Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System Reading Grade 3

Mina brought an empty shoe box to the class walk at Crane Beach. She had lined it with soft paper. Her brother had asked for a beautiful shell, and Mina wanted to bring him the best one.

At the beach, their guide explained that this class visit was for looking and recording. Everything they found would stay where it was. Mina folded the paper flat in her box. She watched the other students draw marks and pictures on their clipboards.

Near a strip of seaweed, she found a shell with a tiny round hole. She knelt to look closely. A second shell had a broken edge, and a third had lines like the ribs of a fan. She drew the three shapes on the paper from her box. Under each she wrote where it lay.

On the bus, Theo asked whether the empty box was a waste to carry. Mina opened it. The drawings lay on the bottom. Theo pointed to the round hole. He had not noticed that shell at all.

At home, Mina’s brother set the box on his desk. He traced one drawing with a finger and asked what had made the hole. Mina did not know. They wrote the question on the lid so they could look for an answer together.

On a warm day, Luis and his grandmother sit by the lagoon in the Boston Public Garden. A sign says the swan boats ride in a circle and return to the same dock. Riders must stay seated until the boat stops.

Luis wants the front seat. Three people wait ahead of him: a man in a red cap, a girl with a green backpack, and a woman holding a map. Luis is fourth in line.

The driver sits inside a large white swan at the back and pedals. Luis watches the driver's feet go around. Ducks paddle beside the boat. Luis stays in his seat.

When the boat stops at the dock, Luis steps off. He tells his grandmother that the ducks made it easy to stay seated. He still got the ride he wanted.

In Carver, a cranberry bog looks like a flat red field in the fall. The berries grow on low vines close to the ground. They do not grow on tall trees.

Ms. Pena tells the visiting class that workers flood the bog with water at harvest. The berries have small air pockets, so they float. Workers then guide the floating berries to a corner of the bog.

Caleb thinks the water is only for washing. Ms. Pena says the flood lifts the berries so people can gather them. Washing can come later. The flood comes first.

Caleb writes three facts in his notebook. The vines are low. The berries float. The water helps workers gather them. He does not write that cranberries grow on tall trees.

Near Great Barrington, a sugar house stands beside a maple woods. In late winter, clear sap drips from taps in the trees into covered buckets. Sap is not syrup yet.

Inside, Mr. Brooks boils the sap in a wide pan. Steam clouds the windows. He says the heat cooks water out of the sap. The liquid that remains grows thicker and sweeter. That liquid is maple syrup.

Jade asks if the bucket sap is ready for pancakes. Mr. Brooks says the sap is thin and mostly water. Visitors taste only the syrup prepared for serving. The syrup for pancakes comes from the pan, after the boil.

Jade draws two jars in her notebook. She labels the thin clear jar sap. She labels the thick golden jar syrup. Under an arrow from the tree to the pan, she writes, Boil it first.

Uncle Ray takes Priya onto his lobster boat in Gloucester Harbor before the sun is high. He gives two rules. Wear a life jacket the whole time. Stay off the stack of rope while the boat is moving.

Priya snaps her jacket. A yellow buoy, a float that shows a spot in the water, hangs on the rail. Uncle Ray says each buoy marks one of his traps on the bottom. He does not pull a trap today. This ride is only to show Priya the harbor.

A gray seal lifts its head near a green channel marker. Priya steps toward the rope for a better look. Uncle Ray points at her feet. She steps back. The boat rocks, and she is glad the jacket is snug.

At the dock, Priya unsnaps the jacket only after both feet are on the boards. She says the seal was not a reason to break the rope rule.

The third grade from Lexington visits the North Bridge in Concord. A ranger asks the students to stay on the path and use quiet voices. The bridge is a wooden arch over the river.

A sign says that in 1775, colonial farmers stood on one side of the river and British soldiers stood on the other. The sign says the farmers were called minutemen because they could gather quickly. Omar reads the sign twice.

Omar wants to draw the stone marker. Lila wants to draw the river. They have one pencil. Omar finds a second short pencil in his bag and gives it to Lila so each of them can draw. The ranger still asks them to whisper.

On the bus, Omar looks at his marker sketch. Lila looks at her river sketch. Omar says sharing the pencil made two pictures.

In Lowell, a class walks beside a canal that once carried water to the mills. A black gate blocks a staircase down to the water. The sign on the gate says, Keep out. The walkway above the canal is open.

Rosa reads the sign twice. Ben leans on the gate and jokes that one quick step would be fine. Rosa says the sign does not have a joke line. It says keep out.

Their teacher, Mr. Chen, points to the mills across the canal. He says the old wheels used the moving water to turn machines. The water was a tool for work. It was not a place for a step past the gate.

Ben moves to the middle of the walkway. He copies the sign into his notebook. Rosa draws the gate. She does not draw the staircase behind it.

Rain taps the windows of a library in Worcester. Hector needs a book about maps, but his library card is not in his coat. He checks both pockets and his backpack. The card is still missing.

Ms. Adeyemi, the librarian, says he may type his student number instead. Hector copies the number from his school ID. The screen shows his name. Ms. Adeyemi checks out the map book.

Hector reads that some maps use a star to mark north. He writes that fact on a slip of paper. He also writes a reminder to look for the card at home.

When the rain slows, he zips the book into his backpack. He thanks Ms. Adeyemi for the student-number rule. The card is still not in his hand.

Aunt June and Mateo stand at the ferry dock in Woods Hole. A board lists the boat to Oak Bluffs. It leaves at 11:15. Mateo wants lemonade first. Aunt June points at the board and says they should board first.

They choose an inside bench. A crew member says riders may visit the rail, but they must come inside if the horn sounds twice. Mateo repeats that rule.

From the rail he counts six fishing boats in the harbor. He does not count the ferry he is standing on. Aunt June buys two bags of pretzels. Each bag costs one dollar, so she pays two dollars.

The horn sounds twice when the wind rises. Mateo returns to the bench. He says he is glad they did not miss the 11:15 boat for lemonade.

At Blue Hills Reservation, a map board stands near Houghton's Pond. A red paper covers the summit path. The paper says the path is closed because a stone step is loose. The pond loop is open.

Sonia wants the view from the top. Her father reads the paper aloud. He says a closed path is not a puzzle to solve. They take the pond loop.

On the loop they cross a wooden footbridge. They pass green blueberries. A sign says picking is not allowed. Sonia leaves the berries on the bush.

She does not reach the summit. She does see a hawk circling over the pond. She says the open path still gave them something good to watch.

At a Boston science club, Amari cut a paper square for a falling-paper challenge. His partner Eva made a shape with folded corners. The task was to make the paper take longer to reach the floor, using the same kind and amount of paper.

Amari stood on a chair and dropped his square. Eva dropped hers from her hand while standing on the floor. His paper stayed up longer. He reached for the winner’s sticker.

Eva looked from the chair to the floor. She asked whether both papers could start at the same height. Their teacher marked a safe standing height on the wall. Both children held their papers at that mark and let go together.

This time Eva’s folded paper drifted slowly while Amari’s square slid down. They tried three more times. Sometimes a paper turned, but Eva’s usually stayed up longer. Amari wrote each result instead of putting the sticker on his paper.

For the last try, he changed one corner of his square. He showed Eva what he had folded and asked her to keep hers the same. She held out her notebook so they could record the new comparison. The sticker stayed on the teacher’s desk while the papers fell.

Snow ticks the windows of a classroom in Worcester. The class is talking about winter. Ms. Brooks sets a lamp on a table and a globe on a chair. She does not slide the chair back.

She tips the globe so the top leans away from the lamp. She calls that lean tilt. On the board are two rules. Seasons come from tilt. Seasons do not come from distance.

Light falls in a slant across Massachusetts on the globe. Ms. Brooks says slanted light spreads out and is less direct. That is why winter is cold there. The chair stays the same distance from the lamp.

Amina had started a sentence with the word far. She crosses that word out. Above it she writes tilted away. She tells the class she will follow the board.

Jonah’s class in Marblehead built a cardboard model for a night-sky display. A lamp stood outside the box. Inside, a white ball hung from a string. A small viewing hole let visitors look in without moving the lamp.

Jonah painted stars on the outside. He wanted the box to look like nighttime. His friend Lila asked to test it before they finished decorating. When she looked through the hole, the ball was hidden behind a folded edge of cardboard.

Jonah cut a wider window. Now Lila could see the ball, but the larger opening let visitors stand in the lamp’s light. A dark patch crossed the ball whenever someone leaned over it. Jonah started painting that patch onto his diagram. Their teacher asked him to look again while Lila stepped aside. The patch vanished.

They moved the viewing hole to a different side and marked a place for visitors to stand. The lamp’s light reached the ball without anyone blocking it. Jonah drew the lit and unlit parts he could see, then checked the view once more.

At the display, a younger child asked why there were pencil marks beside the painted stars. Jonah showed him the first window and the cardboard patch over it. He explained what had changed. The child looked through the final hole twice before moving on.

Dear Ben, Our class in Plymouth spent the morning at the harbor. Mr. Diaz said we could sketch what we saw, but we had to keep our hands off the rope fence around the old stone marker.

I sketched twelve small boats on one pier. Ada did not sketch boats. She sketched three gulls on a piling. On the bus we traded papers so each of us could see the other picture.

I had packed two oatmeal cookies. I meant to save one for you. I ate both. I am sorry. I will bring a harbor shell when we visit you in Springfield.

Write back and tell me if the river near you has gulls too. Your cousin, Lucia.

The third-grade play is at a school in Quincy. Nora plays a lighthouse keeper. Her line is, The lamp is lit. She prints that line on a small card.

Before the show, she tapes the card inside a paper lantern. The lantern faces her, not the seats, so the audience cannot read the card. She hopes she will not need it.

On show night, the bright lights make her mind go blank. She looks into the lantern, reads the card, and says, The lamp is lit. The next actor answers, and the scene goes on.

After the show, Nora tells her teacher the card helped. She still wants to learn the line by heart before the next performance. The card was a backup, not a replacement for practice.

On Saturday, the Haymarket stalls in Boston are crowded. Mr. Costa sells apples in two ways. A brown bag costs three dollars and holds six apples. A sample tray is free, and each shopper may take one slice.

Elena has three dollars. She wants the brown bag. Her brother Nico reaches for a second slice. Elena reads the sign aloud: one slice. Nico puts the second slice back.

Elena pays with her three dollars. Mr. Costa counts six apples into the bag. He does not add a seventh. Elena counts the apples again before she leaves.

Nico eats his one slice as they walk to the subway. Elena says the free slice and the paid bag follow different rules. They followed both.

At Halibut Point in Rockport, a fence runs along an old quarry, a deep rock pit. A sign says visitors must stay on the safe side of the fence. The drop on the far side is steep, and that side is not part of the walk.

Jules wants a tide pool on the rocks below. Those rocks are past the fence. A ranger points to a different pool on the safe side. She says that pool is the one visitors may use.

Jules kneels by the allowed pool. She counts eight snails and one small crab. She does not pick them up. A second sign says, Look, but leave animals where they are.

Jules tells the ranger that the first pool would have broken the fence rule. The second pool let her look and still follow both signs.