Test Alert

Grade 8 – Unit 4

Name: ______Date: ______Score: ______

Read each passage and the questions that follow. Answer each question by marking the best answer or writing in the space provided.

Selection 1:

“A Good Play”

Robert Louis Stevenson

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We built a ship upon the stairsAll made of the back-bedroom chairs,And filled it full of sofa pillowsTo go a-sailing on the billows[1].

We took a saw and several nails,And water in the nursery pails;And Tom said, “Let us also takeAn apple and a slice of cake;”—Which was enough for Tom and meTo go a-sailing on, till tea.

We sailed along for days and days,And had the very best of plays;But Tom fell out and hurt his knee,So there was no one left but me.

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1.Which statement BEST interprets lines 1-4 of “A Good Play”?

A.Children are easy to please.

B.Children are put to work at a young age.

C.Make-believe causes kids to be unrealistic.

D.Make-believe is fun for children.

2.Which statement BEST summarizes the idea in lines 11-12 of “A Good Play”?

A.Children may think they know everything.

B.Children remember a fondness for pretend play.

C.Parents sent children on long voyages by themselves.

D.Pretend play encourages children to dream.

3.Part A: Which statement BEST describes the author’s tone in “A Good Play?”

A.nostalgic

B.hopeful

C.serious

D.snobbish

Part B: Identify specific lines in “A Good Play” that support the answer identified in Part A. Explain how these lines support the tone determined in Part A.

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Continue on the next page.

Selection 2:

“If—”

Rudyard Kipling

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If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves[2] to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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4.In the fourth stanza of “If—,” which statement BEST summarizes the speaker’s comments?

A.Although childhood is fun, people age.

B.The number of conflicts overcome measures a child’s success.

C.The speaker appreciates a good challenge.

D.There are many lessons to learn before becoming an adult.

5.Who or what does the speaker quote in line 24?

A.a book

B.a poet

C.his father

D.his heart

6.The narrator’s use of pitch-and-toss in line 18 emphasizes the author’s attitude that:

A.his words are meant to be tossed out

B.lessons in life should be pleasurable

C.life should be taken seriously

D.life, while serious, is also sometimes a game

7.Compare the speaker’s attitudes toward childhood in the two poems, “A Good Play” and “If—.” Support your response with details from each poem. Write using complete sentences.

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Selection 3:

Unstructured Free Play Important for Kids

By Brooke de Lench

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9 / Too often these days, parents feel they have no choice but to pack their child's schedules with adult-supervised, adult-driven activities such as organized sports.
But, as a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)makes clear, such activities should not come at the expense of free and unstructured play, which is critical to healthy child development.
The overriding premise of the report is that "play (or some available free time in the case of older children and adolescents) is essential to the cognitive, physical, social and emotional well-being of children and youth."
Benefits of Play
Why is free, unstructured play so important? There are lots of reasons, says the AAP:
  • Play is important to healthy development of the brain;
  • Undirected play helps children learn how to work collaboratively, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts, and learn self-advocacy skills;
  • When play is child-driven, children practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover areas of interest on their own, and ultimately engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue;
  • When play is controlled by adults—such as in organized sports—children have to follow to adult rules and concerns (like winning) and lose some of the benefits play offers them, particularly in developing creativity, leadership and group skills.
  • Play offers parents a wonderful opportunity to engage fully with their children;
  • Play and unscheduled time that allows for peer interactions is an important component of social-emotional learning; and
  • Free, child-driven, creative play protects against the effects of pressure and stress.
Recent researchat Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago suggests another benefit of free, unstructured play: that children who spend more time in free, unstructured play suffer significantly fewer overuse injuries.
Finding Balance is Key
Since every child is different, the challenge for parents, says the AAP, is to strike a balance that allows their children to reach their potential without pushing them beyond their personal comfort limits, while allowing them personal free playtime. The AAP says parents need to:
  • Feel supported in not passively accepting media and advertising messages that suggest there are more valuable means of promoting success and happiness in children than the tried, trusted and traditional methods of play and family togetherness;
  • Understand that, while they can monitor play for safety (what I call being the "guardian of a child at play"), a large proportion of play should be child-driven rather than adult-directed;
  • Remember that active child-centered play is a time-tested way of producing healthy, fit young bodies. In fact, a 2010 study recommends "informal physical activity in home or neighborhood settings" as one of the ways for kids to get the 60 minutes of moderate and vigorous physical activity experts say they need each day (an amount, the same study shows, our kids are not getting solely from participating in organized youth sports).
  • Recognize that by sharing unscheduled spontaneous time and playing with their children they are being just as supportive, nurturing and productive as by signing them up for more and more sports and other adult-supervised activities;
  • Allow children to explore a variety of interests in a balanced way, without feeling pressured to excel in each area; and
  • Promote balance by resisting the temptation to allow their children to specialize too early— such as in a particular sport or musical instrument - to the detriment of having the opportunity to explore other sports and other areas of interest.
Allow For Free Time
My advice, like that of the AAP, is that simply because our culture seems to increasingly devalue free time doesn't mean you should. Kids need to grow up comfortable with silence. Your intuition tells you how important free time is. It tells you not to interfere with a child's play unless someone is about to or is being hurt.
Have the courage to say no. Be honest with yourself and your children. Instead of feeling guilty and worrying that if you don't do everything possible, don't go the extra mile, your kids will suffer, will be deprived, or will fall behind their peers, understand that sometimes the best thing a parent can do for a child is nothing. Children are not miniature adults—there will be plenty of time for them to be stressed and overworked when they actually are adults.
In short, don't forget to let your child be a child.

Brooke de Lench is the Executive Director of MomsTEAM Institute, Founder and Publisher of MomsTEAM.com, author of Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports (HarperCollins).

July 2011, Updated and revised April 11, 2014

  1. In Selection 3, the author’s overall claim seeks to prove that:
  1. Independent children are essential for continuously improving the world.
  2. Organized activities play an important role in establishing boundaries in children.
  3. Socializing is essential to fostering the love of play in future generations.
  4. Unstructured play is essential to independent growth and problem-solving.
  1. Which of the following examples best emphasize the author’s idea that it is important for children to have free time?
  1. a connection was seen between organized sports and creativity
  2. a correlation exists between free play andhealthy development
  3. children who enjoy free play are more likely to join sports
  4. free play helps children to escape from their current situations
  1. de Lench states, “strike a balance that allows…children to reach their potential without pushing them beyond personal comfort limits.” Which paragraph from Selection 3 best illustrates this idea?
  1. paragraph 2
  2. paragraph 5
  3. paragraph 7
  4. paragraph 8
  1. The key terms engage and interactions are used in paragraph 4 of Selection 3. What do these terms refer to?
  1. creating social-emotional skills with other children
  2. crafting new games by working with peers
  3. thinking of new rules instead of parent-made rules
  4. producing a child involved in many sports
  1. As it is used in paragraph 4 of Selection 3, the word self-advocacy most closely means:
  1. a promotion of one’s self
  2. creating tasks for others
  3. revising rules for one’s self
  4. thinking imaginatively
  1. Part A: The author believes it is important to strike a balance between structured play and free time because:
  1. A correlation exists between structured play and productivity in society.
  2. Free play and structured play allow people to learn to follow rules as well as make them.
  3. It helps to develop the quality of empathy in children.
  4. The process of free play creates individual thinkers.

Part B: Which of the following details best support the author’s belief in Part A?

  1. “When play is child-driven, children practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover areas of interest on their own, and ultimately engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue” (paragraph 4)
  2. “When play is controlled by adults—such as in organized sports—children have to follow to adult rules and concerns…and lose some of the benefits play offers them” (paragraph 4)
  3. “Understand that, while they can monitor play for safety…a large proportion of play should be child-driven rather than adult-directed” (paragraph 6)
  4. “Children are not miniature adults—there will be plenty of time for them to be stressed and overworked when they actually are adults” (paragraph 8)
  1. Which two of the following ideas most clearly support the central idea of Selection 3?
  1. Free play helps to develop well-adjusted young people.
  2. A world without play cannot be fully civilized.
  3. The process of play sparks imagination and facilitates creative thinking.
  4. Societies that foster imaginative play have fewer problems.
  5. Balancing structured and free play can confuse children later in life.

Continue on the next page

  1. The three selections all address the topic of childhood. Determine the central idea of Selection 3. Decide whether the theme of Selection 1 or Selection 2 is most similar to the central idea expressed in Selection 3. Explain your thinking using textual evidence.

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[1]Billows: clouds

[2]Knave: an unprincipled, untrustworthy, or dishonest person