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Middle Grades English 5–9

Multiple-Choice Section

Test Format and Sample Questions

The Middle Grades English 5–9 Multiple-Choice Section contains approximately 60 multiple-choice items. You will have one and one-half hours to complete this section.

Each of the questions in the multiple-choice section will contain four response options. You will choose the best response out of the available options, and indicate A, B, C, or D.

The table below presents types of questions on the exam and directs you to examples of these formats among the sample items that follow.

Table of Question Formats

Type of Question Sample Question
Sentence Completion
Select the response option that best completes the sentence. 		Question 1
Direct Question
Choose the response option that best answers the question. 		Question 2
Command
Select the best response option. 		Question 7
Scenario
Examine a classroom situation or a student composition. Then select the response option that best answers a question, recommends a course of action, or gives the appropriate evaluation or teacher comment. 		Question 26

Sample Questions

The following questions represent both the form and content of questions on the examination. These questions will acquaint you with the general format of the examination; however, these sample questions do not cover all of the competencies and skills that are tested and will only approximate the degree of examination difficulty.

Question 1

Competency 1—Knowledge of how the characteristics of middle school students affect student learning and instructional decisions in English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

For a unit on the novel Touching Spirit Bear, the teacher prepared an activity that required his eighth grade students to work in pairs to generate and discuss pros and cons of the judge’s decision regarding the main character. This was an effective activity because young adolescents are likely to be in the process of

Choose an answer
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.

Question 2

Competency 1—Knowledge of how the characteristics of middle school students affect student learning and instructional decisions in English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Which of the following instructional goals for a seventh grade language arts class is aligned with the emotional development of students at that grade level?

Choose an answer
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.

Question 3

Competency 1—Knowledge of how the characteristics of middle school students affect student learning and instructional decisions in English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Prior to taking her sixth grade class on an excursion to an amusement park, which language arts activity should the teacher use to help the English language learners in her class communicate with the vendors at the park?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: A.

Question 4

Competency 1—Knowledge of how the characteristics of middle school students affect student learning and instructional decisions in English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Which of the following is a characteristic of emergent literacy?

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Correct Response: A.

Question 5

Competency 1—Knowledge of how the characteristics of middle school students affect student learning and instructional decisions in English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

According to current research, English language learners are most likely to benefit from language arts instruction that

Choose an answer
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.

Question 6

Competency 2—Knowledge of applications of evidence-based practices in teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Which of the following language arts activities is facilitated by a word processing program?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: B.

Question 7

Competency 2—Knowledge of applications of evidence-based practices in teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Identify the best interdisciplinary project to incorporate history, mathematics, and language arts.

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Correct Response: C.

Question 8

Competency 2—Knowledge of applications of evidence-based practices in teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A team of seventh grade teachers would like to incorporate technology into a unit that includes science and language arts. Which of the following technology-based activities provides the most opportunities for interdisciplinary experiences?

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Correct Response: B.

Question 9

Competency 2—Knowledge of applications of evidence-based practices in teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Middle school language arts teachers use semantic mapping and webbing to help develop students' cognitive abilities primarily because these methods

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: D.

Question 10

Competency 2—Knowledge of applications of evidence-based practices in teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Students in an eighth grade science class are learning new vocabulary related to the human skeletal system. Which of the following instructional strategies would best help students understand and use the new vocabulary?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: A.

Question 11

Competency 2—Knowledge of applications of evidence-based practices in teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A teacher wants eighth grade students to understand how studying poetry is relevant to their lives. What small-group activity below would best address this goal within an integrated approach to language arts?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: A.

Question 12

Competency 2—Knowledge of applications of evidence-based practices in teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A fifth grade language arts teacher notices that a particular student always points to each word on a page when reading silently to himself. The teacher uses this information as a basis for designing activities for the student that will help him develop word-recognition skills and fluency. The technique that the teacher uses in this case to assess the student's reading needs and design instruction is called

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: B.

Question 13

Competency 2—Knowledge of applications of evidence-based practices in teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Which of the following is a reader and task factor to consider when determining text complexity?

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Correct Response: A.

Question 14

Competency 3—Knowledge and understanding of literary and informational texts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

The expression "the pen is mightier than the sword" most clearly exemplifies the use of which of the following rhetorical devices?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: D.

Question 15

Competency 3—Knowledge and understanding of literary and informational texts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Which of the following thematic concerns characteristic of romanticism is explored in the following passage from the poem "To a Sky-lark" by Percy Bysshe Shelley?

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert—
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

Shelley, P. B. (2006). To a sky-lark. In S. Greenblatt & M. H. Abrams (Eds.), The Norton anthology of English literature (5th ed.,Vol. 2, p. 732). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co. (Original work published 1820).

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Correct Response: C.

Question 16

Competency 3—Knowledge and understanding of literary and informational texts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A pie chart would most effectively help a teacher interpret which of the following types of data?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: C.

Question 17

Competency 3—Knowledge and understanding of literary and informational texts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Which of the following excerpts from a speech delivered in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy most clearly exemplifies the use of parallelism as a rhetorical device?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: B.

Question 18

Competency 4—Knowledge and understanding of communication skills, techniques, and processes

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A student writer drafts the following paragraph for an expository essay.

The Florida land boom of the 1920s resulted in the development of Miami Beach and Coral Gables, cities that remain vibrant today. But scattered across the state are remnants of planned communities and other real estate projects that were not realized. One of these projects is Isola di Lolando, which was intended to be an artificial island in Biscayne Bay. blank Satellite maps reveal the shape of the island, which provides a refuge for aquatic wildlife such as dolphins and rays.

Which of the following sentences would be most appropriate for the writer to insert onto the blank line to support a logical development of the central idea of the paragraph?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: D.

Question 19

Competency 4—Knowledge and understanding of communication skills, techniques, and processes

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A student is developing an informational essay about the benefits of electric vehicles for an audience of classmates. Which of the following types of digital media would most effectively enhance the audience's understanding of the topic?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: C.

Question 20

Competency 4—Knowledge and understanding of communication skills, techniques, and processes

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A student is conducting preliminary research on the relationship between social media and mental health. Which of the following strategies would be most effective for the student to use to narrow the scope of inquiry?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: C.

Question 21

Competency 4—Knowledge and understanding of communication skills, techniques, and processes

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Which of the following responses by a group member during an academic discussion would most effectively build on an idea expressed by another group member?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: B.

Question 22

Competency 4—Knowledge and understanding of communication skills, techniques, and processes

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Students are preparing to write a newspaper article about the life cycle of the alligator. Which of the following would be the most likely type of organization that they might use in the article?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: B.

Question 23

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

To improve students' writing and motivate them to continue striving for mastery, a teacher would employ which of the following strategies most often?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: A.

Question 24

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

The most appropriate technique for teaching students the concept of an author's purpose is to have the students

Choose an answer
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.

Question 25

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A middle school language arts teacher would like to help students understand how a narrative point of view affects the message conveyed in a literary text. Given this purpose, the teacher should have his students do which of the following activities?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: C.

Question 26

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A seventh grade teacher wants her students to actively engage in group discussion. However, when she places students in their respective groups, provides them a summary of her expectations, topics, roles and goals, only one group's outcomes are compatible with those she intended. She polls the class and discovers that the groups that erred did not understand their mission.

Which of the following personal conduct components did she not adequately address?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: C.

Question 27

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A middle school language arts teacher is presenting a lesson on writing conventions. Which of the following is the best way for the teacher to effectively show students how to use correct proofreading symbols for peer editing?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: A.

Question 28

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A nineth grade English teacher asks each student in class to write an essay that argues that organic produce is better than nonorganic produce. During the drafting phase of the writing process, students work in pairs, asking and answering a series of questions about the topic. Which of the following questions will best help students support their arguments effectively in writing?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: A.

Question 29

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

The works of which of the following authors would provide middle school students with the best introduction to the concept of allegory?

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Correct Response: B.

Question 30

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A language arts teacher asks students to take out a piece of writing from their writing folder that they want to work on. The teacher tells the students to rewrite their piece of writing from a different perspective or point of view. This is a strategy for which stage of the writing process?

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Correct Response: C.

Question 31

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Which of the following are the best instructional practices to teach writing and speaking in response to informational texts?

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Correct Response: D.

Question 32

Competency 5—Knowledge of pedagogical content for teaching English language arts and writing

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A language arts class is studying word relationships. The teacher selects several sets of words to illustrate the concept. Which of the following sets would be INAPPROPRIATE for this lesson?

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Correct Response: A.

Question 33

Competency 6—Knowledge of various assessments and use of assessment data to drive instructional decisions within English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

A middle school language arts teacher writes informal notes to students that contain questions about subject matter covered in class. The students, in turn, write back to the teacher with answers and questions of their own. This is an example of which of the following methods of assessing student understanding in an integrated language arts class?

Choose an answer
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Correct Response: A.

Question 34

Competency 6—Knowledge of various assessments and use of assessment data to drive instructional decisions within English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

The best method for utilizing the data collected from various classroom activities is to

Choose an answer
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.

Question 35

Competency 6—Knowledge of various assessments and use of assessment data to drive instructional decisions within English language arts

DIRECTIONS: Read the question and select the best response.

Over the course of a school term, students have undertaken many writing projects. The most effective way to assess individual student growth in writing through the term would be

Choose an answer
Enter to expand or collapse answer.Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.