ParaPro Assessment – Sample

Next 2 Questions pertain to the following passage: With the rise of bilingual education initiatives throughout the United States, the English-only movement has once again become a subject of public debate. This is not the first occasion the English-only movement has made an appearance in the United States and probably will not be the last. In fact, English-only considerations seem to grow in public preferences whenever mainstream English-speaking Americans encounter a non-English-speaking culture in large numbers: with French speakers after the Louisiana Purchase, with Spanish speakers after the Mexican-American War, with Hawaiians after the acquisition of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Even German speakers were ostracized in the United States during World War I. Despite the English-only push from certain quarters, teachers and language professionals caution that it will cause more harm than good. Educators warn that English will always be the primary language of the United States, so making it a legal requirement simply alienates other cultures unnecessarily. The Linguistic Society of America argues that insisting on English as the only accepted language also fails to acknowledge the way that the English language has developed – by adopting words from a variety of other languages. Additionally, some fear that the laws requiring English as the primary language will be poorly and far too rigidly interpreted. Examples of students penalized for speaking other languages on school buses or with friends in school hallways between classes give reason to worry about the feasibility of any English-only legislation. According to the author, when do English-only movements arise?

The passage is primarily concerned with doing which of the following?

37% of 461 can be rounded to which of the following?

3-2/3 ÷ 5-1/3 =

The opossum is famous for “playing possum” (faking death to avoid danger). When the animal plays possum, its body becomes limp and its breathing is difficult to detect. Some scientists claim that this is an involuntary condition, like fainting. I disagree. I have seen the opossum recover at will from the supposedly involuntary state of shock. If the opossum thinks the danger has departed, it soon arises, looks around, and takes off quickly. The author of the passage disagrees with the scientists about

With perhaps a million species of insects, entomologists (scientists who study irisects) are sometimes desperate for names. Some entomologists are fond of naming insects for their family members. This practice is appropriate. There is less to be said for the invention of frivolous names. A British entomologist carried things to an extreme when he named an insect genus Ochisme (pronounced “oh-kiss-me”). • The author’s attitude toward the name Ochisme can best be described as

Next 2 Questions are based on the following excerpt from a novel about Jem and his little sister. Jem condescended to take me to school the first day . . . . When we slowed to a walk at the edge of the schoolyard, Jem was careful to explain that Line during school hours I was not to bother him, I was -7- 5 not to approach him with requests to enact a chapter of Tarzan and the Ant Men, to embarrass him with references to his private life, or tag along behind him at recess and noon. I was to stick with the first grade and he would stick with the fifth. In short, 10 I was to leave him alone. “You mean we can’t play any more?” I asked. “We’ll do like we always do at home,” he said, “but you’ll see-school’s different.” The passage is primarily concerned with describing

The speaker wants to know if she will

next 3 Questions based on the following passage. Researcher Nancy Maynor argues that e-mail has generated its own language style. Her work suggests that what she calls “e-style” is much Line closer to speech than writing. E-mail messages 5 tend to be very informal, including clipped words (such as prob for problem) and simplified spellings (for instance, thru for through). Maynor has also found informality in punctuation. Arriong the common punctuation features she has found 10 in e-mail messages are lack of capital letters, high use of exclamation points, and frequent use of trailing dots and dashes at the ends of sentences. Maynor concludes that these markings lend a more spoken quality to the e-mail message. The passage is primarily concerned with

According to Nancy Maynor, the punctuation features in e-mail messages make such messages