PSSA Grade 7 ELA
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Last updated 12 months ago
11 questions
The Telescope
by Lisa Harries Schumann
Once upon a time there lived a young king named Fensgar in a land near the top of the world. Winters in that land were long, and during the darkest, loneliest time of one particular winter, the king felt the whole realm was frozen with boredom. It seemed to him the streets were silent as everyone sat numbly indoors, and the woods were still while all the creatures slept.
On a stormy, frigid day, King Fensgar wandered through room after room of his castle, searching for anything that might intrigue him. He listlessly examined trinkets in cabinets and baubles in chests. He stopped by the kitchen, where the cooks were chopping up root vegetables, and stared into the pots that bubbled on the huge stove. “Vegetable soup again?” “Yes, Your Majesty,” the cooks replied, bowing. The king sighed and continued his meanderings until he came to the castle library. There he sank into a velvet chair by the fire. He absentmindedly pulled a leather-bound tome off the nearest shelf and opened it.
It was an atlas. The paper was yellowed with age, but the maps were colored in vibrant inks. Mountain ranges were in blue, and their tips had been dotted with white. Islands like emeralds were strewn in turquoise water. Deserts were sand-gold, and the wide plains grass-green. Cities were depicted as tiny houses with red walls surrounding them. Each page was covered in names he tried to say aloud: “Ulanibad. Fortunbalia. Wrinkly Coe.” Each name tickled his tongue. “Tokado. Gurunth. Balfish. Quagly.”
Toward the end of the book was a map of Norland, his own kingdom. Even the images on the page looked icy to him. He glanced up at the library windows. Sharp needles of snow pinged against the glass.
King Fensgar did not linger over the map of Norland. He moved on to pages where roads like silver ribbons threaded through coppery savannas, villages nestled on forest-green hills, lakes of sapphire seemed to sparkle. He was enthralled by the maps.
As he reached the last page, he was about to shut the book and start all over again when he discovered a tiny knob in its thick spine. He pulled it, and a drawer opened. In it lay a slender telescope the length of a pen. The king put the telescope to his eye and looked around the library, but he saw only a blur.
Deep in the castle, the dinner gong sounded. “Vegetable soup again,” King Fensgar groaned. He placed the telescope carefully in its drawer and put the book back on the shelf.
The next morning, King Fensgar settled into the library chair. Outside the windows, the blizzard that had begun the day before raged on. He opened the atlas and once more looked through the telescope, this time pointing it toward a map of islands off a shoreline. It was as if the telescope leaped to life: No longer did he see merely a blur, but rather the clear outlines of an island. As the focus sharpened, the color of the island changed from the emerald hue of the ink to a lush tropical green. To his astonishment, the king saw trees and a strip of sand at the shore.
King Fensgar turned the page and aimed the telescope toward a town on the coast named Baboniki. He saw small, white houses with red-tiled roofs on the slopes above the sea. Cobblestone streets ran between the houses. Gardens in courtyards were filled with flowers of lemon yellow, lavender, and scarlet.
The king gasped. Tiny figures moved about the page! There was a woman with a scarf on her head and a basket under her arm. A boy pulled a donkey. An old man sat in a chair and whittled. Five little children were holding hands and dancing in a ring. Baboniki was alive with color and motion. The telescope was a minuscule window into those faraway worlds.
The king wanted to know each and every place on each and every map. Through the telescope he saw great cities brimming with lights in the evenings. He saw frothing streams plunging down mountainsides. In Utande on page 32, farmers in broad-brimmed hats bent over fields, picking deep purple fruits. In the village of Rezin of the land of Fania on page 104, he saw women in long robes pulling up buckets from a well. In the Sea of Estamadrol on page 16, men in brightly painted fishing boats pulled nets heavy with catch out of the water. And high up on the mountain pass of Kardan on page 59, the king saw a dragon saunter out of its cave, stretch its shimmering wings, and warm its gray-green scales in the wintry sun. The king saw its breath come rhythmically out of its nostrils, condensing into small clouds of steam. When he placed the telescope back in its drawer at the end of the day, the king thought, What a splendid diversion from this frozen land of mine!
Winter settled deeper over Fensgar’s kingdom. The ice that covered the lakes and ponds grew as thick as the castle walls. For many days snow fell and blanketed the forests, the villages, and the castle.
As winter wore on, the king spent his days eagerly studying the atlas. Each land was filled with countless interesting features. But the maps he returned to most frequently were the mountain pass on page 59 and the town of Baboniki on page 53.
The dragon often sat placidly by its cave, and in Baboniki he saw the same people going about their daily lives: men talking in clusters, children playing, the old man sitting on his chair, whittling. The king felt he knew them, although he had only observed and could not hear them or speak to them.
One morning as he watched, a group of about one hundred men dressed in blue jackets rode out of Baboniki on black horses. With the telescope he followed them as they rode, bows slung over their shoulders and quivers of arrows on their backs. In subsequent days, the king checked the men’s progress as they moved off the map of Baboniki on page 53 and through the plains and forests on pages 54 to 58. He sucked in his breath as he watched them move up the mountain pass of Kardan, where the dragon lived. How little I know, he thought. Will the dragon, who has always seemed so peaceful, eat those men? Or are the men from Baboniki on their way to kill it? Either way, the outcome struck the king as calamitous. There was nothing he could do . . . nothing but watch.
On the high mountain pass, surrounded by peaks covered in snow, the men in blue jackets rode their dark horses. The dragon was nowhere to be seen. Then, approaching from the other side of the mountain, an army of men in red coats appeared. The sun glinted off their spears. And so, far away from King Fensgar, a battle between the two armies began. The king screamed at them to stop, but his words did not carry through the paper. Never had he felt so helpless. He slammed the book shut.
And my own kingdom? He thought with a start. Perhaps I know nothing about it, either. Perhaps it, too, is in peril? He opened the atlas to the map of Norland. Gray mountains circled the land, indigo streams ran down the slopes to end in slate-blue lakes and ponds. The one patch of bright color was the red of the small town where his castle stood. He put the telescope to his eye.
It was twilight in Norland. In the town at the foot of the castle, peddlers were pulling their wares on sleds through the streets. Figures, their scarfs fluttering behind them, were skating on the lake that lay between the town and the forest. Near the woods, a bonfire blazed with a crowd gathered around it, roasting apples on the ends of sticks. People are out in the winter, the king thought, and I knew nothing of it.
Then, in a forest clearing, the king saw a hut with drifts of snow up to its windows. Outside the door, seated on the snow, a boy sat with his head on his knees and his shoulders shaking.
The child is crying, the king thought, and he ran out of the library.
He ordered that his sleigh be readied. Then he rode out into the snow, the way lit by torches. The coachman drove King Fensgar past the peddlers, the skaters, and the crowd at the bonfire, all of them turning and cheering when they saw the royal sleigh. It raced down a forest path into the deepening dark until it reached the hut where the boy still sat outside the door. As the king got off the sleigh, the boy lifted his face, which was wet with tears and red with cold.
“Child, why do you cry?” King Fensgar asked.
“My mother and father and baby sister are sick, and there is no one but me to care for them.”
“But why are you outside, sitting in the snow?”
“I do not want them to see I’m scared.”
“Come,” the king said, taking the boy’s hand in his. “Let us go inside.”
The hut was lit by a fire, and two beds were pulled close to its warmth. On one lay a man, and on the other a woman and a baby. As the king bent toward them, he saw that their faces were pale and thin and their eyes seemed barely to see him. “I have nothing left but water to give them,” the boy said.
At that, King Fensgar went out to the coachman and told him to go back to the castle for the court doctor, blankets, and pots of vegetable soup. Then the king returned inside, where he sat, long after the doctor arrived to examine the invalids and had gone, until the parents were well enough to see the boy and smile.
For weeks the atlas sat untouched on the library shelf while the king rode through his kingdom. He stocked his sleigh with potatoes to roast in the bonfires, carried his skates with him so he could join the laughing people on the frozen ponds, and brought pots of vegetable soup for the boy and his family. But one day, after dancing in a ring with a group of children in the square near his castle, King Fensgar could no longer bear not knowing what had become of the people of Baboniki.
Required
1
Read the sentence from the passage.
“Winters in that land were long, and during the darkest, loneliest time of one particular winter, the king felt the whole realm was frozen with boredom.”
What is being suggested by the phrase “frozen with boredom”?
Read the sentence from the passage.
“Winters in that land were long, and during the darkest, loneliest time of one particular winter, the king felt the whole realm was frozen with boredom.”
What is being suggested by the phrase “frozen with boredom”?
Required
1
Read the sentence from the passage.
“On a stormy, frigid day, King Fensgar wandered through room after room of his castle, searching for anything that might intrigue him.”
What is the meaning of the word intrigue as used in the passage?
Read the sentence from the passage.
“On a stormy, frigid day, King Fensgar wandered through room after room of his castle, searching for anything that might intrigue him.”
What is the meaning of the word intrigue as used in the passage?
Required
1
How does the author describe Baboniki when the king first sees it?
How does the author describe Baboniki when the king first sees it?
Required
1
Read the sentences from the passage.
“Even the images on the page looked icy to him.”
“Near the woods, a bonfire blazed with a crowd gathered around it, roasting apples on the ends of sticks.”
How do the sentences most show a contrast between the point of view of the king and the point of view of the people in his kingdom?
Read the sentences from the passage.
“Even the images on the page looked icy to him.”
“Near the woods, a bonfire blazed with a crowd gathered around it, roasting apples on the ends of sticks.”
How do the sentences most show a contrast between the point of view of the king and the point of view of the people in his kingdom?
Required
1
Read the sentence from the passage.
“And high up on the mountain pass of Kardan on page 59, the king saw a dragon saunter out of its cave, stretch its shimmering wings, and warm its gray-green scales in the wintry sun.”
Which statement best describes how the author’s use of the word “saunter” affects meaning in the passage?
Read the sentence from the passage.
“And high up on the mountain pass of Kardan on page 59, the king saw a dragon saunter out of its cave, stretch its shimmering wings, and warm its gray-green scales in the wintry sun.”
Which statement best describes how the author’s use of the word “saunter” affects meaning in the passage?
Required
1
This question has two parts. Answer Part One and then answer Part Two.
Part One How does the king’s reaction to witnessing the battle contribute to the plot of the passage?
This question has two parts. Answer Part One and then answer Part Two.
Part One
How does the king’s reaction to witnessing the battle contribute to the plot of the passage?
Required
1
Part Two
Which evidence from the passage best supports the answer in Part One? Choose one answer.
Part Two
Which evidence from the passage best supports the answer in Part One? Choose one answer.
The following passage was first published in 1912. The passage appeared in Edna Ferber’s short story collection Buttered Side Down. Ferber had a long career writing popular stories, novels, plays, and screenplays.
Sun Dried
by Edna Ferber
There come those times in life when you feel that you must wash your hair at once. And then you do it. The feeling may come upon you suddenly, without warning, at any hour of the day or night; or its approach may be slow and insidious, so that the victim does not at first realize what it is that causes that sensation of unrest.
Mary Louise was seized with the feeling at ten o’clock on a joyous June morning. She tried to fight it off because she had got to that stage in the construction of her story where her hero was beginning to talk and act a little more like a real live man, and a little less like a clothing store mannequin.
Mary Louise had been battling with that hero for a week. In vain Mary Louise had striven to instill red blood into his watery veins. He and the beauteous heroine were as far apart as they had been on Page One of the typewritten manuscript. Mary Louise was developing nerves over him. She had bitten her fingernails, and twisted her hair into corkscrews over him. She had risen every morning at the chaste hour of seven, breakfasted hurriedly, tidied the tiny two-room apartment, and sat down in the unromantic morning light to wrestle with her stick of a hero. She had made her heroine a creature of grace, wit, and loveliness, but thus far the hero had not even looked at her.
This morning, however, he had begun to show some signs of life. He was developing possibilities. Whereupon, at this critical stage in the story writing game, the hair-washing mania seized Mary Louise. She tried to dismiss the idea. She pushed it out of her mind, and slammed the door. It only popped in again. Her fingers wandered to her hair. Her eyes wandered to the June sunshine outside. The hero was left poised, arms outstretched, and life burning in his eyes, while Mary Louise mused, thus:
“It certainly feels sticky. It’s been six days, at least. And I could sit here—by the window—in the sun—and dry it—”
With a jerk she brought her straying fingers away from her hair, and her wandering eyes away from the sunshine, and her runaway thoughts back to the typewritten page. For three minutes the snap of the little disks crackled through the stillness of the tiny apartment. Then, suddenly, as though succumbing to an irresistible force, Mary Louise rose, walked across the room (a matter of six steps), removing hairpins as she went, and shoved aside the screen which hid the stationary washbowl by day.
Mary Louise turned on a faucet and held her finger under it, while an agonized expression of doubt and suspense overspread her features. Slowly the look of suspense gave way to a smile of beatific content. A sigh—deep, soul-filling, satisfied—welled up from Mary Louise’s chest. The water was hot.
Half an hour later, head swathed turban fashion in a towel, Mary Louise strolled over to the window. Then she stopped, aghast. In that half hour the sun had slipped just around the corner, and was now beating brightly and uselessly against the brick wall a few inches away.
Slowly Mary Louise unwound the towel, bent double in the contortionistic attitude, and watched with melancholy eyes while the drops trickled down to the ends of her hair, and fell, un-sunned, to the floor.
“If only,” thought Mary Louise, bitterly, “there was such a thing as a backyard in this city—a backyard where I could squat on the grass, in the sunshine and the breeze—Maybe there is. I’ll ask the janitor.”
She bound her hair in the turban again, and opened the door. At the far end of the long, dim hallway Charlie, the janitor, was doing something to the floor with a mop and a great deal of sloppy water, whistling the while with a shrill abandon that had announced his presence to Mary Louise.
“Oh, Charlie!” called Mary Louise. “Charlie! Can you come here just a minute?”
“You bet!” answered Charlie, with the accent on the you; and came.
“Charlie, is there a backyard, or something, where the sun is, you know—some nice, grassy place where I can sit, and dry my hair, and let the breezes blow it?”
“Backyard!” grinned Charlie. “I guess you’re new to N’ York, all right, with ground costin’ a million or so a foot. Not much they ain’t no backyard.”
Disappointment curved Mary Louise’s mouth.
“Tell you what, though,” said Charlie. “I’ll let you up on the roof. It ain’t long on grassy spots up there, but say, breeze! Like a summer resort. On a clear day you can see way over’s far’s Eight’ Avenoo. Only for the love of Mike don’t blab it to the other folks in the buildin’, or I’ll have the whole works of ’em usin’ the roof for a general sun, massage, an’ beauty parlor. Come on.”
“I’ll never breathe it to a soul,” promised Mary Louise, solemnly. “Oh, wait a minute.”
She turned back into her room, appearing again in a moment with something green in her hand.
“What’s that?” asked Charlie, suspiciously.
Mary Louise, speeding down the narrow hallway after Charlie, blushed a little. “It—it’s parsley,” she faltered.
“Parsley!” exploded Charlie. “Well, what the—”
“Well, you see. I’m from the country,” explained Mary Louise, “and in the country, at this time of year, when you dry your hair in the backyard, you get the most wonderful scent of green and growing things—not only of flowers, you know, but of the new things just coming up in the vegetable garden, and—and—well, this parsley happens to be the only really gardeny thing I have, so I thought I’d bring it along and sniff it once in a while, and make believe it’s the country, up there on the roof.”
Mary Louise sprang up on the roof, looking, with her towel-swathed head, from her underground grotto1.
The two stood there a moment, looking up at the blue sky, and all about at the June sunshine.
“If you go up high enough,” observed Mary Louise, “the sunshine is almost the same as it is in the country, isn’t it?”
_____________
1 grotto—a small cave
Required
4
The central character of “Sun Dried” is the artist Mary Louise. Write an essay analyzing how the author reveals Mary Louise’s creativity throughout the passage. Use evidence from the passage to support your response.
Writer’s Checklist for the Text-Dependent Analysis Prompt
PLAN before you write - Make sure you read the prompt carefully.
- Make sure you have read the entire passage carefully.
- Think about how the prompt relates to the passage.
- Organize your ideas on scratch paper. Use a thought map, outline, or other graphic organizer to plan your essay.
FOCUS while you write- Analyze the information from the passage as you write your essay.
- Make sure you use evidence from the passage to support your response.
- Use precise language, a variety of sentence types, and transitions in your essay.
- Organize your paper with an introduction, body, and conclusion.
PROOFREAD after you write
- I wrote my final essay in the answer booklet.
- I stayed focused on responding to the prompt.
- I used evidence from the passage to support my response.
- I corrected errors in capitalization, spelling, sentence formation, punctuation, and word choice.
The central character of “Sun Dried” is the artist Mary Louise. Write an essay analyzing how the author reveals Mary Louise’s creativity throughout the passage. Use evidence from the passage to support your response.
Writer’s Checklist for the Text-Dependent Analysis Prompt
PLAN before you write
- Make sure you read the prompt carefully.
- Make sure you have read the entire passage carefully.
- Think about how the prompt relates to the passage.
- Organize your ideas on scratch paper. Use a thought map, outline, or other graphic organizer to plan your essay.
FOCUS while you write
- Analyze the information from the passage as you write your essay.
- Make sure you use evidence from the passage to support your response.
- Use precise language, a variety of sentence types, and transitions in your essay.
- Organize your paper with an introduction, body, and conclusion.
PROOFREAD after you write
- I wrote my final essay in the answer booklet.
- I stayed focused on responding to the prompt.
- I used evidence from the passage to support my response.
- I corrected errors in capitalization, spelling, sentence formation, punctuation, and word choice.
Required
1
Read the sentence.
Recommending that an artist rush to complete many paintings in time for a show’s opening is never something the gallery owner would recommend since the gallery owner doesn’t want to display sloppy work.
Choose the best way to revise the sentence to eliminate unnecessary repetition.
Read the sentence.
Recommending that an artist rush to complete many paintings in time for a show’s opening is never something the gallery owner would recommend since the gallery owner doesn’t want to display sloppy work.
Choose the best way to revise the sentence to eliminate unnecessary repetition.
Required
1
Read the sentence from a student’s story.
The kitchen began to smell good as Joe steamed rice and tossed cut-up vegetables in a frying pan.
The student decided to add “following the recipe” to the sentence. Which version of the sentence shows the best placement of this phrase?
Read the sentence from a student’s story.
The kitchen began to smell good as Joe steamed rice and tossed cut-up vegetables in a frying pan.
The student decided to add “following the recipe” to the sentence. Which version of the sentence shows the best placement of this phrase?
Required
1
Read the paragraph.
(1) The moon was shining. (2) It was a dark, clear night with a chill in the air. (3) There was complete silence, except for the “hoot-hoot” of some lonely owls. (4) Hundreds of stars twinkled in the black sky.
Which revision would most improve the paragraph?
Read the paragraph.
(1) The moon was shining. (2) It was a dark, clear night with a chill in the air. (3) There was complete silence, except for the “hoot-hoot” of some lonely owls. (4) Hundreds of stars twinkled in the black sky.
Which revision would most improve the paragraph?