End-of-Grade 4 (EOG4) Reading

Last updated 7 months ago

42 questions

End-of-Grade 4 (EOG4) Reading

Last updated 7 months ago

42 questions

Libby Saves the Team 
by Kristine Nielsen

Libby wiggled with excitement as she watched her dad hook up their six Alaskan huskies to the red and black canvas sled. Her brown eyes peeked out of the fur-lined hood which outlined her round, full face.

Libby paced around the sled, impatiently waiting for her father as he hooked each dog to the gang-line. "Dad," she shouted in her self-assured voice, "let's go! I want to go! The dogs have ants in their pants. Let's go!"

"Yeah, just a minute, Libby. I've got one more dog to harness, and we're out of here," her dad said.

The dogs, sensing the excitement in Libby's voice, began a chorus of their own, joining in one at a time with howls and cries.

Just minutes later, Libby hopped into the sled and wiggled down to get comfortable on a bed of washed-out throw pillows.

Libby's dad took a position standing on the sled behind her. He shouted out to the team,
"Ready, girls? Yip!"

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The dogs' ears stood erect as the team lunged forward.

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Libby felt the power of the dogs as the sled jolted across the packed-snow trail. She held tightly to the sides of the sled with her oversized gloves while steadying herself against the cold canvas. "Whee . .. We're finally off. I can hardly believe it," Libby giggled.

Her father yelled, "Gee!" and the dogs obediently turned into the woods.

The sled stirred the snow up around them, and the wind threw the snow into Libby's smiling face. "How far are we running the dogs today?" Libby called to her dad.

"About twenty miles, Libby. If they make it that far," he answered.

Libby reached out toward the pine trees and grabbed one of the snow-covered branches.
Clenching the twig, she snapped it off and swung it between Timber and Tucker, the two dogs closest to the sled. "Go, girls, go!" Libby called.

Just as Libby shouted, the dogs darted, with a bump, through the woods faster than ever, and Libby giggled in excitement.

Seconds passed, then Libby heard her father shouting in the distance behind her. She turned around and brushed her hair back and tried to see through the back of the sled.

"Dad? Dad, where are you?" she yelled.

There was no response. She realized her father must have been bumped off the sled on the last turn. What was she going to do? The sled bounced along the trail.

Libby steadied her shaky legs and stood. It seemed the sled was moving faster than ever.
Grabbing the canvas with one hand and the top of the sled with the other, she pulled herself over the bar and planted her feet where her father's had been just minutes before. She felt her heart beating faster and faster.

She reached down for the metal anchor and pushed it over the edge of the sled. Nothing happened. The dogs still raced out of control, not feeling the weight of the anchor dragging in the snow.

Libby then leaned back, dug her right boot deep into the snow and commanded the dogs to stop. "Whoa, girls, WHOA!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

The sled slowed to a halt, and the dogs stood motionless, waiting for her next command.

Libby let out a sigh and wiped her wet nose with her gloves, which were now dirty and torn.

Soon her father came running through the snow. He grabbed Libby and hugged her.

"You saved the team, Libby! You really did it.
I'm so proud of you."

Libby spread her cheeks into a wide, proud smile for her dad and squeezed him even tighter. Libby and her father stood at the edge of the sled until the dogs gently nudged them on, and then they headed for home.

Required

Excerpt from Amelia Earhart
by Marilyn Rosenthal and Daniel Freeman

Friendly Flight

In 1928, Amelia met with book publisher George Palmer Putnam. He was arranging an airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The airplane Friendship belonged to Amy Guest. She wanted to show that women could fly in airplanes like men could.

George wanted Amelia to be a passenger on the flight. She would be the first woman to travel across the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane. On June 17, 1928, Amelia, pilot Wilmer Stultz, and a mechanic took off from Newfoundland, Canada. They landed safely near England 20 hours and 40 minutes later. Amelia instantly became famous. But she did not feel she had earned the fame. She had not been the pilot.

George became Amelia's manager after the flight. He arranged for her to write books and give talks about flying. Amelia and George became friends. They married in 1931.

New Records

Amelia was famous because of the Friendship's flight across the Atlantic Ocean. But she wanted to set a record by herself. She wanted to fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone. No woman had done this.

By 1932, she was ready to make the flight. Amelia would fly a Lockheed Vega. The airplane could carry enough fuel to fly 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers) without stopping.

On May 29, 1932, Amelia took off from Newfoundland, Canada. Her airplane's altimeter quit. Amelia could not tell how high she was flying. She also had to fly through heavy rain and strong winds. But she landed safely in Ireland 13 hours later.

Amelia wanted to become the first person to fly nonstop across the Pacific Ocean. Ten pilots had died attempting this flight. In 1935, Amelia took off from Hawaii and landed safely in Oakland, California.

Women's Rights

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Amelia used her fame to help women. She started The Ninety-Nines in 1929. This group of women pilots originally had 99 members. Today, The Ninety-Nines continues to encourage women to become pilots.

Amelia knew U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor. Amelia and Eleanor gave speeches in favor of women's rights.

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The president of Purdue University, Edwin C. Elliot, was impressed with Amelia's efforts. Edwin asked Amelia to become a career counselor at Purdue. Amelia advised almost 1,000 women students.

At Purdue, Amelia began planning a flight around the world. She wanted to be the first person to fly around the Earth near the equator. Purdue helped pay for an airplane that could fly 4,500 miles (7,242 kilometers) without refueling.

Final Flight

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On June 1, 1937, Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Miami, Florida. They made stops in South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

On July 1, Amelia and Fred took off from Lae, New Guinea. Their last stop before arriving back in the United States was Howland Island. This tiny island in the Pacific Ocean was 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) northeast of Lae.

But Amelia and Fred never made it to Howland Island. Amelia lost radio contact with the U.S. Navy at around 8:45 a.m. on July 2. She had told the navy they were near the island. She said the airplane was almost out of gas. Amelia and Fred had disappeared.

Ships and airplanes searched 250,000 square miles (647,500 kilometers) of ocean for 15 days. Amelia and Fred were never found. No one knows why Amelia's airplane disappeared.

Required

This article was written in 2006. 

What’s It Like to Be a Chef? 

November is one of my favorite times of the year. It seems that everyone spends a lot more time in the kitchen getting ready for Thanksgiving! Pumpkin pie, turkey, sweet potatoes—yum! Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a chef and to cook for lots and lots of people? Bill Justus is the Executive Chef at Hershey Lodge1 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He comes up with recipes to go on the menus of the resort’s restaurants, and he loves to cook with chocolate. And not just desserts! At Hershey, the home of the famous Hershey chocolate bar, they use chocolate in all different types of recipes! I was lucky to meet with Chef Justus and get his story about what it’s like to be a chef.

TRUMAN: What does it take to become a chef? 

CHEF JUSTUS: First of all, it takes a little bit of schooling. Whether you go through an apprenticeship,2 or there’s a lot of really good culinary3 schools in the United States now. If you are in an area that is fortunate to have a good vocational technical school,4 that’s a good way for you to get in and see if it’s really something you’d like to pursue as a profession. 

TRUMAN: When did you know that this was something you wanted to do for a living?

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CHEF JUSTUS: Well, I’d always kind of kicked the idea around a little bit, helping my aunt and uncle who had some restaurants. Probably when I went into vocational school is when I really started taking it seriously as a profession. I went to vocational school during my junior and senior years of high school. 

TRUMAN: Did you always like to help out in the kitchen when you were young? 

CHEF JUSTUS: I always helped out somewhat. My mother is a really, really good cook, and she can make pretty much anything. My grandmother was a really good baker, and she liked to make candies. I have two brothers, so when my mom was at work, I would help her out a little bit in the kitchen.

TRUMAN: What exactly do you do as an executive chef?

CHEF JUSTUS: As an executive chef, you have a lot of responsibilities, not only with cooking, but with scheduling, menu planning, organizing, hiring, training. Budgets and numbers, things of that nature. Not only is it being a good cook, but you also have to communicate with people—like we're doing here today. With the Food Network and things like that, people are a little more aware of what's going on and a little more educated about cooking.

TRUMAN: What is a typical day like?

CHEF JUSTUS: A typical day is coming in, going over financial reports from the previous day, meeting with your staff and going over menu development. We have menu tastings, too. The property is pretty big, so we have really big groups that come in. We have one coming up soon for 1,300 people. It's a lot of planning—planning ahead. You have to figure out how much lettuce to order, how many vegetables to order, things of that nature. We try to use seasonal products on the menu and change them for spring, fall, and special holidays.

TRUMAN: So when do you actually cook?

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CHEF JUSTUS: I cook as much as I can. I'm fortunate enough that when we do the specialty functions, I try to get a hand in that. A lot of times, my sous chefs—the assistants—they are the ones that are on the floor throughout the day supervising the line-level staff5 and making sure that everything is going according to plan.

TRUMAN: So, what's the best part of your job?

CHEF JUSTUS: I think the creativity. It changes daily. Dealing with different groups and the diversity of what we do—one day you might be doing a basic box lunch, and the next day you're doing a seven-course dinner. It changes—every day it's something different. It's exciting.

TRUMAN: What's the worst part of your job?

CHEF JUSTUS: I don't consider anything bad. I think the one thing people would have to realize is that the hours are different than most people have. You work the weekends, the holidays; it's not a bad thing, just something you should be aware of. My first chef told me, "Always remember, when everybody is playing, you're working."

TRUMAN: I hear you do some interesting things with chocolate. What’s your favorite kind of chocolate?

CHEF JUSTUS: My favorite is the Hershey Special Dark. They’ve also come out with some new products, the extra dark. I like the dark chocolates. We use the chocolates as much as we can. Not only for desserts, but we try to use it in the center-of-plate items. We use the Hershey cocoas, spice it up with different spices and seasonings and use it as a rub for meats, fish, and chicken. We try to use chocolate not only for dessert, but other applications. We do a chocolate-barbecued chicken wing that is pretty good.

TRUMAN: What’s your favorite dessert?

CHEF JUSTUS: My favorite dessert—hmm, I like desserts! My favorite dessert is probably pumpkin pie.

TRUMAN: And what’s your favorite meal?

CHEF JUSTUS: I like to make soups when I’m at home. I like a nice homemade soup or stew. I like the one-dish meals.

TRUMAN: What are you serving for Thanksgiving dinner at Hershey Lodge?

CHEF JUSTUS: We’re going to have a wide variety of things, a little bit of an international flair this year. We’ll be using local ingredients as well as recipes and items from around the world. We’re calling it a world of thanks.

TRUMAN: What kind of advice would you give to kids who are interested in becoming a chef?

CHEF JUSTUS: Be open-minded. Study. Math, science, all the classes, take all that to heart and make sure to get a good education. The opportunities are wide open in the culinary and hospitality6 field. You can be adventurous and travel. Be open-minded.

TRUMAN: Thanks for talking to me! And these cookies are delicious—this really is the sweetest place on Earth!

1lodge: a hotel 
2apprenticeship: a training period when a person learns on the job 
3culinary: concerning cooking 
4vocational technical school: a school that trains people for a particular job
5line-level staff: beginning jobs
6hospitality: concerning housing and entertaining visitors

Required

Adapted from “A Regular Railroad Dog” 
by Avis J. Kirsch

Trigger was a railroad dog right from the start. Charlie, the station agent, found the black-and-white cocker spaniel in a deserted boxcar.

Before he adopted Trigger, Charlie was frequently lonesome. He worked at a small railroad station high up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. He was the flagman, switchman, and yardmaster. He was everything, because there was no one else.

One of Charlie's duties was to turn the switch, and Trigger went with him. It was an important task. At the switch, the trains could go on the right track fork to the gold fields or on the left track fork to the silver mines. Charlie knew which way to turn the switch by the number of toots signaled to him by the engineer.

Hearing those engine whistles all the time, Trigger learned to tell them apart. Whenever they sounded, he ran to the switch. With his little head cocked to one side and his black-and-white tail straight up, he'd watch Charlie open the correct switch.

Trigger took such an interest in the switching that Charlie made a decision. "I'm going to teach you how to lift the handle with your nose and move it with your paws."

Before long, Trigger could do it alone.

Charlie discovered a section of track that needed repair. When the men came out to work on the rails, Charlie showed them how Trigger could turn the switch.

They took off their caps and scratched their heads. It was hard for them to believe what they were seeing.

"Charlie, you got yourself a regular railroad dog," one of the men said.

While the men were working, Charlie had to stop the train, so he'd stand in the middle of the tracks and wave a red flag.

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Trigger went with Charlie each time and stood beside him. Soon Charlie let Trigger carry the flag. Then the dog learned to fetch it. By the time the repairs were almost finished, Trigger would get the flag, sit up between the rails holding the flag in his teeth, and wait for the big iron locomotive to stop. Sometimes the big monster of an engine, bellowing steam, would come very close to the little dog before it stopped, but Trigger never faltered. He'd hold still until the iron wheels came to a screeching halt. Then he'd wag his tail and go back to the station.

"A regular railroad dog," the men said, over and over.

One bitter-cold winter day when the wind blew with an icy breath, Charlie's knees began to hurt. When he heard the train coming up the mountain, he started out for the switch. It was very painful for Charlie to walk.

Trigger scampered along, his curly black ears flopping in the biting wind. But when they reached the switch, Trigger could not move it.

"What's the matter, Trigger?" Charlie asked.

Then he saw. The switch was frozen in the middle. The train coming could not go on the left or the right fork. It would wreck. Charlie tugged with all his might, but the switch did not move.

"Old 49 will be here before I can get the red flag," Charlie said.

The engineer was signaling for the left fork. Expecting to go to the silver mines, he would instead shoot straight ahead and down the mountain.

"Trigger, Mr. Sears, the superintendent of the railroad, is on Old 49. And all the others will go down, too! Quick, Trigger, fetch the flag!"

The little dog started running back to the station.

"Hurry!" shouted Charlie above the howling wind.

Trigger ran faster.

In spite of the weather, little beads of sweat formed on Charlie's forehead. He had never been so scared. Could Trigger save the train? He closed his eyes and said a prayer. The sound of the train pounding on the rails thundered in Charlie's head.

Tugging its load of passengers, the engine labored upward. "Now it's at the bend," Charlie said aloud. "It'll come roaring by me on the downgrade and hit that spot where the track divides, and over they'll go-people, boxcars, engine, strewn all over the mountainside."

Charlie hated to open his eyes, but when he did... there was Trigger in the center of the track, sitting proudly on his hind legs, his two little paws showing like white mittens, the red flag secure in his mouth.

Closer and closer the engine came, its great iron point aimed like an arrow at the brave little dog. Sparks flew from the wheels as the engineer tried to apply the brakes.

Inches from Trigger, the train stopped.

Charlie was a man who never let his feelings show, but this time they overwhelmed him. He hobbled over to Trigger, picked up the little dog, flag and all, and hugged him. "You did it, Trigger. You did it!"

Mr. Sears hopped off the train, wanting to know why it had stopped. When he heard about Trigger, Mr. Sears petted the dog and said, "This little dog saved all our lives. I'm going to send him a big, juicy steak every day for as long as he lives."

Some say this is a true story. They say it happened at Forks Creek, Colorado, in 1900, and the real Trigger stopped the train. "A regular railroad dog," they say.

Required

Dinos in the Dark 
by Stephen Whitt

When you think of dinosaurs and where they lived, what do you picture? Do you see hot, steamy swamps, thick jungles, or sunny plains? Dinosaurs lived in those places, yes. But did you know that some dinosaurs lived in the cold and the darkness near the North and South Poles?

This surprised scientists, too. Paleontologists1 used to believe that dinosaurs lived only in the warmest parts of the world. They thought that dinosaurs could only have lived in places where turtles, crocodiles, and snakes live today. Later, these dinosaur scientists began finding bones in surprising places.

One of those surprising fossil beds is a place called Dinosaur Cove, Australia. One hundred million years ago, Australia was connected to Antarctica. Both continents were located near the South Pole. Today, paleontologists dig dinosaur fossils out of the ground. They think about what those ancient bones must mean.

What was the climate like at Dinosaur Cove then? It was cold! The average temperature was probably around 30 degrees F. The weather would have been like the weather in southern Alaska. How could dinosaurs have lived in such cold temperatures?

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And that’s not all. Dinosaur Cove was located near the South Pole. This means that for several months each year, the sun never rose. Instead, Dinosaur Cove was plunged into a dark, cold winter night that didn’t end until the spring or summer.

Go or Stay?

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In other parts of the world, dinosaurs probably migrated away from the winter’s darkness. But the animals at Dinosaur Cove lived on a peninsula of land. They were blocked to the north by a huge lake. To the south and east was the ocean. The only way out was to the west, but it was too far for most of the animals at Dinosaur Cove to migrate. So they couldn’t travel each year when the long night came.

To survive, these dinosaurs had to adapt.2 How did they change over time? Imagine you are a dinosaur at Dinosaur Cove. If you happen to have larger eyes, you will have a better chance of surviving than will a dinosaur with small eyes because you can see in the dark. Your children will probably have big eyes too. As time goes by, there will be more and more dinosaurs with bigger eyes.

Big eyes helped the dinosaurs see evergreen trees in the darkness. Since these trees didn’t lose their needles in the winter, they were food for the plant-eating dinosaurs. Big eyes also helped the dinosaurs watch out for predators that would have hunted them.

Dino Blood?
Even with big eyes, though, the dinosaurs at Dinosaur Cove faced another problem—the cold. Turtles, snakes, and crocodiles are all reptiles. Almost all of them live in the warmer parts of the world, and for good reason. Their bodies don’t produce their own heat, so they stay the same temperature as their surroundings. We say these animals are "cold-blooded," but their blood doesn’t have to be cold. It’s just as warm as the air or water around them.

If reptiles get too cold, they become sluggish and slow. Some paleontologists wonder if maybe dinosaurs were more like birds than reptiles. If dinosaurs were "warm-blooded" like birds, then they could have made their own heat. That would explain how dinosaurs might have survived through the cold, dark winters at Dinosaur Cove.

The Last Dinosaurs?
But that brings up another mystery. Most paleontologists think the dinosaurs died out because the world got very cold very quickly. Maybe a giant rock from space (an asteroid) slammed into Earth and threw up a cloud of dust. Or maybe ash from volcanoes blocked out the sun. Either way, the world became too cold for the dinosaurs to survive.

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But what if some dinosaurs could survive cold polar winters? Could they also survive on a colder planet? What if the descendents3 of the animals at Dinosaur Cove survived the extinction?4 Could they have been the last dinosaurs on Earth?

The wonderful thing about science is that each new answer creates more questions. Maybe one day you will become a paleontologist and travel to the coldest parts of the world to search for the bones of Earth’s last dinosaurs. Be sure to pack a sweater!


1paleontologists: scientists who study fossils of animals that lived very long ago
2adapt: change
3descendents: children, and children of children
4extinction: the end of something

Required

End-of-Grade 4 (EOG4) Reading

End-of-Grade 4 (EOG4) Reading

Libby Saves the Team

Excerpt from Amelia Earhart

What’s It Like to Be a Chef?

Adapted from “A Regular Railroad Dog”

Dinos in the Dark

Dino Blood?

The Last Dinosaurs?

Libby Saves the Team

What is the meaning of lunged in this sentence from paragraph 7?“The dogs’ ears stood erect as the team lunged forward.”

What does the word jolted mean in paragraph 8?

Which quote from the text describes the setting?

Which event changes how Libby feels about the sled ride?

Why does Libby snap off a pine twig and swing it between Timber and Tucker?

What does the action that Libby took to save the team show about her character?

Which statement summarizes the text?

Why is Libby’s father proud of her at the end of the text?

Excerpt from Amelia Earhart

According to the selection, why was Amelia unhappy with her flight on Friendship?

What evidence from the selection shows how Amelia supported other women who wanted to become pilots?

In paragraph 8, what is the meaning of the word originally?

Whose wife made speeches with Amelia Earhart?

In paragraph 10, what is the meaning of the word impressed?

Why was Amelia Earhart asked to be a career counselor?

In paragraph 12, what is another name for navigator?

What is the main idea of the selection?

What’s It Like to Be a Chef?

What is the meaning of “always kind of kicked the idea around a little bit” in paragraph 5?

Which statement from the text supports the idea that being a chef is more than just cooking?

What does “sous chef” mean in paragraph 13?

Why is it important for a chef to have creativity?

Which statement from the text supports the idea that chefs have unusual hours?

Which statement from the text supports that chocolate is an important ingredient for Chef Justus?

How does the author show that being an executive chef is hard work?

What is the main idea of this text?

Identify the main idea of the text “What’s It Like to be a Chef?” Include one quote from the text to support your answer.

Adapted from “A Regular Railroad Dog”

Which statement from the text shows that Trigger was a smart dog?

What is the meaning of fetch in paragraph 11?

What does Charlie’s reaction to the frozen switch show about him?

How did the dog stop the train from crashing?

Which quote from the text supports the theme of bravery?

Why does the train almost fall off the mountain?

How does Trigger learning how to stop a train contribute to the end of the text?

Which statement summarizes the text?

Dinos in the Dark

Dino Blood?

The Last Dinosaurs?

Why were scientists surprised to find dinosaur bones near Antarctica?

How does the author tell about the climate of Dinosaur Cove?

What does the word plunged mean in paragraph 5?

How does the author explain the effect of living at Dinosaur Cove on the dinosaurs?

Which statement from the text explains what helped dinosaurs stay alive in the darkness?

According to the text, why were the dinosaurs in Dinosaur Cove unable to move to a warmer place?

How does the author show in paragraph 12 that scientists may not have all the information they need?

Which detail supports the main idea?

Explain the meaning of the word migrated in the first sentence of paragraph 6. Use one quote from the text to support your answer.

What is the meaning of lunged in this sentence from paragraph 7?“The dogs’ ears stood erect as the team lunged forward.”

What does the word jolted mean in paragraph 8?

Which quote from the text describes the setting?

Which event changes how Libby feels about the sled ride?

Why does Libby snap off a pine twig and swing it between Timber and Tucker?

What does the action that Libby took to save the team show about her character?

Which statement summarizes the text?

Why is Libby’s father proud of her at the end of the text?

According to the selection, why was Amelia unhappy with her flight on Friendship?

What evidence from the selection shows how Amelia supported other women who wanted to become pilots?

In paragraph 8, what is the meaning of the word originally?

Whose wife made speeches with Amelia Earhart?

In paragraph 10, what is the meaning of the word impressed?

Why was Amelia Earhart asked to be a career counselor?

In paragraph 12, what is another name for navigator?

What is the main idea of the selection?

What is the meaning of “always kind of kicked the idea around a little bit” in paragraph 5?

Which statement from the text supports the idea that being a chef is more than just cooking?

What does “sous chef” mean in paragraph 13?

Why is it important for a chef to have creativity?

Which statement from the text supports the idea that chefs have unusual hours?

Which statement from the text supports that chocolate is an important ingredient for Chef Justus?

What is the meaning of lunged in this sentence from paragraph 7?
“The dogs’ ears stood erect as the team lunged forward.”

What is the meaning of lunged in this sentence from paragraph 7?
“The dogs’ ears stood erect as the team lunged forward.”