Released Items
Kentucky
Commonwealth Accountability Testing System
Grade
5
Kentucky Core Content Test
Spring 2009
Reading
Developed for the Kentucky Department of Education by WestEd under contract to
Measured Progress. Copyright © 2009 by the Kentucky Department of Education.
The following is the general guide that will be used to evaluate your answers to
open-response questions.
Kentucky General Scoring Guide
• You follow all directions and finish all parts of the question.
• You are able to answer the question clearly so that others
can understand.
Score Point 4
• You show that you completely understand the information
that is asked about.
• You show and/or explain the quickest and best way to get
an answer.
• You are able to show and explain what you know by using
complex examples, by showing connections between ideas
and the real world, by comparing different ideas, and/or by
showing how the ideas work together.
• You follow the directions and finish most of the parts of the
question.
Score Point 3
• You are able to answer the question clearly so that others
can understand.
• You show and/or explain that you understand the big ideas
about the question but there may be a few little mistakes or
wrong ideas.
• You follow some of the directions and finish some parts of
the question.
Score Point 2
• Your answer may not be complete but it is clear so that
others can understand.
• You understand only parts of the information to answer the
question.
Score Point 1
Score Point 0
Blank
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• You understand only a small part of the information asked
for in the question.
• You only answer a small part of the question.
• Your answer is completely wrong or has nothing to do with
the question.
• You did not give any answer at all.
GRADE 5 – READING
Grade 5
Reading
This document contains released items for Grade 5 Reading. This release document is
provided to give examples of items developed for the Kentucky Core Content Test, to
reflect content tied to the Core Content for Assessment Version 4.1, and to illustrate items
at different levels of Depth of Knowledge.
This document includes an expository passage along with six multiple-choice items,
and one open-response item. (The other genres in the Kentucky Core Content Test are
literary, persuasive, and procedural texts and documents.) This document also includes
information about each of the items (Academic Expectation, Core Content Standard,
Depth of Knowledge, and Answer Key for multiple-choice items).
The open-response scoring guide describing expectations for each score point is followed
by actual student responses for the “4,” “3,” “2,” “1,” and “0” score points. Each student
paper is accompanied by commentary explaining the rationale for the score given. For
most open-response items, there are multiple ways to score a “1,” a “2,” and often a
“3,” depending on the item. At times, students’ responses provide clear responses for
some parts of the item, but general or limited responses for other parts of the item. As
a general rule, the scoring guide does not articulate all possible ways to score a “1,” a
“2,” or a “3,” but instead provides one or more ways to earn a particular score point.
Scorers are trained to expect descriptions that are not exhaustive of all the possible ways
students may receive each score point in the scoring guide. Instead scorers are trained
to make a holistic determination of where each response falls within the articulated
point descriptions.
Following the annotated student responses, ideas are presented for designing classroom
activities that relate to the Core Content for Assessment Version 4.1.
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Grade
5
GRADE 5 – READING
Reading
Released Items – Spring 2009
Read the passage below about an unexpected adventure. Then answer the questions that
follow.
by Jennifer Owings Dewey
e lived in quicksand country. The Rio
Grande flowed four miles west of our
house. Along its banks my friends and I
sometimes found holes and puddles of sandy
mud that was thick, like pea soup. The holes
were not land. They were not water. They
were something in between. They were
quicksand.
W
I had trained myself to know quicksand
when I saw it. If it was not covered by water, a
hole usually had a thin layer of sun-dried mud
on it, like the skin over a drum. Some holes
were greasy on top, with bubbles that rose and
floated. Below the surface the mud was quivery,
like jelly or homemade mayonnaise after it has
been left standing too long.
Whenever we waded along the river we
would often discover the “sucking mud” (our
name for it) by accident. We would come
across it without expecting to because river
water sometimes flowed over it, concealing it
from view.
When I found a good hole, I would stand
at the side of it and experiment by tossing in
rocks, sticks, or feathers. I would count out
loud, waiting to see how long it took these
objects to sink out of sight.
I never got in myself. We had heard too
many stories, all our lives, of old-time wagon
trains vanishing in quicksand, or whole herds
of cattle. Of course most of these stories were
fiction, the lore of the West, but we believed
them, every word.
We discovered that the important thing to
do when crossing this quicksand was to keep
moving. We could skip over it, racing across
it. But if we stood on top of it without moving,
we began to sink.
We were careful because we’d been warned
enough times.
“Watch out for that stuff,” adults would say.
“It’s nothing to fool around with.”
The truth is, I never wanted to lose my flipflops. They were my favorites. They were black
and orange, with soles thicker than usual for
this kind of shoe.
I was something of a daredevil as a kid, but
I kept a sharp eye out for quicksand. I believed
what I had been told of its dangers.
The day I lost my shoes I was at the river
with my friend Martha. We were cautiously
picking our way across a wide expanse of
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GRADE 5 – READING
very slippery, shiny mud. The river had been
high, and it was gradually lowering. Water
was being drained off by farmers for irrigating
their fields.
The funny thing is that I was being careful
when it happened. I took a step forward with
my right leg and suddenly found myself unable
to pull my foot free of the mud. The more
I tried, the more I felt stuck. To keep from
falling sideways, I dropped my left foot into
the hole. This foot, like the other, refused to
come free.
“Quicksand!” I yelled.
Martha was right behind me. She had not
yet stepped into the hole. She backed away,
calling, “I’ll get you a stick!”
I stuck it into firm mud at the edge of the
hole, then leaned on it and pulled until both
feet were liberated. But my flip-flops stayed
behind. There was no way to get them back.
They were gone for good.
The fat willow stick Martha came back with
was the perfect “tool” to get me out.
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GRADE 5 – READING
Sample Multiple-Choice Questions
1.
3.
What is the MAIN idea of this
passage?
A. Children can get a lot of enjoyment
playing around quicksand.
A. to plug up the quicksand holes
B. to clean up the area around the
quicksand
B. Most exciting stories about quicksand
are untrue or exaggerated.
C. t o k e e p t r a c k o f h o w m a n y
quicksand holes there are
C. Quicksand is difficult to recognize
and dangerous to be around.
D. to know how long it takes things
to disappear in the quicksand
D. Children learn valuable lessons
from experiments with quicksand.
2.
Why does the narrator throw rocks
and feathers into the quicksand?
4.
In this passage, what is the MAIN
purpose of the first paragraph?
What is the narrator doing before she
loses her flip-flops?
A. She is racing a friend across some
quicksand.
A. to establish the theme
B. to introduce the setting
B. She and a friend are walking across
some mud at the river.
C. to establish the conflict
C. She is showing a friend how to
float in the river.
D. to introduce the characters
D. She and a friend are looking for
sticks in a quicksand hole.
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GRADE 5 – READING
5.
6.
How does Martha help resolve the
conflict in the passage?
A. She pulls the narrator’s feet out of
the quicksand.
Read the sentence below from the
passage.
We were cautiously picking our
way across a wide expanse of
very slippery, shiny mud.
B. She tells the narrator how to stay
out of the quicksand.
C. She finds the narrator’s flip-flops
in the quicksand.
Which word is a SYNONYM for
cautiously?
D. She gives the narrator a tool to get
out of the quicksand.
A. carefully
B. cheerfully
C. cleverly
D. completely
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GRADE 5 – READING
Sample Open-Response Question
Read all parts of the question before you begin.
7.
In this passage, the author uses a variety of phrases and sentences to describe
quicksand.
a. Identify TWO examples of phrases or sentences the author uses to describe
quicksand.
b. Explain how EACH example helps the reader understand what quicksand
is like.
Use details from the passage to support your answer.
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STOP!
"DLOPXMFEHNFOUT
4HE +ENTUCKY $EPARTMENT OF %DUCATION WOULD LIKE TO THANK THOSE WHO HAVE GRANTED PERMISSION TO
REPRODUCE THE FOLLOWING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
Photographs for Cover Page: Boy Working on Equations on Blackboard © Royalty-Free/CORBIS, The Memorial
Building at Lincoln’s Birthplace © S. Solum/PhotoLink/Getty Images, Inc., Teacher and Child © Royalty-Free/CORBIS,
Horses Grazing in Bluegrass Country © Royalty-Free/CORBIS, Little Girl Writing in Class © Royalty-Free/CORBIS,
Kentucky’s floral clock © Kentucky Office of Creative Services.
Photographs for Reading Subject Page: Stack of Books and Young Man Holding Book in Library © Royalty-Free/
CORBIS, Teen Reading in a Library and Hand Holding Book Open © Image 100/Royalty-Free/CORBIS.
“The Quicksand That Ate My Shoes” by Jennifer Owings Dewey. Copyright  2000 by Highlights for Children, Inc.,
Columbus, Ohio.
Every effort has been made to contact and credit all copyright holders.
RELEASED ITEMS • SPRING 2009
25
Developed for the Kentucky Department of Education by WestEd under contract to
Measured Progress. Copyright © 2009 by the Kentucky Department of Education.