Answering Multiple-Choice Questions Nonfiction Assessment VI

The PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments and other tests of the Common Core English standards use multiple-choice questions to check your ability to revise and edit texts. The SAT and ACT also include these sorts of questions.

The following multiple choice questions test your understanding of conventions: punctuation, spelling, grammar, and sentences. Then you will find a reading and a set of questions to test your paragraph-revision skills.

Responding to DBQs Nonfiction Assessment V

The AP US History and AP World History exams include document-based questions (DBQs). A DBQ requires you to analyze a writing prompt, closely read a series of related documents, and then write an essay that answers the prompt using evidence from the documents. The documents may include a variety of media such as articles, graphs, photographs, and political cartoons.

Viewing and Writing Nonfiction Assessment IV

Some Common Core and AP assessments present you with visuals that you must analyze and respond to. Remember that every visual is a form of communication with a sender and receiver (who), a message (what and why), a medium (how), and a context (where and when).

Reading and Writing Nonfiction Assessment III

Closely read the following articles and answer the questions afterward. Then you will need to analyze a prompt about these models and respond by writing an insightful essay.

Reading and Writing Nonfiction Assessment II

Closely read the following articles and answer the questions afterward. Then you will need to analyze a prompt about these models and respond by writing an insightful essay.

Source 1

Nonfiction Reading and Writing Assessment

Many high-stakes assessments test your ability to read nonfiction and write analyses about it. You'll find these types of tasks on the high school tests for the Common Core, the ACT and SAT, and the AP tests for English Language and Composition, U.S. History, and World History.

Of course, these assessments seek to measure the reading and writing ability you have gained over the whole of your schooling so far, so simply cramming won't spell success. However, taking a practice test that requires the same skills will help you know what kinds of questions to anticipate, allowing you to score your best.

How Can I Practice for Assessment?

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In this unit, you'll get to practice closely reading nonfiction texts. After each, you'll answer a bank of multiple-choice questions that check your comprehension but also require you to infer shades of meaning. Then you'll need to analyze a writing prompt about the texts and write an on-target essay response. You'll find three such practice tests.

You'll also find a practice test that requires you to view advertisements, answer questions about them, and write an essay response. Finally, you will find a practice test for answering document-based questions (DBQs) like those on the AP history exams. You'll analyze a writing prompt, closely read seven documents related to it, and write a response to the prompt.

At the end of this unit, you'll find sample argument and explanatory rubrics showing the way that essays are scored on high-stakes assessments. You can find the specific rubrics used for a given high-stakes writing assessment at these locations:

• PARCC Scoring Rubric for Prose Constructed Response Items (Grades 6-11)
• Smarter Balanced Performance Task Writing Rubrics
• ACT Writing Test Scores
• SAT Essay Scoring
• AP English Language and Composition Scoring Guidelines

For practice with high-stakes literature assessments, see the units "Reading and Writing Literature for Assessment" and "Practice Tests for Reading and Writing Literature."

Reading and Writing Nonfiction Assessment I

Closely read the following articles and answer the questions afterward. Then you will need to analyze a prompt about these models and respond by writing an insightful essay.

Editing In-Text Citations for MLA Style

Whenever you use ideas or direct quotations from others, you need to credit the source. You do so to show who originated an idea, to avoid plagiarism, and to allow readers to explore the same materials in their own research.

All credits begin with an in-text citation that names the source and page number (if there is one) and refers to a complete entry on the works-cited page. The simplest citation names the title and author in the text and provides the page number in parentheses after the borrowed material, before the period.

Revising to Elaborate Details

Your research paper should be more than just a list of details: First of all . . . Second of all . . . Thirdly . . . Fourthly . . . . Instead, you should elaborate ideas. You can do so by introducing a concept, looking more carefully at it, defining the terms you are using, giving examples, telling an anecdote, providing historical context, and so on. Note how each of these types of details further "unpacks" the concept, allowing readers to understand it more fully.

In the following paragraph from "The Mind Behind Middle-earth," note how the topic sentences introduce two main points, and the writer explores each point separately, using a variety of details to unfold the picture for the reader. Click on the callouts to view each part.

Writing the Beginning Paragraph

If you're having trouble deciding how to start, you can experiment with different strategies for catching your reader's interest. (If you'd rather just plunge in to writing your middle paragraphs, go ahead, and circle back to this step later.) Your lead sentence will begin your first paragraph and help to introduce your thesis statement.