Test: Text Structures

1. Authors use different text structures to ________________.

• give facts about their topic
• organize their ideas
• research their topic
• add visuals to their writing

In a text with a sequence text structure, the author

• describes a topic and its characteristics.
• tells about events in the order they happened.
• explains how things are similar and different.
• describes a problem and then explains how someone solved it.

In a text with a compare and contrast text structure, the author

• explains something that happened and the reasons why.
• tells about events in the order they happened.
• explains how things are similar and different.
• describes a problem and then explains how someone solved it.

Which text structure would an author use when writing about the many factors that started the Civil War?

• Cause and Effect
• Compare and Contrast
• Chronological/Sequence
• Problem and Solution

Which text structure would an author use when writing about an endangered species and how we can save it from extinction?

• Cause and Effect
• Compare and Contrast
• Description
• Problem and Solution

Which text structure would an author use when informing the reader about mole rats?

• Compare and contrast

• Sequence

• Description

• Problem and Solution

Which word or phrase is an author most likely to use when writing a cause and effect passage?

• Similarly

• For example

• As a result

• Finally

Which word or phrase is an author most likely to use when writing a compare and contrast passage?

• Similarly

• For example

• As a result

• Finally

Read the following passage. Many people think that Thomas Edison built the first light bulb. He did not, but his inventions greatly changed the effect that electricity had on people’s lives. The light bulbs that existed before Edison were not practical for most people to use inside their homes. They needed too much power and were too bright. So Edison developed a new type of light bulb called an incandescent bulb. It was affordable and reliable. It used less power than existing models and became a success. Which detail from the passage above best describes a problem?

• “He did not, but his inventions greatly changed the effect electricity had on people’s lives.”
• “It used less power than existing models and became a success.”
• “So Edison developed a new type of light bulb called an incandescent bulb.”
• “The light bulbs that existed before Edison were not practical for most people to use inside their homes.”

Read this section from Call of the Klondike. In a matter of hours, many Seattle residents began planning their own trips to the goldfields. At a time when many Americans were either out of work or earning low wages, the prospect of striking it rich proved irresistible. Firemen, doctors, lawyers, ministers – and even the mayor of Seattle – quit their jobs and joined the rush. “By the afternoon,” Pearce wrote, “every man who could raise the necessary funds for a year’s grub stake was rushing to the grocers, hardware merchants and clothiers to get together the necessary outfit to start by the next boat for the promised land, where the dreams of all should be realized.” Which of the following BEST identifies the informational text structure the author uses in this passage?

• Cause and effect, because after people raised money they rushed to get supplies.
• Compare and contrast, as the authors compare the many different types of people who quit their jobs.
• A sequence text structure, because the authors explain events in the order they took place, and they could not have happened in reverse order.
• Problem and solution, because poor Americans thought their problems could be solved if they found gold.