Grade 6 ELA Practice Test: Reading Comprehension and Grammar
- Reading Comprehension and Grammar
- 12 questions
- 15 minutes
Questions 1-6 are about an informational passage on keeping cities cool, and questions 7-12 practice Grade 6 pronouns, punctuation and vocabulary. Tip: a central idea is supported by most of the passage, not by a single paragraph.
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Question 1
Read the passage and answer questions 1-6.
Passage A: Keeping Cities Cool, One Roof at a Time
(1) On a hot summer afternoon, step barefoot from a grassy park onto a blacktop parking lot, and you will feel the difference instantly. The grass feels pleasant, but the pavement can burn your feet. Now imagine an entire city covered in surfaces that soak up heat: asphalt streets, dark rooftops, and concrete sidewalks. That is one reason many cities are noticeably warmer than the countryside around them. Scientists call this effect an urban heat island.
(2) Dark surfaces absorb most of the sunlight that strikes them and turn it into heat. Much of that heat is released slowly, even after sunset, so city neighborhoods often stay warm long into the night. Trees and grass, on the other hand, cool their surroundings by releasing water vapor through their leaves, much as sweat cools your skin. Because cities usually have fewer plants and more pavement, they lose much of this natural cooling.
(3) The extra heat is more than uncomfortable. When nights stay hot, people's bodies do not get a chance to recover from the heat of the day, which can be dangerous for older adults and young children. Hot buildings also need more air conditioning, which raises electric bills and puts extra strain on the power grid during heat waves.
(4) One of the simplest solutions is right over our heads. A cool roof is covered with a white or light-colored coating that reflects much of the sunlight instead of absorbing it. On a sunny day, the surface of a cool roof can be dozens of degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the surface of a dark roof. The rooms underneath stay cooler as well, so air conditioners run less often.
(5) Cool roofs are not a perfect fix. In places with long, cold winters, a building with a white roof may lose some of the free warmth that a dark roof would collect from the winter sun. White coatings also get dirty, and a dusty roof reflects less light, so it may need to be cleaned or recoated every few years. Still, for cities with long, hot summers, the benefits usually outweigh these costs.
(6) Cool roofs work best as part of a larger plan. Planting street trees, adding parks, and choosing lighter-colored pavement can all help a city shed heat. None of these changes requires a new invention. Each one builds on a lesson that anyone who has stepped barefoot from grass onto pavement already knows: what covers a surface changes how hot it gets.
Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?
Correct answer: C
The passage explains what makes cities hot, why the heat matters, and how cool roofs, trees and lighter pavement can help. It presents air conditioning as a result of hot buildings, not as the cause of the urban heat island.
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Question 2
Passage A (see above):
According to paragraph 2, how do trees and grass help cool an area?
Correct answer: A
Paragraph 2 says plants cool their surroundings "by releasing water vapor through their leaves, much as sweat cools your skin." Absorbing sunlight and turning it into heat is what dark surfaces do.
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Question 3
Passage A (see above):
Which conclusion is best supported by paragraph 5?
Correct answer: B
Paragraph 5 says a white roof can lose free winter warmth and that the benefits usually win out in cities with long, hot summers, so in a very cold place the trade-off may not pay off. Lower winter heating bills would be the opposite of what the paragraph describes.
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Question 4
Passage A (see above):
In paragraph 3, what does the word strain mean in the phrase "puts extra strain on the power grid"?
Correct answer: B
When many air conditioners run at once, the power grid must supply much more electricity, so strain here means heavy pressure or demand. The word can also name a muscle injury or a type of germ, but those meanings do not fit a power grid.
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Question 5
Passage A (see above):
Why does the author begin the passage by describing a barefoot walk from a grassy park onto a parking lot?
Correct answer: C
The barefoot walk is a familiar experience that lets readers feel the difference between grass and pavement before the author introduces the term urban heat island, and the last paragraph returns to the same image. The author never argues that every parking lot should become a park.
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Question 6
Passage A (see above):
Which sentence from the passage best supports the claim that cool roofs can save energy?
Correct answer: D
Air conditioners that run less often use less electricity, which directly supports the claim about saving energy. The sentence about dirty coatings describes a drawback of cool roofs, not a benefit.
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Question 7
Which pronoun correctly completes the sentence?
Ms. Lee asked Jordan and ____ to collect the science journals.
Correct answer: D
The pronoun is an object of the verb asked, so it must be in the objective case: me. A quick test is to drop "Jordan and": Ms. Lee asked me, not "asked I" or "asked myself."
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Question 8
Which sentence uses an intensive pronoun?
Correct answer: A
An intensive pronoun adds emphasis and can be removed without changing the basic meaning: "The mayor cut the ribbon" still makes sense. In the other sentences, the -self pronoun is reflexive, because the verb needs it as an object.
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Question 9
Read the sentence.
Marcus told Leon that he had won the drawing contest.
Which revision makes it clear who won the contest?
Correct answer: C
In the original sentence, he could mean Marcus or Leon. The direct quotation "You won" shows that Leon is the winner, while the other revisions still use he without a clear antecedent.
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Question 10
Which sentence is punctuated correctly?
Correct answer: D
The phrase a nurse in Denver adds extra information, so it needs a comma on both sides. Parentheses alone could also set it off, but commas and parentheses should not be used together, and leaving out the second comma runs the sentence together.
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Question 11
The Greek root chron means "time."
Which word best completes the sentence?
Leah listed the events of the American Revolution in ____ order, starting with the earliest.
Correct answer: B
Chronological order arranges events by the time they happened, from first to last. Chronic describes something that lasts a long time, and a chronometer is an instrument for measuring time.
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Question 12
Grandpa never wastes money, and he always finds a way to make things last.
Which word describes Grandpa with the most positive connotation?
Correct answer: A
All four words describe someone who is careful with money, but thrifty suggests wise saving, a positive quality. Stingy, cheap and miserly suggest someone who does not want to spend or share, which sounds negative.
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