Reading Standards for Literature > Text Structures and Style (CCSS.RL.8.9) Practice Test

Modern Text: "The Ledger's Line" 1 I found the draft at 2:11 a.m., the newsroom lights humming like wasps. The headline read: "Funds Diverted, Art Program Dismantled." My cursor hovered over Publish. 2 Mr. Keene, our principal, had told me in his office that afternoon, "As editor, Maya, you will not run that story. You don't have the full context, and you will hurt the school." 3 But I'd spent three weeks gathering emails, budget records, and on-the-record quotes. Ms. Alvarez had cleaned out her classroom—no last project, no goodbye—because the money meant for brushes and paint had been reassigned to consultants' fees. 4 "You have a duty to your community," Mom said at dinner, tapping the damp newspaper with her thumb. "But duty to what?" 5 I thought of the mural outside the cafeteria, faces of students rising like dawn over bricks. The empty art room smelled like dust and lemon cleaner. I thought of the freshmen who would never learn the thrill of mixing ultramarine with the tiniest pinch of black. 6 In the thread with my staff, Ava wrote, "If we publish, we could lose funding for the paper. They could shut us down." 7 I typed back, "If we don't publish, we tell everyone that silence is safer than truth." 8 Mr. Keene's email flashed on my screen again: "Stand down." 9 I clicked open the CMS and scheduled the story for 7:30 a.m., right before first bell. My hands were steady, like laying a flower exactly where it belongs. 10 Later, as the server clock ticked toward morning, I set the social posts and wrote a short editor's note: "We publish in service of our classmates' right to know." 11 I imagined the hallway after the bell, the art room door taped shut, the rumor river. I wasn't naive about consequences. But if rules protect harm, are they rules that deserve obedience? 12 The newsroom refrigerator clicked off and on, and the room held its breath with me. Publish would be a single key. A small act, a heavy one.

Traditional Source: Sophocles, Antigone (Synopsis and Excerpt) T1 Synopsis: After a civil war, King Creon forbids the burial of Polynices. Antigone defies the decree, insisting the unwritten laws of the gods outrank the laws of a ruler. T2 Excerpt (lines numbered for reference): T3 1 Antigone: "It was not Zeus who made this proclamation, T4 2 nor Justice who lives with the gods below. T5 3 I did not think your edicts strong enough T6 4 to overrule unwritten, unshakable traditions."

Modern Text: "Signal Drift" 1 The song begins as a pattern I shouldn't hear—three rising pings threaded with static, a shimmer like breath on glass. "Unclassified narrowband anomaly," the console labels it. I'm not supposed to label it anything else. 2 "Rae, bypass it," Kaito orders over comms. "We're skirting the dust arc. No detours." 3 I lock our course to autopilot and feel the ship resist my hands, like a horse keeping its head. The pings tilt into a human interval, soft as a lullaby. The data promises a story if I follow. 4 Protocol is clear: engage dampening. I route white noise through my headset, but I leave the left channel low. It feels like cracking a door but keeping the chain on. 5 "You hearing that?" I ask. Kaito's silence is louder than any warning klaxon. 6 "Confirm autopilot hard-lock," he finally says. "And tether yourself." We both know why: pilots drift toward voices, not vectors. 7 I cinch my harness until my ribs complain and set the console to require a two-factor acknowledgment before any manual course change. I'm not Odysseus, but the thought snags: tie yourself to the mast. 8 The signal blooms—now it sounds like a choir, like my mother calling from the porch. I could peel off and be there in six minutes. I could turn and turn and— 9 The left channel clicks to full static; Kaito has overridden my override. The dull roar fills my skull, and the ship holds steady. The starboard cameras catch the dust arc unfurling like a dark petal. Something glints where the song was. The vacuum keeps its secrets. 10 I breathe until my hands stop shaking, then I copy the waveform to a quarantined drive. Later, we'll study it, safe. For now, the mast holds.

Traditional Source: Homer, The Odyssey (Sirens episode, Synopsis and Excerpt) T1 Synopsis: Forewarned about the Sirens' irresistible song, Odysseus plugs his crew's ears with wax and has them tie him to the mast so he can listen without steering the ship to ruin. T2 Excerpt (lines numbered for reference): T3 1 "With wax I stopped the ears of my comrades; they bound me hand and foot in the ship, T4 2 so that I might hear the Sirens' voice and yet not bid them to unbind me."