Pennsylvania Keystone Exams Literature

In a Harrisburg school, the geography class draws a map of a bridge. The map uses 1 centimeter for 8 meters. A note under the title says to multiply the centimeters in the drawing by 8 when the question asks for the real length.

The bridge is drawn as 3 centimeters. Lena adds 3 and 8 and writes 11 meters. Omar says the bridge is 24 centimeters because the number 24 comes into his head when he sees a 3. Ms. Adeyemi writes the step on the board: 3 × 8 = 24. The bridge is 24 meters long.

Lena erases 11 meters. Omar crosses out centimeters. The class labels the real bridge 24 meters and leaves the drawing at 3 centimeters. The scale changes centimeters on the paper into meters on the river. Adding the scale number to the drawing does not give the length.

A short article in the Lancaster school paper explains the season along the Susquehanna. Earth is closest to the Sun in January. A Pennsylvania January is still winter because of axis tilt, not distance.

The article says the tilt tips Pennsylvania away from the Sun's direct rays in January. Snow on the riverbank does not mean Earth has traveled far from the Sun. The article names a common mistake and rejects it. That mistake says January is warm because Earth is closest.

Students who walk the river path in January wear coats. The paper says the coats match the tilt. Closeness to the Sun does not turn that Pennsylvania month into summer.

On a clear night in the Poconos, Ranger Inez talks with a school group about the Moon. Monthly Moon phases are the changing view of the lit half. The Moon is always half lit by the Sun. What changes is how much of that lit half faces Earth.

A student says the dark part is Earth's shadow passing over the Moon every month. Ranger Inez disagrees. Earth's shadow is a lunar eclipse and is not the monthly cycle. An eclipse is a special alignment. It does not create the regular phases.

The group looks at a half-lit Moon. The ranger says they are seeing part of the lit half, not a shadow from Earth. She tells them to keep two events apart: phases each month, and a lunar eclipse when Earth's shadow falls on the Moon.

Before eight, Lancaster lifts its awnings. I line pears on a blue cloth and call that line a promise. In this market, a promise means fruit kept on the cloth until a buyer takes it.

My cousin from Pittsburgh lifts a camera toward the empty square. I turn the same early light onto the price cards. We share the hour. We do not share the errand.

The bell ends the quiet. Waiting becomes selling in one stroke of sound. The pears shine for the buyer, not for the lens and not for my cards.

Imani borrowed a violin from the Philadelphia school office. The card on the case defines a loan as an overnight borrow that must return before the office locks. The office locks at 5 p.m. on school days.

She stayed after orchestra because she wanted the violin back on the office shelf before the lock. That was her motive. She was not staying to practice the solo again.

Her friend Chris said she could return it in the morning, because the case still looked new. Imani said, "A new case does not move the lock. The card says before 5 p.m." At 4:50 p.m. she set the violin on the shelf, and the clerk signed the card. Chris stayed in the practice room and played the solo once more.

At a Harrisburg school, a rule taped to the newsroom monitor defines two words. A lead is the first sentence, and it must state the fact. A bury means the fact is hidden under something else, such as a joke or a detail that is only color.

The concert story's fact is that the choir raised $200 for the river cleanup. A classmate wants the lead to say the soloist wore silver shoes. Priya, the editor, refuses. Her motive is to put the $200 fact in the first sentence.

The printed lead says the choir raised $200 for the river cleanup. The silver shoes appear in the third sentence. Priya tells the classmate that a later sentence may add color, and the lead may not trade the fact for it.

A note taped to the Pittsburgh school stage defines a hold. A hold means a pause the actor must keep until the stage manager says go. A hold is written into the scene. It is not a mistake.

The actor playing Ruth starts to rush the last line. Dee, the stage manager, says, "Hold. The pause is part of the line." Dee's motive is to protect that written pause.

Ruth asks if a hold means she forgot the words. Dee says no. "A hold is a planned pause. Forgetting is a different problem, and you have not done that." After the pause, Ruth speaks the last line slowly. Dee nods. The rush would have hidden the pause the note required.

A river mile is a measure along the Susquehanna, not along the road beside it. Near this river town, river mile 12 is the painted post by the boat ramp. The number 12 counts miles along the water from a fixed start downstream.

A road sign near the ramp says 9 miles to the highway bridge. Those 9 miles follow the road. They are not river miles. A boater who treats 9 as a river mile will look for the wrong post.

The county guide says to use the painted post for the river and the road sign for the car. Mixing the two numbers was the mistake a school crew made last fall. They waited at river mile 9 and missed the ramp at river mile 12.

The trail card for the Poconos school hike defines a switchback as a path that turns sharply and reverses direction to climb the hill. The card says a switchback is not a shortcut and not a dead end.

Elena's motive is to reach the overlook by noon for a photo contest that closes at 12:00. Her brother Mateo's motive is to stop and listen for thrushes. He does not care about the noon deadline.

Elena wants to skip a switchback and walk straight up through the leaves. The guide, Mr. Shah, says no. "Straight up is not the path. The switchback is the climb the card describes." They reach the overlook at 11:50 a.m. Elena takes the photo. On the way down, after the contest time has passed, Mateo hears one thrush. He says the bird was the point of his walk.

In the river town bakery, the first loaf of the day is called the hearth loaf. A hearth loaf means the loaf set aside for the neighbor, and it is not for sale.

Mrs. Dane's motive is to keep a promise to Mr. Ortiz, who walks and does not drive. She leaves the hearth loaf in a paper bag by the side door before she unlocks the counter.

At 6:10 a.m. a customer offers double the usual price for that bag. Mrs. Dane says no. "Double price can change a sale. It does not change a loaf that is not for sale." Mr. Ortiz arrives at 6:20 a.m., and the bag is still there. The customer buys a later loaf from the counter. The two loaves look alike. Only the hearth loaf was promised.

In Lancaster, Rosa reads a note in her sewing box. A binding is the cloth strip that finishes the outer edge of a quilt. A binding is not the pattern in the center, and it is not the thread color by itself.

Rosa's motive is to finish her grandmother's quilt before the fair on Saturday. The center pattern is already done. The edge is still open.

Her brother Theo says a safety pin can close the edge for one day at the fair. Rosa says a pin is a hold, not a finish. She sews the binding on Friday night. On Saturday the quilt hangs with the binding in place. The judge's card praises the finished edge. Theo's pin stays in Rosa's pocket, unused.

In the river town school, the literature teacher defines an aside. An aside is words a character speaks so the audience hears them and the other characters on stage do not. An aside is not a whisper to another character.

In the class scene, Mara says to the audience, "I will return the book tonight," while Luis looks away and does not hear her. That line is the aside. Mara's motive, stated in the aside, is to return the book tonight.

Ben plays Luis and asks if he should answer the line. Ms. Cole says no. "If you answer, it is no longer an aside. The other characters do not hear an aside." Ben stays silent. The class writes that Luis's silence shows he did not hear the plan.

At the Harrisburg school office, a public notice and a private note do different jobs. The notice on the door says the concert is at 7 p.m. in the gym. The private note in the folder says the soloist needs a ride at 6:15 p.m.

Anya carries the folder because her motive is to give the soloist the ride time. She does not carry it to change the concert time.

A visitor reads the door and tells a friend that the soloist should arrive at 7. Anya does not correct the visitor in the lobby. She hands the folder to the soloist in the hall and says, "The door is for the crowd. The note is for you." The soloist leaves for the ride at 6:15 p.m. The crowd uses 7 p.m.

In the Philadelphia school paper, a deck is the sentence printed under a headline. The deck adds one fact that the headline did not have room to hold. A deck is not a second headline, and it is not the article's last line.

Last week's headline said, "Choir Sings at the Park." The deck said the concert was free and began at 4 p.m. Readers who stopped at the headline missed the time and missed that the concert was free.

The editor, Camille, tells new writers that a headline may stay short and a deck must carry the extra fact. She moved the words "free at 4 p.m." out of the final paragraph and into the deck. Her motive was that many readers never reach the end.

A letter from Philadelphia says, "I practice violin on the fire escape because the apartment is loud after dinner. My motive is a quiet half hour, and the fire escape is the only quiet spot."

A letter from the Poconos says, "I practice the same piece on the porch. My motive is to hear the piece without traffic. The porch is quiet, but it is not an escape from noise inside the house. The house is already quiet."

The Philadelphia letter says traffic is the problem. The Poconos letter says traffic is absent. Both writers name the same hard spot: bar 12. Both agree to slow bar 12 to half speed. Neither letter says the piece is easy. Both say bar 12 is the measure they miss.

In a Pittsburgh school story, Nia borrows a coat for the play and says, "A borrowed coat still belongs to the owner." The narrator states that this sentence is the theme, the idea the story keeps returning to.

Nia's motive for borrowing the coat is to look like the character, a mail carrier. She does not borrow it because she is cold. In this story, borrow means to use the coat on stage and then give it back. It does not mean to keep it.

After the scene she hangs the coat on the owner's hook. A classmate says she should wear it home because the night is windy. Nia refuses. The wind is real, and the theme still sends the coat back. The owner, Mr. Ellis, finds the coat on the hook. He says nothing about the play. The returned coat is the story's last picture of the theme.

On the Susquehanna, in the river town, a gauge is the set of painted numbers on the post office wall that show the river's height in feet. A gauge is not a clock, and it is not a guess made by listening to the water.

My motive is to copy today's number and compare it with a number my grandparent wrote in 1996. My grandparent wrote 18 feet during a flood. Today the gauge reads 6 feet.

A tourist says the river looks about 18 feet because the water sounds loud. I point to the painted 6. "Loud water is not a height. The gauge says 6 feet today." The notebook now holds both numbers, 18 feet then and 6 feet now. The contrast is a flood reading against a lower reading, and both numbers come from the gauge.