California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress Reading Grade 6

The footbridge model on the science table is 5 inches long. A card taped to the stand says the model stands for 2 feet per inch. The card tells viewers to use that scale to find the length of the real footbridge. The model is a small stand-in. It is not the bridge itself.

The real length is the model length times the scale. Five inches times 2 feet for each inch is 10 feet. The card writes the step in one line: 5 times 2 equals 10. The real footbridge is 10 feet long. Copying the 5 and calling it feet skips the scale. Adding 5 and 2 makes 7, and 7 is not the length the card gives.

Cal looked at the ruler and said the bridge must be 5 feet long, because the model measured 5. Ms. Pell tapped the card. "Five is how long the model is in inches. Each inch stands for 2 feet. The real length is 10 feet." Cal's number matched the ruler. It did not match the scale.

A notice beside the hallway thermostat explains the heater as a switch with two marks. The heater turns on at 66 degrees. The heater turns off at 70 degrees. The notice does not give any other on or off temperature. It asks readers to compare the room with those two marks.

The heat comes on when the room falls to 66 degrees. It keeps running while the room warms past that mark. If the room is 68 degrees, the heater is still on. It does not wait until 70 to turn on. Sixty-eight sits between the on mark and the off mark. Being warmer than 66 does not stop the heater. Only 70 turns it off.

A student told a friend that the heater stays quiet until the room hits 70, then switches on. The notice says the opposite about the start. The heater turns on at 66. It turns off at 70. At 68 it is still on, on its way from the start mark to the stop mark.

A harbor guide for boat crews describes the ice that forms along the slip in winter. A chunk of that ice floats. The guide states that ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water. Density compares mass with the space it fills. The same space of ice has less mass than that space of liquid water, so the liquid holds the chunk up.

The guide separates this reason from other descriptions. Cold tells how the ice feels. Solid tells its state. Neither word is the cause of the floating. A heavier chunk of the same size would sink. This chunk stays up because it is less dense, not because it weighs more than the water it pushes aside.

In the solid, the molecules sit in a more open arrangement than they do in the liquid. That spacing is why the ice is less dense. Floating is not a choice the ice makes. The guide's answer to why it floats is the density comparison: ice is less dense than liquid water.

The orchard stand keeps a tally sheet for early sales. On Monday the workers stacked 40 crates of pears before noon. On Tuesday they stacked 25 crates. On Wednesday they stacked 35 crates. The sheet lists the days in that order and leaves a blank line for a total.

The total of the three mornings is 100 crates. Forty plus 25 is 65, and 65 plus 35 is 100. Tuesday is the smallest count. Monday is the largest. Wednesday sits between them. A reader who calls Tuesday the biggest morning is reading the middle of the list, not the numbers.

The manager wrote "surplus" beside Monday. In this sheet, surplus means crates beyond the 30 the shop had expected to sell that morning. Monday's 40 is 10 more than 30. Tuesday's 25 is 5 under that expectation, so the manager did not write surplus beside Tuesday. The word is tied to the extra crates, not to every day on the sheet.

The park leaflet sets two trails side by side. Cedar Trail is 3 miles and gains 900 feet. Fern Trail is 5 miles and gains 600 feet. The miles tell how far a person walks. The feet tell how much the path rises. The leaflet prints both measures so hikers will not treat them as the same kind of number.

Cedar is the shorter walk and the steeper climb. Fern is longer and rises less. A hiker named Ellis said, "I will take Cedar because shorter means easier." The leaflet does not say that. Three miles with 900 feet of rise can feel harder than 5 miles with 600 feet of rise. Distance and steepness answer different questions.

The middle of the leaflet is a comparison. It holds Cedar and Fern next to each other on length, then on rise. It does not tell the story of one hike from the kiosk to the ridge. A reader who wants the shorter distance chooses Cedar. A reader who wants the smaller rise chooses Fern. The leaflet gives both facts and lets the goal decide.

Jonah wrote a note to Coach Diaz and folded it into his locker door before practice. The note said he had missed Tuesday's drill because he was helping his uncle unload a truck, not because he had quit the team. He wanted the coach to know the absence had a reason.

At the gym door he saw the coach already talking with the Tuesday group, laughing about a play they had fixed. Jonah stopped with his hand on the note. If he delivered it then, he would interrupt a conversation that had moved past the absence. He slid the note back into the locker.

He still planned to explain. He waited until the coach was packing the ball bag alone. Then he spoke the same reason he had written. The note stayed in the locker. The explanation did not. Jonah had delayed the paper, not dropped the reason.

The branch library posts its Saturday plan on the door. The doors open at 10:00 a.m. and close at 2:00 p.m. Story time is at 10:30 a.m. and is listed for ages 6 through 8. The reading room is open to any visitor during the posted hours.

Priya is 11. She can use the reading room from 10:00 to 2:00. She cannot join story time, because 11 is older than 8. A sign that said the whole library was only for ages 6 through 8 would close the room to her. This sign does not say that. It limits the story, not the building.

The hours are a span of 4 hours. From 10:00 to 2:00 is four hours. Story time is one event inside that span, not the whole day. A visitor who arrives at 1:00 p.m. has missed story time and can still read until 2:00. The closing time is 2:00 p.m., not 10:30.

Dear Coach Benton, Twelve teams use the field on Saturdays, and they share two water fountains. Both fountains are on the east side. Players on the west bleachers cross the track to drink, and that walk backs up the line. I am asking for one more fountain by the west bleachers.

I am not asking for a fountain at every corner of the park. I am not saying the two fountains are useless. They serve the east side. The request is one added spout where the west teams already sit. Twelve teams and two fountains show a crowd at those two spots. They do not, by themselves, prove that every path needs its own fountain.

The pair that matters in this letter is the west side and one new fountain. If the teams moved or the count changed, the letter would have to be written again. This one is tied to Saturday's twelve teams and to the side that has no spout.

A museum panel explains the seasons. The seasons come from the tilt of Earth's axis. The panel gives the tilt as about 23 degrees. It says the seasons do not come from Earth moving closer to the Sun in summer and farther from the Sun in winter. Distance is the wrong cause.

When the northern half of Earth leans away from the Sun, that half has winter. The sunlight arrives at a slant, and the days are shorter. When the northern half leans toward the Sun, that half has summer, with more direct light and longer days. The same tilt gives the southern half the opposite season at the same time.

A visitor said winter happens because Earth is farthest from the Sun. The panel disagrees. The cause it names is tilt, not distance. About 23 degrees of tilt changes how directly the light hits each half and how long the day lasts. A reader who keeps the visitor's sentence will leave with the cause the panel rejected.

Rain had already darkened the path to the shed. Grandmother looked at the porch lantern, whose glass was cracked, and said she was reluctant to fetch a replacement until the wind dropped. In her sentence, reluctant means unwilling to go yet. She could walk. She did not want to carry glass along a wet path while the gusts were still rising.

Mateo was hasty. He took the cracked lantern and started for the shed before she finished speaking. Hasty here means hurrying past a warning. Halfway down the path the wind pulled the loose piece free, and the lantern went dark.

Grandmother switched on a flashlight she had pocketed for that reason. They reached the shed by that light. Mateo's speed did not beat the wind. Her reluctance had been about the cracked glass, and the dark lantern showed why she had waited. The flashlight, not the hasty start, finished the walk.

The transportation sheet is a written chart, not a picture. It lists riders by grade. Grade 6 has 48 riders. Grade 7 has 36 riders. Grade 8 has 51 riders. The sheet says to compare the counts, not the order of the grade names.

Grade 8 is the largest group because 51 is greater than 48 and greater than 36. Grade 7 is the smallest. The total is 135 riders. Forty-eight plus 36 is 84, and 84 plus 51 is 135. Calling the grade 6 count the total would leave the other grades out.

A note at the bottom says these counts are morning riders only. The afternoon bus is a different list and is not on this sheet. A reader who treats 135 as every student in the three grades is adding a claim the sheet does not make. The 135 is the morning total of the three numbers printed above it.

Last spring the town built a low dam on Otter Creek so the park could keep a pond. Before the dam, the summer water at the park bend was about 1 foot deep. After the dam, the water just upstream rose to about 3 feet. That rise came from holding water back.

Downstream, the summer flow became thinner. The stretch below the dam ran wide and shallow, and wading birds used the new flats. Fish that need a deeper channel were seen less often there. The dam did not remove the creek. It changed where the deeper water sat.

The account moves from cause to effects. The dam is the cause. The upstream pond and the downstream shallows are the effects. A reader who swaps them might think the shallow water created the dam. The town built the dam first, and the depths changed after it.

The cafeteria counted the lunch line for a week. The average wait at the single window was 14 minutes. Students at the back missed the first minutes of class. The problem was one window serving the whole line.

On Thursday the staff opened a second window at 11:40 a.m., the same minute the main line starts. The average wait fell to 6 minutes. Fourteen minus 6 is 8, so the second window cut 8 minutes from the average wait. The staff did not close the first window. They added a place to be served.

The account is a problem followed by a solution and a result. The 14-minute wait is the problem. The second window is the solution. The 6-minute wait is the result. A sentence that said the wait grew after the new window would fight the numbers. The sheet shows a shorter wait, not a longer one.

The bakery's old ledger is a book of daily lines. The first page of sales is dated April 9. The ink lists bread sold that morning, so the shop was open on April 9. No earlier page shows a sale. The book does not start in March.

A brass plaque by the door says the bakery opened on March 9. March comes before April. The plaque puts the opening a month earlier than the ledger. The ledger is the record of sales. The plaque is a later sign. They do not agree, and the sales book is the source that shows a date with sales beside it.

A tour guide who reads only the plaque will tell visitors the shop opened in March. The ledger does not support that month. April 9 is the first dated sale. Treating the plaque as if it corrected the book reverses the evidence. The book was written on the days of the sales. The plaque was added afterward.

Copper terns are seabirds that nest on the bay islands in summer. The refuge sheet says they migrate when the bay water falls below 58 degrees. In this sheet, migrate means to leave one region for another and stay away for the season. It does not mean a short flight to a rock and back before noon.

Last year the water hit 58 degrees on October 12, and the terns were gone by October 14. They returned on April 3, when the sheet next recorded them on the islands. The months away are part of the migration. A daily fishing trip would not empty the islands for the winter.

Gulls in the same bay do not migrate. They are on the docks in January. The sheet sets the terns beside the gulls so readers can see a seasonal move next to a bird that stays. The contrast is the point of the last paragraph. Staying through winter is not the same as migrating.

Lila pulled a cart of jam jars to the Saturday market. She had packed 24 jars because she hoped to sell them all. The cart's handle bent on the curb, and two jars cracked. She arrived with 22 jars that could be sold and a sticky bag she would not set on the table.

By noon she had sold 18. That left 4 whole jars. She had planned on 24 sales. The cracked pair could not be sold, so the highest number she could have sold was 22. Eighteen is 4 short of the jars she could sell. Subtracting 18 from 24 and calling the gap 6 forgets the two jars that cracked.

Her cousin said, "You should have brought more than 24." Lila shook her head. The problem at the curb was not an empty cart. It was a load the bent handle could not carry. Bringing more jars would have made the cart heavier. The passage shows a plan that outgrew the cart.

The museum card gives the walk as a sequence. From the front gate, go straight 40 yards to the fountain. Turn left at the fountain. The fossil hall is the third door on the right. The card numbers the doors so a visitor counts one, two, three.

A right turn at the fountain leads to the cafe, not to the fossils. The card warns about that turn in its own sentence so it will not be mixed into the steps that work. The path that reaches the hall is straight, then left, then the third door. The cafe is what happens if the left is swapped for a right.

The fossil hall closes at 4:15 p.m. even when the rest of the museum stays open until 5:00. A visitor who reaches the third door at 4:20 finds the hall shut. The sequence gets the person to the door. The clock decides whether the door is still open. Forty yards and a left turn do not change 4:15.