New York State Testing Program English Language Arts Grade 5

I rode the Staten Island Ferry with Aunt June on a gray Tuesday. The cabin smelled like wet coats, and the ride cost nothing, which my cousin had already told me twice. Aunt June handed me a notebook. She said a short ride is easier to remember if you write what you can actually see.

At the front rail I expected the statue to fill the window. It did not. At first it was a small green mark beside a much larger orange ship. I wrote 'small, then larger' and crossed out 'fills the window.' A man told his son the statue was close enough to touch. I looked at the wide water between the boat and the island and left his sentence off my page.

A recorded voice named the bridges as we passed. It called one bridge new. Aunt June tapped our brochure, which used the same word, then pointed at rust streaks on the tower. 'New to the recording,' she said, 'not new to the harbor.' I drew two columns. One was for what the voice said. The other was for what our eyes could check.

A girl near us sketched gulls. She drew a bird holding a french fry, then erased the fry when the bird dropped it. I liked that she changed the picture to match the bird. My crossed-out line was the same kind of fix.

At the slip, Aunt June asked which note I trusted most. I trusted the columns, because they kept the recording and the rust in different places. The ride had been short. The notebook made my first guess look too sure.

Our class stood on the stone wall of a lock on the Erie Canal near Herkimer. A tour boat waited on the low side. I thought the far gates were stuck, because nothing moved for several minutes. The lock tender, Mr. Pell, shook his head. 'The gates are not stuck,' he said. 'The chamber has to match the next level before they open.'

The chamber is the space between the two sets of gates. It held the boat the way a box holds a toy, except the box could fill with water. Valves opened, and water flowed in through tunnels under the wall. We were not allowed past the yellow line painted on the stone.

My sister Mara counted bricks to make the wait feel shorter. I watched a red cap that someone had dropped beside the boat. At first the cap floated well below the top of the wall. As the chamber filled, the cap rose with the boat. The boat had not grown. The water under it had.

When the water inside matched the canal on the high side, the far gates swung open. Mr. Pell said a lock is like one step of a staircase for boats. Then he held up a hand. 'The staircase idea only explains going up or down. People do not climb the gates, and boats do not skip a step.'

On the way back to the bus, Mara said the best part was the opening gates. I said the best part was the cap, because it showed the rise before the gates moved. Mr. Pell heard us and nodded at both answers. He said watchers can notice different moments and still describe the same lock.

Ms. Calder grows two rows of apples on a hill above the Hudson. She calls the first row Harbor Gold. Those apples turn mostly yellow, taste sweet, and are ready in early September. They bruise if they are piled high, so pickers set them in shallow trays.

The second row is Ridge Tart. Those apples show deep red with green shoulders, taste sharper, and are ready later in the month. Their skin is firm. Pickers may use deeper bins for them. Ms. Calder still warns the class not to dump the bins from waist height.

Both rows follow one picking rule. A picker twists the stem until the apple lets go. A hard pull can tear the spur, the short woody nub that stays on the branch and helps next year's buds. Ms. Calder has the class say 'twist, don't yank' before anyone touches a tree.

Hugo holds up a red apple from the tart row and says every red apple is ready. Ms. Calder presses it gently. It is hard, and the calendar square for Ridge Tart is still a week away. She says color is a clue only if you know which row you are in. Firmness and the date both matter.

At the shed, the trays and the bins sit on different tables. A sign over the trays says 'Gold, early, handle lightly.' A sign over the bins says 'Tart, later, still no dumping.' Hugo copies both signs into his notebook instead of writing one rule for every apple.

Nia helped her uncle at a vegetable stall in the Rochester Public Market. Beets were two dollars a bunch. Radishes were one dollar a bunch. Each price was written on a card propped against a crate. The beets were dark red. The radishes were red and white, with skinny tails.

A child bumped the table, and the cards fell face down. Nia set them back in a hurry. She did not notice that the beet card now faced the radishes. The first customer paid two dollars for a bunch of radishes. Uncle Sol counted the bills, looked at the crate, and handed one dollar back.

The card has to name the vegetable in front of it, he said. Nia wanted to skip cards and remember the prices. Uncle Sol shook his head. Memory slips when the aisle is crowded. The card is the promise the customer reads. He had Nia point at the radishes and read the card aloud before the next sale.

They started a tally, a mark on a paper strip for each bunch sold, so they could check the money at noon. Nia made the beet marks in one column and the radish marks in another. Mixing the columns would have repeated the morning's mistake.

Before the lunch rush, Nia tied each card to a crate handle with string. A bump could shake the table, but it could not trade the cards. Uncle Sol tested the knots. Then he asked Nia to read both prices once more, with her finger on the right leaves.

Theo's class walked onto the high path across the Hudson at Poughkeepsie. A plaque said trains once used the deck. Theo started a sentence in his notebook: trains still cross here every hour. His teacher, Mr. Gomez, tapped the plaque. That sentence tells about the past, he said. Today the deck is for people walking and riding bicycles.

From the middle, the river looked still. Mr. Gomez had the class watch a blue barge beside a stone pier. After a minute the barge had moved past the pier. Theo wrote that height can make a steady trip look slow. The barge had not stopped. His eyes had needed a marker.

The ramp at the end was different from the middle of the span. Span means the long stretch between the towers. On the ramp, papers stayed in an open folder. On the span, the same folder needed two hands. A hat blew off and skidded, and the class paused by a tower until the owner caught it.

A younger student thought the pause meant the walkway was closing. Mr. Gomez said they had stopped for the hat, not because of a signal to leave. The deck was still open. They walked on when the hat was back on a head.

Theo crossed out the sentence about trains every hour. Under it he wrote two comparisons: past deck and present deck, and ramp wind and span wind. He added the barge and the pier as the proof that the river traffic was moving.

Luis attends a school on the south side of Buffalo. His cousin Nina lives on the north side. One Thursday the lake-effect snow did not treat the two streets alike. Lake-effect snow forms when cold air crosses the warmer lake and then drops in heavy bands. A band is a narrow stripe of snowfall, not a blanket over the whole city.

The school's plan has three parts. First, the office checks a band map before the buses leave. Second, a late-bus list names the streets inside the heaviest stripe. Third, recess moves indoors if the sidewalk markers are buried. Principal Okonkwo says the plan answers a sudden stripe, not a gentle flurry.

The regular forecast that morning talked about two inches by evening across a wide area. The band map showed something sharper. Nina's block had a pile over the steps. Luis's block had a dusting, and the yellow sidewalk markers were still easy to see. Same city, same morning, different snow.

The phone message used two words that students sometimes swap. Delayed meant buses would come later. Closed meant they would not come. The message said delayed, and it named the north-side streets on the late list. Luis still went to school on time. Nina waited for the later bus.

At lunch Luis called the wide forecast wrong because his coat was almost dry. Principal Okonkwo had come into the room to hear how the morning felt. She shook her head. The wide forecast and the band can both be real, she said. Your dry coat does not erase your cousin's steps. She had him trace the stripe with a finger before he judged the whole city.

Devon needed facts about the Erie Canal for a report. In the Albany library he pulled a book because a boat on the cover looked right. The first page began with a made-up captain who raced the moon. Devon stopped. A real place on a cover was not the same as facts inside.

Librarian Ms. Shah walked him to two shelves. The story shelf wore a small boat sticker. She said the boat meant made up. The fact shelf wore a ruler sticker. The ruler meant records and explanations. A book could name the canal and still belong on the boat shelf if the people and events were invented.

Devon found a story he wanted for the weekend and a fact book that showed dates, maps, and a diagram of a lock. He put them in different bags. Ms. Shah said the bags were a way to keep his jobs separate. The report bag was for material he could cite. The weekend bag was for a tale he could simply enjoy.

He almost copied the moon-race sentence into his notes. The sentence was exciting, and the cover had shown the canal. Ms. Shah asked which sticker was on that book. The boat sticker was. Devon closed it. He wrote from the ruler book and added the story's title on a different line marked read later.

On the way out he told Ms. Shah the cover had fooled him. She said covers invite readers, and stickers sort the invitation. Devon tapped the two bags so they would not become one pile on the bus.

Samir helps his uncle before dawn in a bagel shop in Queens. A card over the tray rack says, Proof the trays. In math class, proof means showing that an answer is true. Samir reaches for a pencil. Uncle Farid taps a warm cabinet. Here, proof means let the shaped dough rise until it is puffy. It does not mean prove the bagels are finished.

The card lists the shop order. Mix the dough. Shape the rings. Proof them in the cabinet. Boil them briefly. Bake them until the centers are cooked. Samir likes the boil step the least, because the water splashes. Uncle Farid says the boil sets the skin. The oven then finishes the middle. Skipping ahead would change both.

One tray looks as if it has waited long enough. Samir starts to slide it toward the oven. The dough is still tight and short. Uncle Farid sets it back. Puffy, not just present, he says. Bagels baked too early stay dense and pale inside. The card's order is there so a sleepy helper does not invent a shorter one.

A word on the window says hot. Samir asks if hot means the dough in the cabinet. Uncle Farid says the window means bagels that have been baked. The cabinet is only warm enough for rising. Two kinds of heat do two kinds of work.

By the time the first tray is boiled and baked, Samir can tell the meanings apart. He writes the word rise in pencil beside proof on his own copy of the card. He does not change the shop card. He changes what the word does in his head.

On a Saturday, students flagged a stretch of the Bronx River. Blue flags marked banks that were crumbling into the water. Orange flags marked litter a crew could carry out. The colors were a code. Blue meant do not dig. Orange meant bag it and haul it.

Petra was new. Mud looked messy to her, so she planted orange flags at every muddy spot. Mr. Cruz stopped her at a bend where the bank had slumped. He lifted a blue flag. This mud is the bank itself, he said. It is not a bag or a bottle. If we pull rocks out of a blue site, more of the bank can fall.

He showed her an orange site a few steps away. There the ground was firm, and the mess was a bottle, a torn bag, and a coil of wire. Those things did not hold the bank together. The crew could lift them. Petra moved her wrong orange flags and left the blue ones where the soil was sliding.

The group kept two lists. The blue list named places for a later repair team. The orange list named bags the Saturday crew could finish that day. Petra wanted one list called mess. Mr. Cruz said one word would hide two jobs. A repair team with shovels should not arrive where the only need is a bag.

At the end, Petra read a flag before she touched anything. Color first, then hands. She told a friend that messy and movable are not the same fact.

I am Ruiz, the weekend volunteer at the Montauk light. I keep this log so the next volunteer will know why the horn started and stopped. The horn is not a toy, and it is not a call that a ship is sinking.

Friday, 6 a.m. Fog sat thick on the water. I started the horn. A visitor asked if the sound meant a ship was in trouble. I wrote the answer here: the horn warns boats that the point is hard to see. Trouble would be reported in a different way. The sound means watch where you steer, not come rescue us.

Friday, 8 a.m. The fog lifted, and I stopped the horn. A child asked me to leave it on because it sounded brave. I wrote no. A horn in clear air would teach the wrong meaning. Visitors can enjoy the view without a warning that does not match the weather.

Friday, noon. The buoy offshore was easy to see. A buoy is the floating marker that shows a spot on the water. Because I could see it, the horn stayed quiet. The lamp room was closed to visitors today. I offered the plaque and the lawn instead of a climb.

Saturday morning. Fog returned, but it was thin at first. I did not start the horn at a clock time. I waited until I could not see the buoy. The rule I want the next volunteer to copy is this: the horn follows what the eye cannot see, not the hour on the page.

Lila and her cousin Abe stood in a Manhattan station with two stairways. They needed a downtown train to meet Uncle Nate near City Hall. Downtown, on these signs, means the direction toward the lower part of the city. It does not mean the stairs that happen to go down.

Abe followed the larger crowd. More people can't be wrong, he said. Lila stayed by the sign. It listed their train letter and the word Downtown, with an arrow. Another sign said Uptown and pointed the other way, toward the Bronx. The crowd's stairway matched Uptown.

A station agent stood near the platform edge. Abe asked whether the big crowd was the proof. The agent shook her head. A crowd can be going to a game, she said. Your word is Downtown. She also pointed to the yellow stripe along the platform. That stripe means stand back from the edge. It does not choose your direction.

They took the Downtown stairs. On the platform Lila read the train letter again before the doors opened. Abe kept his hands behind the stripe. When the car moved, he watched the route map light the stops toward City Hall.

Uncle Nate met them at the library door. Abe told him the crowd had looked sure. Lila said sure and correct were different. She had trusted the direction word and the train letter, not the size of the crowd.

Mrs. Adeyemi milks cows twice a day on a farm near Seneca Lake. The dawn milking is quiet. Lights stay low, and the cows come in from the near pasture. The dusk milking adds a walk down the lane, because school groups use that lane in the afternoon and can leave it muddy.

Milk from both times goes into the same cooled tank. The tank is the big container that chills the milk. It is not a truck, even though a truck comes later. Mrs. Adeyemi tells visitors that one tank does not mean one kind of note. The barn book has a dawn page and a dusk page.

The dawn page records which cows were slow to enter. The dusk page records whether the lane was scraped after the groups left. Slow cows and a rutted lane are different facts. Writing them on one line would make a helper fix the wrong thing.

A visitor named Carl sees mud and says more mud must mean more milk. Mrs. Adeyemi shakes her head. Mud is about the path, she says. The tank tells you about the milk. Do not ask the path to answer a tank question. She shows him the dusk page, where lane scraped can be yes or no without changing the milk total.

Carl copies the two headings into a school notebook. He writes 'same tank, separate notes' underneath. Mrs. Adeyemi says that sentence is the one she hopes he remembers on the bus.

I am the cue caller for our school play in Syracuse, which means I give the signals backstage. A cue is the agreed signal to start the next action. It is not a feeling that the scene has become exciting. Tonight my cue for the light change is Jonah lifting the blue cup.

Jonah plays the lead. He likes to add jokes that are not on the card. The director, Ms. Patel, says the card is the line the audience must hear. An extra joke can cover the next person's entrance. Jonah wants the scene to sound bigger. Ms. Patel wants the next actor to be heard.

In rehearsal I once called go when the audience laughed. The light changed early. The actor who enters with a letter walked into a bright stage before Jonah had lifted the cup. Ms. Patel stopped us. The laugh is theirs, she said. The cup is yours. Do not trade them.

During the next run Jonah lifted the cup and kept the jokes out. I said go at the lift. The letter actor entered on time, and the line on the card stayed clear. Jonah looked disappointed for a second. Then he grinned. The scene had worked because the parts fit, not because he had stretched his speech.

Afterward I wrote the rule on my script: call the cue you were given, not the feeling you like. Ms. Patel read it and nodded. She said the audience can enjoy a play without seeing the signals that keep it in order.

The community garden in Red Hook keeps a hose board by the gate. Each peg is a slot, a reserved time when one plot may use the hose. Morning slots are for seedlings, which need a short drink while the day is still cool. Evening slots are for older tomatoes, which need a deeper soak after the sun eases.

Mr. Diaz arrived early and took a morning peg even though his tomatoes were old. Water ran until his soil shone. Beside him, Amina's seedlings wilted in a dry row. She was the garden lead, and her own peg was later. She did not grab the hose out of his hands. She pointed at the board.

The peg is matched to the plant, not to who reaches the gate first, she said. Seedlings can drown under a long flood, and they also suffer if they miss the cool drink. Tomatoes can wait until evening for a deep soak. Mr. Diaz's early flood helped neither plot.

They moved his peg to an evening slot and gave the rest of the morning back to the seedling row. Amina showed him how a short drink looks: damp soil, not a puddle. He wrote short beside the morning pegs and deep beside the evening pegs.

The next week he checked the board before he touched the faucet. His tomatoes got their soak at dusk. The seedling row was already green from the morning. He told Amina the gate was still busy, but the pegs kept the busy part from becoming a race.

A class visited a tug tied at a pier in Brooklyn. Mate Flores drew a barge as a long rectangle. She put an X at one corner. A push here makes the barge pivot, she said. Pivot means turn in place. A push at the middle drives it straight. Straight is useful in open water. It is a poor way to swing the far end past this dock.

Helen thought the bigger engine should always win. She pointed at a huge ship down the pier. Mate Flores nodded at the ship and then at the X. Power matters, but place matters too. A smaller tug at the right corner can turn a heavy barge that a straight shove would only crowd into the dock.

She walked the class through one turn. First the line goes on. Then the tug pushes slowly at the corner. The crew watches the far end swing. They stop the push before that end passes the white mark painted on the pier. The mark is the limit, not a target to beat.

Helen asked why they would stop if the swing looked exciting. Mate Flores said excitement is not a measurement. The mark is. Passing it could send the far end toward another boat. The slow push and the early stop are what make the turn controlled.

On the worksheet Helen labeled two arrows. One said middle, straight. The other said corner, pivot. She wrote the ship's size in a corner of the page and then crossed out the idea that size alone chooses the winner.

Ranger Ibarra led a snow walk near Lake Placid. She told the group to read sets of prints before they invented a story. Hare prints come in a hopping set: two small marks ahead and two longer marks behind. Fox prints make a nearly straight line of single prints, one after another.

Wes found a messy patch and wanted to call it a fight. The snow there was pocked, and the line of fox prints disappeared at the edge. Ranger Ibarra looked up. A pine branch hung over the patch, and snow had slid off it. This blur is fallen snow, she said. A blur is a place where the prints were smeared. It is not a story we can prove.

They walked until the fox line showed again beyond the branch. The prints were single and straight, with no second animal beside them. Wes wrote 'fox continues' and left the messy patch as snow from the branch. He did not add teeth or a chase.

The hare sets were easier to lose in deep powder. Ranger Ibarra had the group measure one set with a glove length instead of guessing. The two small marks stayed ahead of the longer ones. A student asked if a hare could make a straight fox line by hopping carefully. She said the set would still show the paired shape, not a row of single prints.

On the ride back Wes read his page aloud. It had two patterns and one blank he refused to fill. Ranger Ibarra said the blank was good science. A gap you can explain as fallen snow is more honest than a fight you only wish to see.

My cousin Bea mailed a postcard from Niagara Falls. She wrote that the rail was wet, the water was so loud she could not hear her father, and she had to point instead of talk. Then she added that the falls were the only important water in New York. I read that line twice at our kitchen table in Owego.

I wrote back from the creek that runs toward the Susquehanna. Our class had just measured a riffle. A riffle is a shallow stretch where the water speeds up over stones. It is not a waterfall, and it does not soak a raincoat. We could hear a kingfisher over it. I could also hear my teacher without pointing.

I did not tell Bea her falls were unimportant. I told her that loud and important are not the same measurement. Her postcard shows what the falls do to your ears. My postcard shows what you notice when the water lets you hear. One visit cannot stand in for every river.

Bea answered on the bottom of my card, because she was home by then. She wrote that she still liked the loud water best. Under that she added that she should not have said it was the only water that counts. She drew a small kingfisher next to her arrow about the falls.

I pinned both cards on the board. The falls card is about sound you cannot talk over. The creek card is about a shallow speed you can measure and a bird you can hear. Together they hold two truths. Apart, each one would have been too proud.