A teacher wants students to read a novel in which extraordinary events, such as a rain that lasts nearly five years and a young woman who rises into the sky, are narrated in a matter-of-fact tone alongside ordinary family life. Which work best exemplifies this approach, known as magical realism?

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Which group of English words entered the language chiefly through contact with Old Norse during the Viking Age settlements in England?

beef, court, justice, parliament

kindergarten, angst, wanderlust, pretzel

The whistle shrieked. Maya's fingers tightened on the edge of the starting block, and suddenly she was six again, sputtering in the shallow end while her father counted, "One more stroke, just one more." The roar of the crowd pulled her back. She dove. In this excerpt from a student's personal narrative, the description of Maya at age six primarily functions as:

a flashback that reveals the source of her determination.

foreshadowing that hints at the eventual outcome of the race.

dramatic irony that shows what Maya does not know.

an unreliable narrator's distortion of past events.

An Arab official writing in Cairo about a decade after a West African king's visit in 1324 reported that the king and his large entourage, traveling to Mecca, had spent and given away so much gold that its value in Egypt had fallen and still had not recovered. This account offers the clearest evidence of which development?

Mali's wealth from trans-Saharan trade and its ties to the Islamic world

The spread of Christianity from Aksum into the West African interior

The decline of Great Zimbabwe as a center of Indian Ocean trade

The founding of the Songhai Empire after a decisive military victory over Ghana

A grade 6 teacher gives students two maps of Egypt, one showing average annual precipitation and one showing population density. Which task would best develop students' geographic reasoning with these sources?

Have students compare the maps and write a claim explaining the population pattern, citing evidence from both.

Have students list the precipitation categories and density categories shown in each map legend.

Have students trace the Nile River on a blank outline map and label Egypt's largest cities from memory.

Have students read a textbook section on the Nile and then answer recall questions about the river's length.

A teacher is planning a unit on Dark Romanticism, which explores sin, guilt, the irrational, and the darker side of human nature. Which pair of authors would be most central to the unit?

Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau

Mark Twain and William Dean Howells

Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser

Student argument excerpt: "Our school should require uniforms. After Lakeview Middle School adopted uniforms, its discipline referrals dropped by 30 percent in one year." Which statement identifies the unstated assumption (warrant) that connects the evidence to the claim?

A policy that worked at Lakeview would produce similar results here.

Most students at Lakeview Middle School preferred wearing uniforms.

Uniforms cost families less money than buying everyday school clothing does.

Lakeview had more discipline problems than other middle schools.

Which consequence is most closely associated with the Mongol Empire's control of Eurasian trade routes in the 1200s and 1300s?

Trade and travel expanded, and those same links helped carry plague into Europe

Silk Road trade collapsed as the Mongols banned merchants from crossing their lands

Islam disappeared from Central Asia as Mongol rulers imposed their own beliefs

European navigators found a direct sea route from Portugal to China by sailing west

A grade 6 class is asked to recommend a site for a new public park in their town. The teacher wants the task to build students' spatial thinking. Which activity best meets the teacher's goal?

Overlay maps of population, existing parks, and bus routes

Label each neighborhood of the town on a blank outline map

Read a newspaper article about park planning and write a summary

Compare a current town map with a map of the town drawn a century ago

MTEL Middle School Humanities (76)

Free MTEL Middle School Practice Questions

10 sample questions for the MTEL Middle School Humanities (76), with the correct answer and an explanation for each. No account needed. Try each one before you open the answer.

Sections covered on the exam: Literature and Language, Expressive and Receptive Communication, History, Geography, Government, and Civic Life.

Question 1 · Literature and Language
A teacher wants students to read a novel in which extraordinary events, such as a rain that lasts nearly five years and a young woman who rises into the sky, are narrated in a matter-of-fact tone alongside ordinary family life. Which work best exemplifies this approach, known as magical realism?
- A.The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- B.Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- C.One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
- D.The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude is the defining example of magical realism: the years-long rain and Remedios the Beauty's ascent are reported as calmly as everyday events. Frankenstein treats its fantastic premise as a source of Gothic horror rather than as an ordinary part of reality. Hemingway's and London's novels are realistic or naturalistic narratives with no supernatural elements.
Question 2 · Literature and Language
Which group of English words entered the language chiefly through contact with Old Norse during the Viking Age settlements in England?
- A.sky, egg, take, they
- B.beef, court, justice, parliament
- C.algebra, alcohol, zenith, sofa
- D.kindergarten, angst, wanderlust, pretzel
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. sky, egg, take, they
Sky, egg, take, and even the pronoun they were borrowed from Old Norse as Scandinavian settlers mixed with English speakers. Beef, court, justice, and parliament came from French after the Norman Conquest. The third group came from Arabic, often by way of other European languages, and the fourth group consists of German borrowings.
Question 3 · Expressive and Receptive Communication
The whistle shrieked. Maya's fingers tightened on the edge of the starting block, and suddenly she was six again, sputtering in the shallow end while her father counted, "One more stroke, just one more." The roar of the crowd pulled her back. She dove.
In this excerpt from a student's personal narrative, the description of Maya at age six primarily functions as:
- A.foreshadowing that hints at the eventual outcome of the race.
- B.dramatic irony that shows what Maya does not know.
- C.a flashback that reveals the source of her determination.
- D.an unreliable narrator's distortion of past events.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. a flashback that reveals the source of her determination.
The narrative briefly shifts to an earlier event (her father urging "one more stroke") before returning to the present, which is a flashback that explains her drive. Foreshadowing would hint at future events, not past ones; dramatic irony requires the reader to know something a character does not; and nothing suggests the narrator is unreliable.
Question 4 · History
An Arab official writing in Cairo about a decade after a West African king's visit in 1324 reported that the king and his large entourage, traveling to Mecca, had spent and given away so much gold that its value in Egypt had fallen and still had not recovered.
This account offers the clearest evidence of which development?
- A.The spread of Christianity from Aksum into the West African interior
- B.The decline of Great Zimbabwe as a center of Indian Ocean trade
- C.The founding of the Songhai Empire after a decisive military victory over Ghana
- D.Mali's wealth from trans-Saharan trade and its ties to the Islamic world
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Mali's wealth from trans-Saharan trade and its ties to the Islamic world
The passage describes Mansa Musa of Mali, whose pilgrimage to Mecca passed through Cairo and displayed wealth drawn from controlling gold and salt routes across the Sahara; the hajj itself reflects Mali's Muslim rulers and their links to the wider Islamic world. Aksum's Christianity was centered in northeast Africa, and Great Zimbabwe lay in southern Africa. Songhai rose later by breaking away from Mali, not by defeating Ghana.
Question 5 · Geography, Government, and Civic Life
A grade 6 teacher gives students two maps of Egypt, one showing average annual precipitation and one showing population density. Which task would best develop students' geographic reasoning with these sources?
- A.Have students list the precipitation categories and density categories shown in each map legend.
- B.Have students compare the maps and write a claim explaining the population pattern, citing evidence from both.
- C.Have students trace the Nile River on a blank outline map and label Egypt's largest cities from memory.
- D.Have students read a textbook section on the Nile and then answer recall questions about the river's length.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Have students compare the maps and write a claim explaining the population pattern, citing evidence from both.
Asking students to relate the two data sets and support an explanation with evidence from both reflects the framework's practice standards of interpreting sources and constructing arguments, and it leads students to infer that people cluster along the Nile where water is available. Listing legend categories or labeling cities builds map-reading familiarity but stops short of analyzing a spatial relationship, and textbook recall does not use the maps at all.
Question 6 · Literature and Language
A teacher is planning a unit on Dark Romanticism, which explores sin, guilt, the irrational, and the darker side of human nature. Which pair of authors would be most central to the unit?
- A.Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau
- B.Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne
- C.Mark Twain and William Dean Howells
- D.Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne
Poe's tales of madness and Hawthorne's explorations of guilt and sin, as in The Scarlet Letter, define American Dark Romanticism. Emerson and Thoreau were optimistic Transcendentalists who emphasized human goodness. Twain and Howells were leading Realists, and Crane and Dreiser are associated with Naturalism.
Question 7 · Literature and Language
Which group of words consists entirely of eponyms, words derived from the names of people?
- A.brunch, motel, infomercial
- B.boycott, diesel, braille
- C.laser, scuba, radar
- D.lab, flu, exam
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. boycott, diesel, braille
Boycott comes from Captain Charles Boycott, diesel from the engineer Rudolf Diesel, and braille from Louis Braille, who created the raised-dot writing system. Brunch, motel, and infomercial are blends, or portmanteau words, formed by merging two words. Laser, scuba, and radar are acronyms, and lab, flu, and exam are clipped forms of longer words.
Question 8 · Expressive and Receptive Communication
Student argument excerpt: "Our school should require uniforms. After Lakeview Middle School adopted uniforms, its discipline referrals dropped by 30 percent in one year."
Which statement identifies the unstated assumption (warrant) that connects the evidence to the claim?
- A.Most students at Lakeview Middle School preferred wearing uniforms.
- B.Uniforms cost families less money than buying everyday school clothing does.
- C.Lakeview had more discipline problems than other middle schools.
- D.A policy that worked at Lakeview would produce similar results here.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. A policy that worked at Lakeview would produce similar results here.
In the Toulmin model, the warrant is the reasoning that links evidence to claim, and this argument works only if Lakeview's results would transfer to the writer's school. Student preference and clothing costs are separate issues the argument never relies on, and whether Lakeview had more problems than other schools is not needed to connect the evidence to the claim.
Question 9 · History
Which consequence is most closely associated with the Mongol Empire's control of Eurasian trade routes in the 1200s and 1300s?
- A.Silk Road trade collapsed as the Mongols banned merchants from crossing their lands
- B.Islam disappeared from Central Asia as Mongol rulers imposed their own beliefs
- C.Trade and travel expanded, and those same links helped carry plague into Europe
- D.European navigators found a direct sea route from Portugal to China by sailing west
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Trade and travel expanded, and those same links helped carry plague into Europe
The relative stability known as the Pax Mongolica protected merchants, envoys, and travelers such as Marco Polo, increasing exchange across Eurasia; those same connections helped carry the Black Death westward in the 1340s. The Mongols encouraged trade rather than banning it, and several Mongol khanates, including the Ilkhanate and the Golden Horde, converted to Islam. A sea route from Europe to Asia came later, around Africa, with Vasco da Gama's voyage of 1497-1499.
Question 10 · Geography, Government, and Civic Life
A grade 6 class is asked to recommend a site for a new public park in their town. The teacher wants the task to build students' spatial thinking.
Which activity best meets the teacher's goal?
- A.Label each neighborhood of the town on a blank outline map
- B.Overlay maps of population, existing parks, and bus routes
- C.Read a newspaper article about park planning and write a summary
- D.Compare a current town map with a map of the town drawn a century ago
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Overlay maps of population, existing parks, and bus routes
Overlaying data layers lets students see where many residents live far from existing parks and transit, so they reason spatially from evidence to a recommendation, the core of geographic inquiry. Labeling an outline map is location recall, summarizing an article builds reading skills but not spatial analysis, and comparing historical maps shows change over time rather than answering the siting question.

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