NYSTCE English Language Arts (003) Test

1. Question 1 · Reading Literature and Informational Text

   Read the passage below; then answer the two questions that follow.

   The house had been painted since she left—a sensible gray, the color of a filing cabinet. Someone had pulled out the climbing rose by the porch and put in a row of shrubs trimmed into identical green boxes. Marguerite stood on the walk a long time. When a woman in gardening gloves came out and asked if she could help, Marguerite said she was looking for the Delaney place, and the woman, kindly, pointed her two streets over, to a house that had never been anyone’s she knew.

   Marguerite thanked her and walked in the direction indicated until she was out of sight of the porch. Then she sat down on a low wall and ate the sandwich she had packed for the drive home, carefully, all the way to the crust.

   The detail that the woman points Marguerite toward “a house that had never been anyone’s she knew” chiefly emphasizes that
   • A.the woman is deliberately deceiving Marguerite in order to keep her away from the house
   • B.Marguerite has mistaken the street and has been standing in front of the wrong house
   • C.the neighborhood has grown so large that even longtime residents lose their way in it
   • D.Marguerite’s past no longer has any recognized place in the neighborhood as it now exists
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: D. Marguerite’s past no longer has any recognized place in the neighborhood as it now exists

   Standing before the house she once lived in, Marguerite asks for “the Delaney place,” and the kindly stranger, knowing nothing of its history, sends her to a house with no connection to her, so the old life has been erased from local memory. The woman acts “kindly,” not deceptively, and Marguerite’s long stare at the changed house shows that she is at the right address.

2. Question 2 · Reading Literature and Informational Text

   Ecologists borrowed the term keystone from architecture, where it names the wedge-shaped stone at the top of an arch that locks the other stones in place. Applied to living communities, the metaphor first described a predator: remove a certain sea star from a tidal pool, and the mussels it once ate crowd out nearly everything else. The sea star was not the most numerous creature in the pool, yet its absence collapsed the system.

   Over time, the word stretched. Researchers began calling beavers keystone species because their dams create wetlands, and they applied the label to fig trees that feed many animals during lean seasons. Some critics complained that the term had become a compliment rather than a category, bestowed on any creature a scientist happened to admire.

   Today most ecologists use a narrower test. A keystone species is one whose effect on its community is large relative to its abundance. By that measure, a sea star that is scarce but decisive qualifies; a grass that dominates a prairie simply by covering most of it does not, however important it is. The distinction matters for conservation. Protecting the most abundant species may preserve the bulk of an ecosystem, but overlooking a keystone species can unravel it from a single missing stone.

   Over the course of the passage, the author refines the meaning of the term keystone species chiefly by
   • A.rejecting the architectural metaphor as misleading and replacing it with a purely numerical measure
   • B.tracing the term’s loose expansion and then adopting a test based on impact relative to abundance
   • C.showing that the term first applied to plants and was only later extended to predators like sea stars
   • D.arguing that any species that supplies food or shelter to many other species deserves the label
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: B. tracing the term’s loose expansion and then adopting a test based on impact relative to abundance

   The author moves from the original predator example through the term’s stretching to beavers and fig trees, then settles on the narrower test of large effect relative to abundance. The architectural metaphor is kept, not rejected, since the passage ends with the image of a missing stone, and the idea that any provider of food or shelter qualifies is the loose usage the critics objected to.

3. Question 3 · Writing and Research

   A student is drafting a paragraph for a letter to the city council. The sentences are listed below out of order.

   I. Council members who raise that concern overlook the waiting list of forty households that has already formed, a sign of lasting interest.

   II. The vacant lot on Elm Street should become a community garden rather than a parking area.

   III. Some council members worry that residents would lose interest and leave the garden untended within a year.

   IV. Such a garden would give the neighborhood’s many apartment dwellers their only nearby place to grow fresh food.

   Which sequence of sentences presents the claim, a supporting reason, and a counterclaim with its rebuttal in the most logical and cohesive order?
   • A.II, III, IV, I
   • B.IV, II, III, I
   • C.II, I, III, IV
   • D.II, IV, III, I
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: D. II, IV, III, I

   The claim in sentence II introduces the garden that “Such a garden” in sentence IV refers to, and the concern stated in sentence III must come before sentence I, which answers “that concern.” Placing sentence IV first leaves “Such a garden” without a referent, and placing sentence I before sentence III makes the rebuttal answer a concern that has not yet been stated.

4. Question 4 · Writing and Research

   (1) The ball left Dev’s hand with two seconds on the clock. (2) It went in, and the gym exploded. (3) His teammates lifted him onto their shoulders. (4) Later that night, he could not stop replaying the moment.

   A student wants to revise this paragraph so that the climactic moment in sentences 1 and 2 has greater dramatic impact. Which revision strategy would be most effective?
   • A.Expanding the shot’s flight into several slowed, sensory, moment-by-moment sentences before the result
   • B.Moving sentence 4 to the beginning so that the paragraph opens with Dev’s later reflection on the game’s final shot
   • C.Combining sentences 1 and 2 into one compound sentence so that the shot and its result happen in a single breath
   • D.Adding a summary of the earlier quarters of the game so that readers understand how close the score had been
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: A. Expanding the shot’s flight into several slowed, sensory, moment-by-moment sentences before the result

   Slowing narrative time at a climax, by stretching a two-second event across several sentences of perception, builds suspense before the outcome is revealed. Combining the sentences would speed the moment up even further, and moving the reflection first would give away the result before the shot is taken.

5. Question 5 · Speaking, Listening, and Language

   The final sentence of the excerpt functions chiefly to
   • A.introduce a new argument about the moral duty that legislators owe to the children of the county
   • B.reduce the debate to a choice between two costs, implying that voting against the tax saves nothing
   • C.signal the speaker’s willingness to compromise with opponents on the amount of the proposed tax
   • D.summarize the farmers’ position fairly before the speaker goes on to state his own counterclaim
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: B. reduce the debate to a choice between two costs, implying that voting against the tax saves nothing

   Having said “We pay for it whether we vote the tax or not,” the speaker frames the only remaining question as paying “to prevent the evil or pay to endure it,” so opposition to the tax is presented as no saving at all. The sentence concludes his argument rather than introducing a new moral argument, and nothing in it suggests compromise on the tax amount.

6. Question 6 · Reading Literature and Informational Text

   Read the poem below; then answer the two questions that follow.

   their fruit to us, their leaves to the wet ground,

   their birds to some warm country. Now they stand

   arms open on the white field, keeping still.

   and never thought of them again till May,

   The simile “like creditors who never sent a bill” primarily suggests that the trees
   • A.resent the people who have stripped and used them year after year
   • B.have become unprofitable for the farmer who owns the old orchard
   • C.are owed a debt of thanks that the speaker has never acknowledged
   • D.have died during the long hard winter and will never bear fruit again in the spring
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: C. are owed a debt of thanks that the speaker has never acknowledged

   A creditor is owed something, and one who “never sent a bill” has given freely without demanding payment, which sets up the speaker’s unpaid debt of gratitude. The phrase “never sent a bill” and the “arms open” posture rule out resentment, and nothing suggests the trees are dead.

7. Question 7 · Reading Literature and Informational Text

   The final sentence of Source 2 is best described as an example of which fallacy?
   • A.false cause, assuming that because two events co-occur, one caused the other
   • B.appeal to ignorance, treating the absence of proof of harm as proof of safety
   • C.bandwagon appeal, urging belief because most consumers already accept the claim
   • D.straw man, distorting an opponent’s position so that it is easier to refute
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: B. appeal to ignorance, treating the absence of proof of harm as proof of safety

   Saying there is no reason for concern until science proves otherwise treats a lack of evidence of harm as if it established safety, which is an appeal to ignorance. The sentence makes no causal claim about co-occurring events, and it does not cite popular belief, so false cause and bandwagon appeal do not fit.

8. Question 8 · Writing and Research

   A student is drafting an argument about an after-school algebra tutoring program and gathered the data below.

   Students who attended tutoring at least twice a week: 48 students; 81 percent passed the state algebra exam.

   Students who did not attend tutoring: 152 students; 64 percent passed the state algebra exam.

   Note: Tutoring was voluntary, and students signed up on their own.

   Which claim is best supported by the data?
   • A.The tutoring program caused pass rates to rise by seventeen percentage points and should therefore be made mandatory for all of the students.
   • B.Tutoring made little real difference, since most of the students who did not attend tutoring still passed the state algebra exam.
   • C.The program would produce the same results at any other school, because the data were drawn from a fairly large group of students.
   • D.Regular tutoring attendees passed at a higher rate, but because attendance was voluntary, the program’s own effect cannot be isolated.
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: D. Regular tutoring attendees passed at a higher rate, but because attendance was voluntary, the program’s own effect cannot be isolated.

   The data show a higher pass rate among attendees, but students who chose tutoring may have differed in motivation, so the claim that acknowledges this limitation matches the evidence. The claim that the program caused the gain treats a correlation as proof of cause, and the claim about any other school generalizes beyond a single local sample.

9. Question 9 · Writing and Research

   Context: Two sisters, Cora and June, are washing dishes after their father’s retirement party. Cora resents that June, who moved away years ago, received most of the praise in the father’s speech.

   Which exchange best uses subtext to convey the conflict between the sisters?
   • A.“I’m angry that Dad praised you,” Cora said. June frowned. “I didn’t ask him to.” “I know, but I’ve been here the whole time.”
   • B.“Did you like the cake?” Cora asked. June nodded. “It was delicious.” “Mrs. Lin made it. She bakes for every party in town.”
   • C.“Dad gave a really good speech tonight,” Cora said. June agreed. “He did.” “It was nice to see everyone together again.”
   • D.“Nice of you to fly in,” Cora said. June dried a plate twice. “Dad seemed happy.” “He always is when you visit.”
   Show answer and explanation

   Answer: D. “Nice of you to fly in,” Cora said. June dried a plate twice. “Dad seemed happy.” “He always is when you visit.”

   In the exchange that begins “Nice of you to fly in,” the polite surface carries an edge of resentment, and June drying a plate twice hints at discomfort, so the conflict is felt beneath the words. The exchange in which Cora says “I’m angry” states the conflict directly, while the talk about the cake and the agreeable comments about the speech contain no tension at all.

10. Question 10 · Speaking, Listening, and Language

    The speaker’s comparison of the ten-hour day with the “fourteen-hour day” of “our fathers” most directly challenges which premise of his opponents’ position?
    • A.that shorter hours would cut the mills’ profits below the level needed for the mills to remain open and competitive
    • B.that workers lack the patience and discipline required to organize for better working conditions
    • C.that the mill owners are dishonest and indifferent to the welfare of their workers’ families
    • D.that present working hours are fixed and natural rather than the product of past struggle and change
    Show answer and explanation

    Answer: D. that present working hours are fixed and natural rather than the product of past struggle and change

    Opponents claim the ten-hour day is “as fixed as the tides,” and the speaker answers that the fourteen-hour day was once defended the same way, exposing the premise that current hours are permanent. The excerpt never takes up a profit argument, and the claim that owners are dishonest is one the speaker himself rejects.

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