California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress Reading Grade 5

Nia and Uncle Theo reached Pier 2 with the afternoon ferry still tied to the dock. A sign on the rail gave two times. The whistle blows at 4:05, and the ramp closes then. The time printed on the ticket, 4:10, is when the boat leaves. A passenger who is still on the pier at the whistle stays on the pier.

Their shoes hit the gate at 4:07. Nia saw the boat and said they had three minutes. The ramp was already up, and the latch was shut. A deckhand pointed at the sign and did not swing the ramp back down. The ropes still held the boat. Being able to see it was not the same as being allowed on.

Uncle Theo read the sign once more and checked the board for the following boat. That one left at 4:40. They sat on the bench with the tickets in Nia's pocket. The 4:10 departure went on without them because the line had closed five minutes before the boat moved.

Cabin 4 keeps one rule on the door. The path lantern stays on the post at the fork until the last walker has gone past. A porch bulb already lights the door. The dark choice is the fork, where a narrow track drops toward the lake and the main track climbs to the cabin.

Rosa arrived first and carried the lantern inside. She wanted the table bright for cards. She thought a light in the room helped the people still on the path. Eli and Sam reached the fork a few minutes later and found the post empty. They took the downhill track. Cold air off the water met them, and Eli stopped. The cabin path did not smell like the lake.

They turned around and met Rosa coming back with the lantern. She set it on the post. The porch bulb was on, and the table could stay dim until everyone was in. The rule put the light where two paths split, not where the room felt gloomy.

The park map keeps a box in the lower right, and the box is the key. A filled triangle marks a lookout. An open circle marks drinking water. A solid line is a trail that is open. A dashed line is a trail that is closed. Length on the paper does not change those meanings.

June wanted the lookout before noon. From the gate, the dashed line to the triangle was shorter than the solid line that bent east. She started along the dashes because short looked useful. A ranger met her at the first post. The post repeated the key. Dashes meant she had to turn around.

She took the solid line instead. It was longer, and it passed an open circle where she filled her bottle. She reached the filled triangle in the afternoon, with the lake spread below the rail. The short mark had never been a path the key allowed that day.

Mr. Pell will not fire a pot that is still holding water. If the thickest part feels cool and looks a shade darker, moisture is still in the clay. In the kiln that water turns to steam and can crack the pot. The shelf is where a pot waits until the thick part matches the thin part.

Hana's bowl looked pale along the rim, so she wrote her name on the kiln list. Mr. Pell pressed a thumb to the base. It felt cool, and the clay there was darker than the rim. He moved the bowl back to the drying shelf. Thin clay dries first. The rim had finished early and made the whole bowl look done.

Two days later the base was pale and no longer cool. Then the bowl went on the list. Hana had not changed the shape. She had waited for water she could not see from across the room. A finished look and a dry pot were two different facts.

Each fall, many monarch butterflies fly south across long stretches of land. The flight is the butterfly's own. A tiny sticker on a hind wing does not tell it which way to turn. The sticker carries a code. If someone finds that butterfly later, the code can be reported. The report adds one point to a map of where that insect was found.

In Ms. Green's class, a student thought the sticker worked like a note that gives directions. Ms. Green turned the chart around. The arrows were drawn from reported codes, not from orders printed for the butterflies. Milkweed is the plant the caterpillars eat. The sticker does not feed them, and it does not aim them.

One code from the class was reported two weeks later from a town far to the south. That report showed where one tagged butterfly had been found. It did not say every monarch had used the same street. A single point is a fact about one insect. The arrows grow only when more reports come in.

Dear Imani, The new building is taller than our old house, but my room looks at a brick alley, not at the pecan tree. I hear the bakery ovens start before school. I told Mom I hated the room. She said the tree did not move. I did. She is right, and I am still angry that being right does not put the branch outside this glass.

On Saturday I carried a chair up to the roof garden. The alley was gone from that view. I could see the river, and the bakery roof looked small enough to cover with my hand. A boy named Chris was watering the pots. He did not tell me to cheer up. He asked if I knew how to pinch basil without tearing the stem. I did not. He showed me.

I still miss the tap of that old branch at night. I also know one name here, and I know a roof that is not brick. That is not the pecan tree. It is a start I did not have on Monday. Write me what the tree looks like this week. Your cousin, Deon.

At Hollow Cove a sign is bolted to the lowest step. Look with your eyes. Leave shells, crabs, and sea stars where they are. A pool that feels warm and still is not a bowl for collecting. The tide returns, and the animals belong in that returning water.

Caleb saw a sea star the color of a peach pit. He lifted it so his sister could see the underside. A guide pointed at the sign, then at Caleb's fingers. Out of the water, the sea star's tube feet cannot hold the rock, and a grip can tear those feet. The guide told him to set it back where the arms had been spread.

Caleb lowered it into the same pocket of rock. The guide did not scold him for looking. The sign allows eyes. It stops taking, even for a minute that feels short to a person and long to an animal out of the water.

Coach Nguyen hangs jersey 12 on a nail by the bench before every game. It is the spare. Any player who arrives without a shirt may wear it. It is not saved for one person. The number does not follow anybody home, and it is not printed on a bag.

Asha's bus was late. In the first half, Diego's shirt tore at the sleeve, and he put on 12. A spectator who knew Asha was missing told a friend that 12 had to be Asha. The empty spot on the roster and the spare on the nail seemed to match. They did not. Asha's number is 8, and that shirt was folded in her bag the whole first half.

Asha reached the bench at halftime, changed into 8, and played the second half. Diego kept 12 until the torn sleeve was pinned. The spare had done the job in the team note. It covered a player who needed a shirt. It had not become Asha's name.

A cardboard sign hung under the peach crates. It read SECONDS and gave the price as 2 for $1. Pilar had a dollar in her pocket and a pie in mind. She wanted fruit with smooth skin because the top of the pie had to look even. Her hand went to the upper crate, where the peaches had no scars.

Mr. Duarte tapped the sign. Seconds, he said, are the peaches with a soft spot or a scar, and they cost less. They are not the second crate in the row, and they are not a unit of time on a clock. If a pie needs a smooth slice showing, buy from the upper crate. If the fruit goes under a crust, the spots never show.

Pilar chose four seconds. At home she cut the scars away and laid the pieces under a crust. The filling did not show a single mark. She had used the sign's meaning on purpose. The upper crate stayed for a different kind of pie.

The band room lends a trumpet overnight only when two things are true. A parent has signed the case card for that date. Tape on the bell reads SCHOOL. A small plate with a student's last name means that horn goes home with that student. It does not go into the lend row.

Andre's own trumpet was in the shop, and he needed a horn for Tuesday. He lifted a shiny case by the door. The card inside had no signature on Tuesday's line. The school tape was missing, and a plate on the bell read CHEN. Ms. Ruiz put the case back on the high shelf. Shiny was not the lend row. Chen's horn was waiting for Chen.

She handed Andre a scuffed case. Tuesday's line had his father's signature, and the bell tape read SCHOOL. He played the same long tones he would have played on the shiny horn. The notes did not depend on the polish. The card and the tape did.

In the puppet booth, two wooden bars cross above the king's shoulders. The rear bar lifts his right hand. The front bar bends his waist. A knot of red thread marks the rear bar. The audience is not meant to notice it. The helper is.

In the first scene Nico took the unmarked bar because it sat closer to his fingers. The king bowed in the middle of a wave. People laughed before the joke in the script. Ms. Ibarra whispered that closer was not the signal. The red knot was.

Nico changed bars before the next line. The king waved, and then he bowed when the script asked for a bow. The laugh that followed sat on the joke. The knot was the difference between a mistake the helper caused and a bow the scene had planned.

A barn owl hunts after dusk, when mice and voles are moving in the grass. It is not blind in daylight. It is built for the dim hours. The heart-shaped ring of feathers around its face helps collect sound, so a scratch under the grass can give a mouse away even when the owl cannot see it clearly.

The class stood on the lane at sunset and did not set out food. The farmer said the owl already earned its place by catching rodents in the fields. A pale shape crossed the open door and made no call. Quiet feathers are part of that hunt. A noisy wing would warn the mice before the owl arrived.

In the morning the farmer showed them a pellet on a beam. It was fur and tiny bones pressed together. It was not a sick animal, and it was not scraps from anyone's lunch. An owl coughs up the parts it cannot digest. The pellet was a record of a meal the class had not seen.

The creek puts on a brown coat and shoulders past the willow roots. Yesterday it was a ribbon laid along the stones.

A stick takes the fast middle and will not take a hand. By supper the coat is thinner. Blue shows in the ribbon again.

Froth dries in a stripe on the bank, a mark of how wide the water stood. We walk home with muddy laces and the rush still in our ears.

Beth's library slip listed two dates. Ready by April 12. Last day April 19. Her book was already on the hold shelf on April 9, with her name on a blue slip. She left it there. She thought ready by meant she was not allowed to take the book until April 12.

Mr. Santos tapped the first line. Ready by is a promise about lateness. If the book is on the shelf before that date, it is already hers to borrow. Last day is the other edge. After April 19 the hold ends, and the next person may take the book.

Beth checked the book out that afternoon. She had not broken a rule by coming before April 12. She would have lost the hold if she had waited past the last day. The two dates faced different directions. One looked forward to an arrival. The other closed the door.

A lock is a stone chamber with a gate at each end. Boats use it to move between a lower canal and a higher one. The boat does not drive up a hill. Water is let into the chamber or out of it, and the boat rises or drops with the surface.

To go up, the lower gate opens and the boat enters. Both gates then shut. Valves let water in from the higher level. The surface in the chamber climbs, and the boat climbs with it. When that surface matches the upper canal, the upper gate opens and the boat moves out.

A passenger on the Mill Lock asked why the crew did not push the boat uphill with poles. The lockkeeper said poles are for steering. They do not lift a loaded boat. The rising water is the lift. Going down uses the same chamber in reverse. Water is let out, and the boat sinks to the lower level.

The council rule is printed on a card under the clock. Count the members in the room when the question is called. A proposal passes only if the yes votes are more than half that number. Members who are still in the hall are not part of the count.

At 3:10, six members were in the room, and four of them were ready to vote yes. President Lila did not call the question. Two members were still in the hall. The late bus bell had not rung.

The bell rang at 3:12. Those two came in, and the room held eight. Lila called the question. Four members voted yes, and the proposal failed. Someone asked how four yes votes could lose. Lila pointed at the card and at the eight chairs that were filled.

Many desert cacti keep water in a thick stem. That stem also does a job that leaves do on a maple. It makes the plant's food in the sun. A waxy skin slows the drying wind. The plant is not taking water in through that skin. Roots take in rain, and the stem stores it.

Spines are a kind of leaf, narrowed to a point. They shade the stem a little and discourage a hungry animal. They are not straws, and they are not pipes. Snapping one off does not let rain in. It only leaves a small wound. The water still has to enter through the roots.

After a short storm, wide shallow roots can take up water quickly, before the sun dries the top of the ground. A fallen cactus in the school garden had split open. The inside was damp, and the skin was dry to the touch. Stored water and a dry surface can both be true.