STAAR English I

For many, the idea of bungee jumping is an extraneous risk and thus not worth taking. When everyday life has its own pitfalls and challenges, why would someone risk injury doing something unnecessary? A far more pragmatic point of view is to take risks only when you have something tangible to gain from them.

Which word in the third sentence has the same meaning as “real”?

• Pragmatic

• tangible

The pink granite dome that is the hallmark of Enchanted Rock State Natural Area tantalizes daring rock climbers and dreamy hikers alike. The park features eleven miles of hiking trails ranging from easy to laborious. Regardless of how you get to the pinnacle, the result is the same - a phenomenal view of the sublime Hill Country.

In the first sentence, the word tantalizes means --

• Beckons

• Teases

• Frustrates

The pink granite dome that is the hallmark of Enchanted Rock State Natural Area tantalizes daring rock climbers and dreamy hikers alike. The park features eleven miles of hiking trails ranging from easy to laborious. Regardless of how you get to the pinnacle, the result is the same - a phenomenal view of the sublime Hill Country.

In the last sentence, which word has the same meaning as “beautiful”?

• Pinnacle

• Phenomenal

• Sublime

The ranch hand unrolled his belongings from the back of his horse. The pillow, which he had coveted above all else, had already deteriorated into a lumpy mess that was saturated with mildew. His indispensable item, it turned out, was the cast iron skillet he used to cook supper each night. Regardless of how rough the trail had been that day, a hot meal did more to soothe than the finest pillow he could imagine.

In the first two sentences, which word has the same meaning as “came apart”?

• Unrolled

• Coveted

• Deteriorated

• Saturated

Read: Emojis are graphics, specifically called ideograms, that are simple pictures of things ranging from smiley faces to pizza to flags. Emojis were invented in Japan in the late 1990s, but became a worldwide phenomenon when major phone makers in the United States included them in their phones in 2011. Some emojis, such as the laughing smiley face, seem to have a universally understood meaning. People around the world easily understand many emojis. However, some emojis take on specific cultural meaning for a particular region or country. Because of this communicating with emojis can be less clear than communicating with text. Dawn would like to add the following detail to her paragraph. "The first emojis were based on facial expressions the designer saw on people's faces around Tokyo." Where should this sentence be inserted?

• After sentence 1

• After sentence 2

Francis Scott Key, a lawyer negotiating an important prisoner exchange during the War of 1812, was the accidental poet of our national anthem when he hastily jotted down “Defense of Fort McHenry,” after watching twenty five hours of bombardment. The flag flying over Fort McHenry had survived the night from the “twilight’s last gleaming” to the “dawn’s early light.” The resilience and endurance of that flag was Key’s inspiration. Today, the national anthem is played at every sports event, including the Olympics, and asks the same question every time it is sung: Does the flag still waver over “the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

Which sentence best states the main idea of the paragraph?

• The words to the national anthem remind us of the characteristics of America.

• The national anthem is a song of war and should not be sung at sports events.

Read: Francis Scott Key, a lawyer negotiating an important prisoner exchange during the War of 1812, was the accidental poet of our national anthem when he hastily jotted down “Defense of Fort McHenry,” after watching twenty five hours of bombardment. The flag flying over Fort McHenry had survived the night from the “twilight’s last gleaming” to the “dawn’s early light.” The resilience and endurance of that flag was Key’s inspiration. Today, the national anthem is played at every sports event, including the Olympics, and asks the same question every time it is sung: Does the flag still waver over “the land of the free and the home of the brave?” The author’s purpose in writing the paragraph is to -

• Argue against singing the national anthem so often

• Explain the origins of the lyrics for the national anthem

Read:

Ray Brown works after school and on weekends delivering pizza, and he may one day be out of a job. A major car company and a pizza business are teaming up to deliver pizzas in driverless cars. Customers will have to come out of their homes, type in a code, and reach into the heated backseat compartment to extract the exact pizza from the stack of up to five orders. Currently, the driverless delivery service is being tested with a development engineer as driver behind blacked-out windows to determine customer interaction and to make sure the expensive radar and cameras are secured. If the test proves successful, driverless deliver of not only pizza but other products to homes and job sites may be a reality by 2021.

Which quotation from the paragraph shows the main idea?

• Ray Brown works after school and on weekends delivering pizza, and he may one day be out of a job.

• Customers will have to come out of their homes, type in a code, and reach into the heated backseat compartment to extract the exact pizza from the stack of up to five orders.

• If the test proves successful, driverless delivery of not only pizza but other products to home and job sites may be a reality by 2021.

Read:

Selecting the right kind of car for a newly licensed teen is an important responsibility. One parent might say, “Let’s buy an old junker so that when the first wreck happens, it won’t cost us as much.” Another parent (the parent of a teen’s dreams) might say, “Let’s get a car that you will like to show off and use to drive around with your friends.” But the wisest parent will choose a newer, reliable model with the best safety equipment that the family can afford. That kind of choice will be worth every penny in the case of an accident.

The author uses an aside in the paragraph to----

• Criticize some types of parents

• Inject humor into the paragraph

Which of the following categories fits this term:

diction

• theme

• inferences

• vocabulary

• characterization