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STAAR English I & II - Inference Task Cards

Last updated over 2 years ago
14 questions
Read the selection and choose the best answer to each question.

Excerpt from The Zookeeper’s Wife By Diane Ackerman

Lutz Heck took over the Berlin Zoo from his distinguished father in 1931, and almost immediately began remodeling the zoo’s ecology and ideology. To coincide with the 1936 Olympics, held in Berlin, he opened a "German Zoo," an exhibit honoring the country’s wildlife, complete with "Wolf Rock" at its center, surrounded by enclosures for bears, lynxes, otters, and other native species. This bold patriotic display underscoring the importance of familiar animals, and that one needn’t go to the ends of the earth to find exotic species, conveyed a laudable message, and if he’d unveiled his exhibit today, his motives wouldn’t be questioned. But given the era, his beliefs, and the ultranationalism of his family, he clearly wanted to please Nazi friends by contributing to the ideal of Germany’s master races. A 1936 photograph shows Heck and Göring on a hunting trip to Schorfheide, Heck’s large preserve in Prussia; and the following year, Heck joined the Nazi Party.
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What inference can be made about Lutz Heck’s distinguished father?

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Which detail from the text best supports Heck’s motivation behind remodeling the zoo?

Excerpt from Thank You for Your Service By David Finkel

Two years. He is twenty-eight now, is out of the army, and has gained back some weight. When he left the war as the great Sergeant Schumann, he was verging on gaunt. Twenty-five pounds later, he is once again solid, at least physically. Mentally, though, it is still the day he headed home. Emory, shot in the head, is still draped across his back, and the blood flowing out of Emory’s head is still rivering into his mouth. Doster, whom he might have loved the most, is being shredded again and again by a roadside bomb  on a mission Adam was supposed to have been on, too, and after Doster is declared dead another soldier is saying to him, “None of this would have happened if you were there.” It was said as a soldier’s compliment—Adam had the sharpest eyes, Adam always found the hidden bombs, everyone relied on Adam—but that wasn’t how he heard it then or hears it now. It might as well have been shrapnel, the way those words cut him apart. It was his fault. It is his fault. The guilt runs so deep it defines him now. He’s always been such a good  guy, people say of Adam. He’s the one people are drawn to, who they root for, smart, decent, honorable, good instincts, that one. And now? “I feel completely broken,” Adam says.
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Based on the description of Adam, the reader can infer that -

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What does the author mean when he says the words cut him?

Excerpt from The Little Mermaid By Hans Christian Andersen

As soon as the eldest was fifteen, she was allowed to rise to the surface of the ocean. When she came back, she had hundreds of things to talk about; but the most beautiful, she said, was to lie in the moonlight, on a sandbank, in the quiet sea, near the coast, and to gaze on a large town nearby, where the lights were twinkling like hundreds of stars; to listen to the sounds of the music, the noise of carriages, and the voices of human beings, and then to hear the merry bells peal out from the church steeples; and because she could not go near to all those wonderful things, she longed for them more than ever. Oh, did not the youngest sister listen eagerly to all these descriptions? and afterwards, when she stood at the open window looking up through the dark blue water, she thought of the great city, with all its bustle and noise, and even fancied she could hear the sound of the church bells, down in the depths of the sea.
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Based on descriptions of the youngest mermaid, the reader can conclude that she -

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Details in the first line lead the reader to believe the -

Excerpt from The Little Mermaid By Hans Christian Andersen

"Come, little sister," said the other princesses; then they entwined their arms and rose up in a long row to the surface of the water, close by the spot where they knew the prince's palace stood. It was built of bright yellow shining stone, with long flights of marble steps, one of which reached quite down to the sea. Splendid gilded cupolas rose over the roof, and between the pillars that surrounded the whole building stood life-like statues of marble. Through the clear crystal of the lofty windows could be seen noble rooms, with costly silk curtains and hangings of tapestry; while the walls were covered with beautiful paintings which were a pleasure to look at. In the center of the largest saloon a fountain threw its sparkling jets high up into the glass cupola of the ceiling, through which the sun shone down upon the water and upon the beautiful plants growing round the basin of the fountain. Now that she knew where he lived, she spent many an evening and many a night on the water near the palace. She would swim much nearer the shore than any of the others ventured to do; indeed once she went quite up the narrow channel under the marble balcony, which threw a broad shadow on the water. Here she would sit and watch the young prince, who thought himself quite alone in the bright moonlight. She saw him many times of an evening sailing in a pleasant boat, with music playing and flags waving. She peeped out from among the green rushes, and if the wind caught her long silvery-white veil, those who saw it believed it to be a swan, spreading out its wings.
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Which word describes the little mermaid’s feelings toward the prince?

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Based on details in the story, the reader can conclude that the little mermaid -

Excerpt from It’s Complicated By Danah Boyd

When teens interact with social media, they must regularly contend with collapsed contexts and invisible audiences as a part of everyday life. Their teachers might read what they post online for their friends, and when their friends from school start debating their friends from summer camp, they might be excited that their friend groups are combining—or they might find it discomforting. In order to stabilize the context in their own minds, teens do what others before them have done: just like journalists and politicians, teens imagine the audience they're trying to reach. In speaking to an unknown or invisible audience, it is impossible and unproductive to account for the full range of plausible interpretations. Instead, public speakers consistently imagine a specific subset of potential readers or viewers and focus on how those intended viewers are likely to respond to a particular statement. As a result, the imagined audience defines the social context. In choosing how to present themselves before disconnected and invisible audiences, people must attempt to resolve context collapses or actively define the context in which they're operating.
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The author’s examples suggest that -

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Which quote best conveys the author’s message?

Excerpt from How to Become a Straight-A Student By Cal Newport

Most students, however, misunderstand the purpose of time management—they believe it’s used only to cram as much work as possible into the day. But this is not the main motivation behind controlling your schedule. As it turns out, a little planning goes a long way toward reducing your daily stress levels. Having deadlines and obligations floating around in your mind is exhausting—it makes it impossible to completely relax, and, over time, can lead you down the path toward a breakdown. However, once you figure out what work needs to be done and when, it’s like a weight being lifted from your shoulders. The uncertainty vanishes: When you work, you can fully concentrate on the assignment in front of you, and when you relax, you can do so without any anxiety. “I don't believe in giving up anything,” says Jenna, a straight-A student from Princeton. “Not my social life, not my extracurricular activities, not my academic success.” Basic control over your schedule breeds balance. This is why time management, as Doris stated earlier, is the key to getting the most out of all aspects of your college experience.
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What can the reader infer will happen if they follow the author’s advice?

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The reader can conclude that the author believes -

Excerpt from Stuff Matters By Mark Miodownik

In the absence of copper, gold, and meteoric iron, our ancestors’ tools during the Stone Age were made of flint, wood, and bone. Anyone who has ever tried to make anything with these kinds of tools knows how limiting they are: if you hit a piece of wood it either splinters, cracks, or snaps. The same is true of rock or bone. Metals are fundamentally different from these other materials because they can be hammered into shape: they flow, they are malleable. Not only that, they get stronger when you hit them; you can harden a blade just by hammering it. And you can reverse the process simply by putting metal in a fire and heating it up, which will cause it to get softer. The first people to discover these properties ten thousand years ago had found a material that was almost as hard as a rock but behaved like a plastic and was almost infinitely reusable. In other words, they had discovered the perfect material for tools, and in particular cutting tools like axes, chisels, and razors. This ability of metals to transform from a soft to a hard material must have seemed like magic to our ancient ancestors.
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The reader can infer that the discovery of metal -

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Which line from the excerpt provides context that supports the meaning of the word malleable?