North Carolina End-of-Grade Tests English Language Arts Grade 4

The car line for the Cedar Island ferry stretched toward the marsh. A painted sign by the booth said cars for Ocracoke had to be in lane B by 1:15 or they would wait for the next boat. Dad rolled toward lane A because it sat closer to the ramp, the slope where cars roll onto the ferry.

A worker in an orange vest waved them aside. "Lane A is for cars coming back from Ocracoke on the boat that is already full," she said. "Your trip loads from lane B." The clock on the booth read 1:10.

They backed up and took lane B. At 1:15 the worker closed the line with a chain. Their car was already past the chain, so they drove onto the ferry. A neighbor who stayed in lane A watched the boat pull away and waited on the dock.

From the rail, the neighbor's car looked small beside the booth. Dad said the closer lane had been the wrong lane. Being near the ramp did not make lane A their boat.

In a Chapel Hill yard, a bright red bird sat on the fence. Imani knew it was a male cardinal. A brown bird with a pointed crest landed in the dogwood and tugged at a twig. Imani picked up a pebble. She thought a different kind of bird was stealing sticks from the cardinal's tree.

Uncle Marcus touched her wrist. "Look at the crest and the thick orange beak," he said. "That brown bird is a female cardinal. The red one is the male. She is building the nest, not robbing it."

Imani dropped the pebble. The female pushed the twig into a small cup of grass where two branches met. The male sang from the fence but did not carry a stick.

Imani set a shallow dish of water on the step and went inside to watch. She had come close to chasing off the bird that was doing the building.

A class from Beaufort looked across the water at the Cape Lookout lighthouse. Black and white diamonds covered the tall tower. A sailor with a chart can match that pattern to this one tower in daylight.

Their guide called the pattern a daymark. "The paint is a name you can read without a lamp," she said. "It is not there just to look fancy. Other towers on this coast wear different colors or stripes so a lost boat can tell them apart."

At night the tower uses a light that flashes in its own timing. The guide said the flash is a second name for the dark. Day uses diamonds. Night uses the rhythm of the light.

A student asked if every lighthouse in the state wore diamonds. The guide shook her head. "If they all matched, the pattern could not tell you where you were."

The picnic spot was at milepost 260 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The family was driving north. Nia watched the signs. She saw 270, then 265. She thought they had missed 260 because the numbers were getting smaller.

Theo read the map note aloud. "Going north, the mileposts count down. When the numbers fall, 265 comes before 260. Milepost 260 is still ahead." Nia had mixed up a smaller number with a turn they had already passed.

They stayed on the road. The sign for 260 stood beside a stone wall and a view of layered ridges. They parked and opened the picnic box.

Theo said a driver who turned around at 265 would still be south of the picnic spot and would have to come north again. On this drive, a smaller number did not mean the place was behind them.

At the State Farmers Market in Raleigh, a chalkboard said peaches were sold by the peck. Under that, smaller letters said one peck is eight dry quarts. Jordan pointed at a small box and said they wanted a pack of those.

The farmer smiled. "A pack is not a peck. A peck is this basket." She held up a basket much larger than the quart box in Jordan's hand. "The eight on the sign means eight dry quarts, not eight peaches."

Jordan's aunt asked for one peck. The farmer set the basket on the scale, then showed Jordan faint lines printed inside it. "Each line is a quart," she said. Jordan counted eight lines.

They paid and carried the basket to the car. Jordan said the word peck twice so he would not ask for a pack the next time.

Wild horses stood in the dunes beside the road near Corolla. A sign at the pull-off said, "Do not feed the horses." Luis opened the cooler and lifted an apple. The horses looked thin to him.

The guide shook her head. "They find grass on their own. Apples and other people-food can make them sick. Food from cars also teaches them to walk up to vehicles." She pointed at the open space between the jeep and the nearest horse. "We keep that distance."

Luis put the apple back in the cooler. A few minutes later a horse stepped onto the road far ahead. The guide stopped the jeep and waited until the horse climbed into the grass. Nobody honked.

Luis left the cooler closed for the rest of the ride. The sign was a safety rule. A thin-looking horse was not a reason to ignore it.

A small mill stood on a creek that runs to the Yadkin River. A millrace, a narrow channel, carried water from upstream to the wheel. When the miller lifted the gate, water pushed the paddles. The wheel turned a shaft, and the shaft turned the top millstone.

The top stone spun over a bottom stone that stayed still. Corn poured between them and came out as meal. Pearl told the miller the stone must be moving by itself because she could not see an engine.

The miller closed the gate. The wheel slowed and stopped. The top stone stopped too, even though corn still sat in the hopper. "No water, no turn," he said. He opened the gate again. Water hit the paddles, the wheel turned, and the stone followed.

Pearl watched the order and said it back: gate, water, wheel, shaft, stone. The corn could not crush itself.

In Boone, December days felt short and the sun sat low. Caleb told the class that winter comes because Earth travels farther from the sun in December. He said summer is when Earth rides closer.

Ms. Grant drew a tilted line through a circle and labeled it Earth's axis. "The tilt causes the seasons," she said. "In December, North Carolina leans away from the sun's direct rays. The days are shorter, and the sun stays lower. Earth is not farther away in winter."

She turned the drawing. "In June the same tilt leans us toward the sun. The days grow longer. The distance idea mixes up a small change in the path around the sun with the reason we have seasons."

Caleb erased his first sentence. He wrote, "Seasons come from tilt, not from distance." He added that December cold in Boone did not mean the planet had rolled away from the sun.

A footbridge crossed a creek on a ridge trail near Asheville. June held a large creek stone. Wes held a smaller creek stone of the same kind. Both stones were solid and compact.

June said the stone in her hand weighed more, so it would hit the water first. They let go at the same moment from the same rail.

The two splashes came together. Dad said, "A heavier object does not fall faster just because it weighs more. These stones are both solid, so the extra weight did not make the big one win."

June picked up both stones and felt the difference in her hands. The big one was harder to lift and no quicker in the air. She put them back on the bank so the next hiker would not trip.

From a dock in Wilmington, the moon over the Cape Fear River looked like a bright curve. The rest of the moon was only a dim disk. Andre said Earth's shadow was covering the dark part.

His cousin Nia shook her head. "The sun lights half of the moon. We see only a slice of that lit half, so it looks like a crescent. The dim part is the moon's own night side, turned away from the sun."

She added, "Earth's shadow falls across the moon in a lunar eclipse. That is not what we see tonight. A crescent is the lit half showing us its edge, not a shadow from Earth."

Andre traced the bright curve with his finger in the air. "Then this curve is the lit half," he said. Nia nodded. They stayed until the curve slid lower behind a crane on the far bank.

At the library in Greensboro, Hana slid a book across the desk. The printer made a green slip that said "due yesterday." Hana's stomach dropped. She thought the book was late on her card and that she owed a fine.

The librarian turned the slip around. The name at the top was Malik, Hana's brother, not Hana. "This receipt is for his card," she said. "The book was checked out on Malik's number. Your card has nothing due."

Hana read the name twice. She had seen the date and skipped the line above it. The green slip was a record of Malik's loan, not a bill for her.

She found Malik in the children's room and handed him the slip. He groaned and walked back to the desk. Hana's own books stayed on the hold shelf, still waiting, with no fine attached.

Above Blowing Rock, the trail zigzagged up a steep ridge. Each turn is called a switchback. The path folded back and forth instead of climbing in one straight line.

A boy named Ellis kicked a stone and said the builders had wasted distance. A ranger walking with the group stopped at a turn. "A straight line would be shorter," she said, "but it would be hard on knees and would wash out when rain runs downhill. The zigzag keeps the grade, the steepness of the path, gentle. The extra length spreads the climb."

Last month the same group had taken a straight fire road. Ellis had stopped twice to rest his legs. On this trail he reached the top without those stops.

He looked back at the folds in the path. The long way had been the easier way. A short line was not the same as a kind path for a hiker.

In a Durham living room, Grandmother opened a cedar chest. Quilt squares lay in stacks. A blue square had been an uncle's work shirt. A floral square had been cut from a baby's blanket. Each piece belonged to somebody in the family.

Naomi wanted the whole quilt finished before dinner. She threaded a needle and started long, loose stitches. Grandmother took the needle. "Small stitches hold the squares when the quilt is washed. Long ones pull apart."

They sewed one row of four squares and stopped. The rest stayed in the chest. Grandmother said the quilt could wait for another afternoon. The stories in the cloth were not in a race.

Naomi folded the finished row over a chair. She could name the uncle and the baby. Rushing the quilt would have skipped the part she had come for.

In Pamlico Sound, oysters grow in clumps called reefs. Small fish and crabs slip into the gaps between shells when larger animals swim by. The reef is a hiding place as well as a home.

Water moves across the oysters while they feed. They pull in tiny bits of food floating by. After the water passes the reef, it looks clearer than it did when it arrived.

A town crew lowers bags of old oyster shells onto a muddy spot. Young oysters need something hard to settle on. The shells are the starter for a new reef. The crew does not serve those shells as a meal, and nobody is asked to eat them.

A student on the dock asked if the bags were trash. The crew leader said they look like leftovers, but they are building material. Mud alone is too soft for a young oyster to grip.

In a Charlotte school play, thunder was supposed to boom right after Deon's line, "The storm is here." That line was the cue. The sound crew waited with a metal sheet backstage.

Deon walked to center stage and forgot the words. He froze. The crew did not shake the sheet, because the cue had not been said. The stage stayed quiet.

His friend Mara stood in the wings and whispered, "The storm is." Deon said the rest: "here." The crew shook the sheet, and the thunder rolled. The scene made sense again.

After the show, Deon thanked Mara. At home he said the full line ten times so the next performance would not depend on a whisper. The director had told the cast that thunder before the cue would sound like a mistake.

In a kitchen in Morehead City, a paper list hung on the fridge. The steps were numbered. One: fill the water jugs. Two: charge the phone. Three: carry the porch chairs into the shed. Four: drive to a cousin's house away from the water.

A storm watch was posted on the radio. A neighbor outside was taping windows. Sami grabbed the tape. Mom pointed at the list. "Taping is his plan. Our plan starts with water and the phone. The chairs come after that. We follow our numbers."

They filled the jugs, set the phone on the charger until the battery showed full, and stacked the chairs in the shed. Then they drove inland to the cousin's house. They did not go to the beach to look at the waves.

Sami asked why the list skipped the windows. Mom said a list works only if you do the steps you wrote, in the order you wrote them. Someone else's first step was not theirs.

In a Seagrove pottery shop, bowls dried on a long shelf. Rosa pressed her thumb into one that looked finished. The clay took a dent. The potter, Ms. Lang, shook her head. "Cool and soft means water is still in it."

Ms. Lang set that bowl back on the shelf. "Wet clay in a hot kiln can crack. Water inside turns to steam and pushes on the walls. We wait until the bowl is pale and firm."

The next day Rosa tested a different bowl. Her thumb left no mark. The clay was pale and firm, dry, and no longer cool. Ms. Lang carried it to the kiln with both hands.

Rosa looked at the dented bowl, still on the shelf. Waiting was part of making the bowl. A smooth look from across the room had not meant it was ready.