CKLA 5 Beginning of Year Assessment Part 1

​Beginning-of-Year Assessment—Reading Comprehension You will read the selection. Some of the questions have two parts. You should answer Part A of the question before you answer Part B. Passage 1: “Mercury and the Woodman,” by Aesop

1 A poor Woodman was cutting down a tree near the edge of a deep pool in the forest. It was late in the day and the Woodman was tired. He had been working since sunrise and his strokes were not so sure as they had been early that morning. Thus it happened that the axe slipped and flew out of his hands into the pool.

2 The Woodman was in despair. The axe was all he possessed with which to make a living, and he had not money enough to buy a new one. As he stood wringing his hands and weeping, the god Mercury suddenly appeared and asked what the trouble was. The Woodman told what had happened, and

​ straightway the kind Mercury dived into the pool. When he came up again he held a wonderful golden axe.

3 “Is this your axe?” Mercury asked the Woodman.

4 “No,” answered the honest Woodman, “that is not my axe.”

5 Mercury laid the golden axe on the bank and sprang back into the pool. This time he brought up an axe of silver, but the Woodman declared again that his axe was just an ordinary one with a wooden handle.

6 Mercury dived down for the third time, and when he came up again he had the very axe that had been lost. 7 The poor Woodman was very glad that his axe had been found and could not thank the kind god enough. Mercury was greatly pleased with the Woodman’s honesty. 8 “I admire your honesty,” he said, “and as a reward you may have all three axes, the gold and the silver as

​ well as your own.”

9 The happy Woodman returned to his home with his treasures, and soon the story of his good fortune was known to everybody in the village. Now there were several Woodmen in the village who believed that they could easily win the same good fortune. They hurried out into the woods, one here, one there, and hiding their axes in the bushes, pretended they had lost them. Then they wept and wailed and called on Mercury to help them.

10 And indeed, Mercury did appear, first to this one, then to that. To each one he showed an axe of gold, and each one eagerly claimed it to be the one he had lost. But Mercury did not give them the golden axe. Oh no! Instead he gave them each a hard whack over the head with it and sent them home. And when they returned the next day to look for their own axes, they were nowhere to be found.

​11 Honesty is the best policy.

Open Ended

Questions 1–5 pertain to Passage 1: “Mercury and the Woodman,” by Aesop

 

1. Explain why the axe slipped and flew out of the Woodman’s hands into the pool.

Multiple Choice

Despair means the feeling of having lost hope that something will improve. Why was

the Woodman in despair?

• He didn’t finish cutting down the tree he had started cutting down.

• He didn’t want to tell Mercury what had happened.He didn’t want to tell Mercury what had happened.

• He wanted the golden axe.

• He didn’t know how he would get his axe back.

Open Ended

How did the Woodman show honesty, or the quality of being fair and

truthful? Find two examples in the text and write them in the following chart.

Open Ended

What could the Woodman have done that didn’t show honesty?

Multiple Choice

What good fortune did the other Woodmen in the village hope to easily win?

• getting a golden axe and a silver axe in addition to their own

• losing their own axes in the pool in the forest losing their own axes in the pool in the forest

• returning the next day to find their hidden axes

• showing honesty to Mercury when he asked what the trouble was

Open Ended

The moral of the story is “Honesty is the best policy.” Explain what this moral means,

using evidence (picking things from the passage) from the text.