Identify supporting details in Informational Texts

Select the best evidence to support the statement that corn fields are plentiful in America.

• The landscape that corn has made in the American Middle West is unmistakable

• Corn the plant has colonized some 125,000 square miles of the American continent, an area twice the size of New York State;

• t takes a bit more looking, however, to see some of the other landscapes that corn the commodity has created, in obscure places like Garden City, Kansas.

• Here in the high plains of western Kansas is where America's first feedlots were built, beginning in the early fifties.

The following passage is about the Trans-Siberian Railway, a long railway that crosses Russia. Select the best evidence to support the statement that the train has fewer tourists in the winter than the summer.

Whether you make it all the way across the country, or just a short distance, a trip on the trans-Siberian train is one of the most exciting things to do in Russia and a wonderful way to reach the least explored places.. . .

You can have a great experience at any time of the year. Most travelers go in the summer to see the flowering nature and easily explore the towns along the way. However, winter offers its own adventure, with . . . magnificent views of endless white. In winter, the trains are warm.

• Whether you make it all the way across the country, or just a short distance, a trip on the trans-Siberian train is one of the most exciting things to do in Russia and a wonderful way to reach the least explored places

• Most travelers go in the summer to see the flowering nature and easily explore the towns along the way.

• However, winter offers its own adventure, with . . . magnificent views of endless white.

• In winter, the trains are warm

Select the best evidence to support the statement that in the late 1800s, a law made it easier for magazine companies to do business.

• At the turn of the twentieth century, short stories were a preferred form of entertainment in the United States.

• This was a boom time for magazine publishing, owing in part to developments in offset printing technology as well as to the Postal Act of 1879, which had granted magazines discounted mailing rates.

• Publications such as Ladies' Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Delineator, all of which published short stories, sold more than a half million copies per issue.

• The authors of these stories were well known at the time and often well paid.

Select the best evidence to support the statement that the desert of Antarctica helps scientists study outer space.

• Antarctica is considered a desert because it receives very little rain or snowfall

• The desert conditions in Antarctica are like the conditions on Mars; NASA tested robots in Antarctica that later landed on Mars.

• The small amount of snow that does fall does not melt but builds up over hundreds and thousands of years to form large, thick ice sheets.

• The maps help researchers when planning trips to Antarctica.

Select the best evidence to support the statement that a full megalodon skeleton has never been found.

• If you doubled the size of a great white, it would look like its ancestor, the megalodon, which lived from 50 to 4 1⁄2 million years ago

• While some shark lovers secretly hope megalodons still roam the unexplored depths of the ocean, most people are content to believe that the megalodon is extinct.

• The only evidence we have that a megalodon once swam the seas is its teeth. From teeth the size of a man's hand, scientists have been able to build a model of what its jaws and the rest of its body probably looked like.

• Scientists have concluded that the megalodon was about 45 to 50 feet (15 meters) long and weighed more than 20 tons.

Select the best evidence to support the statement that dolphins use their blowholes for breathing.

• When a whale surfaces, it spouts a "blow" of water vapor.

• When they come to the surface, they breathe air through an opening on top of their heads called a blowhole.

• Dolphins and porpoises are smaller, toothed whales.

• Larger whales such as the blue whale have a comblike strainer made of baleen, or whalebone, in their mouths instead of teeth..

• All whales are mammals.

The following passage is about a yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793. Select the best evidence to support the statement that doctors believed people could catch yellow fever from someone who was infected.

The doctors met again on Monday, though this time only eleven of them were in attendance. At this meeting they issued a list of measures for citizens to follow; the list was sent to Mayor Clarkson, who sent it on to Governor Mifflin and the newspapers. Many of the recommendations were intelligent and reasonable: Clean up the streets, set up a hospital for fever victims, avoid fatigue, limit the intake of beer and wine, put patients in airy rooms, and remove fouled clothes and bed linens frequently.. . .One suggestion alarmed many citizens: Stay away from anyone with the fever. Heightening the panic was what the list did not offer: A cure for the disease.

• The doctors met again on Monday, though this time only eleven of them were in attendance.

• Many of the recommendations were intelligent and reasonable: Clean up the streets, set up a hospital for fever victims, avoid fatigue, limit the intake of beer and wine, put patients in airy rooms, and remove fouled clothes and bed linens frequently

• At this meeting they issued a list of measures for citizens to follow; the list was sent to Mayor Clarkson, who sent it on to Governor Mifflin and the newspapers.

• One suggestion alarmed many citizens: Stay away from anyone with the fever.

Select the best evidence to support the statement that people across the U.S. have access to resources that catch hearing loss early.

• As many as 12,000 babies are born with a hearing loss each year in the United States.

• The cause of hearing loss for many babies is not known.

• Hearing loss can go unnoticed for years.

• Fortunately, almost all states, communities, and hospitals now offer hearing screening for all babies.

• "It is important to identify hearing loss early," said Alison Johnson, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.

The following passage is about the development of the modern pizza. Select the best evidence to support the statement that people did not put tomatoes on their pizza in the 1700s.

The early modern Neapolitan pizzas of the 1700s were indeed for people on the street who were hungry and either had a little money or bought their pizza on credit using a Neapolitan pay-it-forward system that is still in use today. Toppings included inexpensive local ingredients like olive oil, garlic, oregano, grated cheese, lard, and salt. When tomatoes started appearing on pizzas in the 1800s, they would have only been used during their fresh season from late spring through summer and autumn (or, possibly, as a conserva during the winter and spring). By the early 1900s they were being commercially canned in southern Italy and thus were available year-round.

• The early modern Neapolitan pizzas of the 1700s were indeed for people on the street who were hungry and either had a little money or bought their pizza on credit using a Neapolitan pay-it-forward system that is still in use today.

• Toppings included inexpensive local ingredients like olive oil, garlic, oregano, grated cheese, lard, and salt.

• When tomatoes started appearing on pizzas in the 1800s, they would have only been used during their fresh season from late spring through summer and autumn (or, possibly, as a conserva during the winter and spring).

• By the early 1900s they were being commercially canned in southern Italy and thus were available year-round.

The following passage is about African American polar explorer Matthew Henson. Select the best evidence to support the statement that Henson became unhappy with sailing when other sailors were cruel to him.

Captain Childs took Matthew aside for two hours every day to teach him reading, writing, geography, history, carpentry, and how to navigate by the stars.

During his years aboard ship, Matthew visited China, Japan, and Manila in the Philippines, as well as North Africa, Spain, France, and southern Russia.. . .

Then misfortune struck. In 1883, Captain Childs died, and Henson was forced to look for work on other sailing ships. Two years later, sick of fellow sailors calling him racial names and taunting him with insults, Henson left sailing. He found work over the next two years as a watchman, dockworker, chauffeur, messenger boy, and bell hop.

• Captain Childs took Matthew aside for two hours every day to teach him reading, writing, geography, history, carpentry, and how to navigate by the stars.

• During his years aboard ship, Matthew visited China, Japan, and Manila in the Philippines, as well as North Africa, Spain, France, and southern Russia.. . .

• In 1883, Captain Childs died, and Henson was forced to look for work on other sailing ships.

• Two years later, sick of fellow sailors calling him racial names and taunting him with insults, Henson left sailing.