Name: Class: _ Date: _ NeSA Reading Practice Test 1 Multiple Choice Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question. Directions Looking through old photographs can be fun and interesting. Read this selection about a boy looking at old photographs. Then answer the questions that follow. Old Photographs 1 I never met my great-grandfather, but ever since I found a box of photo postcards he left behind, I have been curious about him. 2 These postcards aren t the colorful ones you find in tourist shops. They are a kind of brown color, and they are real photographs created in postcard size. Because my great-grandfather was a photographer, I m sure he made some of them himself. They must have meant a lot to him too, since he kept them in an album the size of a big book. The album has a gold clasp and a velvet cover. 1
Name: 3 These pictures are from his childhood. There is one set of pictures from the state fair. One postcard shows my great-grandfather and his prize-winning calf. Another shows his oldest sister sitting on a pony. Another picture shows my great-grandfather and his sisters getting onto a Ferris wheel. In every postcard they are smiling. Going to the fair must have been a lot of fun. I live in a city, and I don t even know where my state s fair is held! 4 There are other pictures of my great-grandfather swimming in a pond with his friends. He is swinging out over the water on a rope in one of the postcards and dumping water on someone s head in another. There are a lot of funny postcards like that. 5 The best pictures are the ones where my great-grandfather and his family are on a trip. In one picture, taken in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., my great-grandfather is wearing a strange white jacket and pants that stop just below his knees. He has on long white socks, white shoes, and a funny little white cap. His mother is wearing a hat with a feather as big as my cat. His father has a cane, a flower pinned to his jacket, a straw hat, and a huge moustache. 6 In the photographs taken on my family s trips, we ve never dressed up. We re always wearing shorts and T-shirts. Sometimes we look like we are having fun, but other times we look hot and tired. Travel must have been more fun for my great-grandfather. 7 Anyway, I like seeing all these pictures of him. Why? Because once you forget about the clothes and all the rest, he reminds me of me. 1. According to the selection, what is a difference between the postcards in the box and those in tourist shops? 2
Name: a. their price b. their colors c. their size d. their shape 2. How are the photographs described in the third and fourth paragraphs alike? a. They come from the state fair. b. They were taken on family trips. c. They show people having fun. d. They tell about important events. 3. You can tell from this selection that the narrator s great-grandfather a. enjoyed going on trips. b. didn t like to dress up. c. went to the state fair every year. d. always dressed up. 4. In the fifth paragraph, why does the narrator compare the feather on the hat to his cat? a. to tell readers about his cat b. to tell the color of the hat c. to tell what the feather felt like d. to tell the size of the feather 3
Name: 5. What does the narrator realize when he looks at the old photos? a. that he is like his great-grandfather b. that he is not as funny as his great-grandfather c. that he would like to travel more often d. that he is glad he does not have to dress up 6. How did the narrator most likely feel when he found the box of postcards? a. jealous and angry b. surprised and interested c. relieved and proud d. determined and concerned 7. Which statement best describes the narrator? a. He wants to become a photographer some day. b. He is curious about his great-grandfather s life. c. He wishes he had lived in his great-grandfather s day. d. He likes taking photographs when his family travels. 8. In which sentence is the word trips used the same way as it s used in paragraph 6 in the passage? a. She trips and falls when her sneakers are untied. b. He takes many trips to Colorado in the summer. 9. What part of speech is the word postcards? c. Subtraction with zeros always trips him up in math. a. pronoun c. noun b. verb d. adjective 4
Name: 10. Which word has the same number of syllables as photographs? a. another c. pictures b. photographer d. trips 11. Which word is NOT a compound word? a. himself c. postcard b. grandfather d. colorful 12. In what section of the library would you find this passage? a. sports c. fantasy b. fiction d. fable 13. What does the narrator compare and contrast in the story? a. swimming and riding a Ferris c. a calf and a pony Wheel b. albums and postcards d. his great-grandfather s pictures and his own family s pictures 14. What is the theme of this story? a. people can be the same, no matter the time you lived b. photo postcards are better than photographs c. Sisters like ponies d. We wear different clothes today than our grandparents wore. 5