change. * Make no stray marks on this form. * Do not fold, tear, or mutilate this form. READING COMPREHENSION 1. A B C D 2. A B C D 3. NO TEST MATERIAL ON THIS PAGE NO TEST MATERIAL ON THIS PAGE NO TEST MATERIAL ON THIS PAGE