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Reading Comprehension "test" presented to Edgefield County Students

web posted March 29, 2007
Test of Reading Comprehension and Associated Foundational Skills
Grade 9-12
 
FORMA
1-2007
The test is designed to assess students' skill levels when reading texts and to assess how well they master foundationa! skills that facilitate reading comprehension. It also assesses analytical thinking. For comprehension to occur, words must be decoded and associated with their meaning in a reader's memory {National Institute for Literacy).

The School District of Edgefield County © 2007

Directions: The student is to be designated 45 to 60 minutes to complete this test. Additional time, at the discretion of the teacher, may be given to students with documented learning disabilities. Do not use a dictionary or thesaurus.
Grade 9-12

Read the selection below and answer questions 1-8.

Ball now in Democrats' court By Dick Polmant

If the ascendant Democrats can project national security strength over the next 18 months, they can win back the White House in 2008. But if they can't do that, they will surely lose yet again.

It's that simple. The Democrats' biggest challenge, as they prepare to take power on Capitol Hill, is to eradicate the wimp label that, fairly or not, has dogged them since the '70s. They have to make themselves impervious to Republican ridicule, the kind that George W. Bush's father employed hi 1988, when he said of Michael Dukakis, "I wouldn't be surprised if he thought a 'naval exercise' was something you find in Jane Fonda's workout book."

Democrats do have an unparalleled opportunity to effectuate this image overhaul. Swing voters are clearly prepared to listen, having just decisively rebuked President Bush and the GOP for their disastrous mismanagement of the Iraq war. These voters did not endorse a Democratic national security vision, because none was offered. But they essentially invited the Democrats to explain how they would better handle Iraq, Iran, North Korea, the crisis of an overstretched military and the war on terrorism in general.

Democrats at this point would have no problems convincing the public that they can be trusted to strengthen relations with our allies, rebuild international alliances and
engender global respect for America; indeed, polls suggest that most Americans no longer trust Bush and the GOP to work well with others.

But those are merely the "cerebral" aspects of foreign policy, at which one would expect the Democrats to excel. Their prime challenge is to trump the GOP on the "visceral" front. They still have to convince swing voters that a Democratic president, would be decisive in a crisis, ready and willing to use military force. They cannot win simply by appealing to the intellect; they have to go for the gut.

For decades the GOP has essentially argued, "We'll pull the trigger if necessary. They won't." And it worked. The Republicans in 2004 painted John Kerry as an irresolute, overly cerebral guy who even looked French. In 1988, they aired TV ad footage of Dukakis in a tank, and he looked more like Snoopy than a commander in chief. But, contrary to popular belief, quite a few Democrats today have been seriously plotting to erase the old party image. Some work for the Truman National Security Project, which seeks to reclaim and update the liberal interventionist tradition of FOR, Harry Truman and JFK.

Several staffers wrote this recently, in a new online magazine called The Democratic Strategist: "Democrats will not be able to capitalize on (2006) voter support for their policies unless they break the Republican story line, and.. .establish a baseline perception that we recognize that America has dangerous and depraved enemies and we are willing to use force against them."

Fortunately for the Democrats, Bush may be making the task easier. The Iraq debacle persuaded the '06 swing voters that the GOP had been a tad too eager to pull the trigger. Hence the '06 verdict by one of the most pivotal swing-voting groups: married

suburban women with children. In the aftermath of September 11, they favored Republican congressional candidates by 18 percentage points in 2002, thereby earning the nickname "security moms". They stayed the course in the 2004 presidential election, favoring Bush over Kerry by 14 points. But in 2006 the security moms tipped the scales the other way, one big reason why the new majority Democrats picked up so many House seats hi suburbia.

But the big question, of course, is whether the Democrats will seize this political opportunity. They would first need to resolve some of their internal tensions. Much of the party's liberal activist base is highly skeptical about the flexing of American muscle abroad; by contrast, members of the party's centrist foreign-policy establishment (including ex-Bill Clinton national security aides), and many young Democrats who view Sept. 11 as the Pearl Harbor wakeup call of their generation, are eager to reconnect with the pre-Vietnam, anti-Communist Democratic Party and make it relevant for swing voters who worry most about the threat of Islamic extremism.
But the road to Democratic success must still pass through Iraq. Even if most voters no longer want to buy what Bush wants to sell, any visceral infighting over Iraq among governing Capitol Hill Democrats is sure to complicate the lives of the party's presidential contenders.

In the lengthening Sept. 11 shadow, 2008 will be a national security election; the Democrats can win it only if they can project smarts and muscularity. The swing voters are watching; they won't warm to irresolution. In the words of Bill Clinton, remarking on the '06 results. "People didn't give Democrats a mandate. They gave us a chance."

1.   The writer at best was __________ toward the Democratic leadership.
A.    somewhat objective
B.    decidedly bias
C.    fair
D.    reluctantly fair

2.   Which statement best expresses the author's main point?
A. The Democrats have an opportunity to occupy the highest office in the
land if they are smart enough to capitalize on the nation's concern about
the current occupants in the White House and their management issues on
the war hi Iraq.
B. The Republicans will more than likely reclaim their powerful,
conservative image among the American people, because the Democrats
are not cerebral enough to capitalize on the negative Iraqi situation.
C. That the swing voters are going to deliver the White House in 2008 to the
Democrats because they are more likely to now listen to the Democrats
than they were before the war in Iraq.
D. The polls suggest that the voters are more likely to vote for the Democrats
in 2008 more so than they were in the 2004 presidential election, because
of the current president's handling of the war in Iraq.

3.   What feature of the selection best illustrates that it is mostly opinionated?
A. It gives a lot of interpretational information about what the Democrats would not do in a given situation and what the Republicans would do in a given situation, and it interprets and speculates a lot about what the American voters will and will not do.
B. It gives a lot of historical facts about past presidents and how they would use force against the depraved enemies of America if necessary.
C. It speaks matter-of-factly about the Democrats needing to be smart and show masculinity when dealing with the enemy.
D. It recounts the 9-11 tragedy and how this tragedy is in the backs of the minds of many Americans.

4.  What does effectuate mean as it is used in this sentence?
"Democrats do have an unparalleled opportunity to effectuate this image overhaul. Swing voters are clearly prepared to listen, having just decisively rebuked President Bush and the GOP for their disastrous mismanagement of the Iraq war."
A.    avoid
B.    destroy
C.    come close
D.    make happen

5.   Which statement best supports the idea that Republicans are thought to be more likely than Democrats to engage the nation hi war?
A. "These voters did not endorse a Democratic national security vision,
because none was offered."
B. "But they essentially invited the Democrats to explain how they would
better handle Iraq, Iran, North Korea..." 
C. "The Republicans in 2004 painted John Kerry as an irresolute, overly
cerebral guy who even looked French."
D. "For decades the GOP has essentially argued, 'We'll pull the trigger if
necessary. They won't.'"

6.   What does cerebral mean as it is used in this sentence?
"The Republicans in 2004 painted John Kerry as an irresolute, overly cerebral guy... In 1988, they aired TV ad of Dukakis in a tank, and looked more like Snoopy than a commander in chief."
A. brainy
B. stupid
C. insipid
D. perplexed

7.   Write a complete sentence comparing Democrats and Republicans, based on the
story you read.

8.   Write your response in the space below. Be sure to use only the lines provided below. Do not write beyond the margins.
Decide whether you would be a Democrat or Republican or neither. Using the information in the selection, explain your answer.
As you write, be sure to support your response with evidence or details from the selection.

9.   What other title would the writer might have used for this selection?

10. Which word does not have the same or similar middle and ending sounds as eradicated A. abdicate B. replicate C. dedicate D. educate

11. Which part of the word extremism would appear next based on the sound pattern below? ism, emism, remism
A. ismesm
B. emismre
C. tremism
D. remismemism

12. Refer to the selection you read and define in one to two words (no more than three words) the words below.
A. impervious
B. ridicule
C. eradicate
D.    disastrous
E.    engender
F.    visceral
G. capitalize H. extremism
     
13. Tell in your own words what this selection was about.

  

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