Free printable CAASPP practice test for Grade 8

English Language Arts

Circle the letter of the best answer, or two letters where a question asks for two. No time limit.

1. From Bell to Bell

   The stagecoach set Abigail Pratt down in Lowell, Massachusetts, on a raw gray morning in March 1845, and the first thing she noticed was the sound. Even out on the street she could feel it: a deep, steady pounding that rose from the long brick mills beside the river, as if the whole city had a pulse.

   Abby was fourteen. She had grown up on a hill farm in New Hampshire, where the loudest noise was the creak of the barn door in the wind. But the farm owed money to the bank, and her older brother, Daniel, longed to study at the academy in town. When a neighbor's daughter returned from the mills with a new bonnet and money of her own, Abby's mother had studied Abby across the supper table for a long, silent moment. Within a week, Abby's trunk was packed.

   Mrs. Dalton, who kept the boardinghouse where Abby would live, was a widow with sharp eyes and a soft voice. She pointed to the regulations posted inside the front door: the doors were locked at ten o'clock each night, every boarder attended church on Sunday, and no one was permitted to waste time in idleness. Abby would share a crowded upstairs room with five other girls and a narrow bed with a nineteen-year-old weaver named Hannah Cole.

   "You'll hate the bell for a month," Hannah told her that night, braiding her hair by candlelight. "After that, you'll only hate it most days."

   The bell rang long before sunrise the next morning. It rang to send the girls to the mill, to summon them to breakfast, to send them back again, and to call them once more at midday for dinner. Within a week, Abby understood that in Lowell the bell, not the sun, decided when a day began and when it ended.

   The weaving room was worse than the street. Rows of looms clattered and banged so relentlessly that the girls communicated with gestures or read one another's lips. Cotton lint drifted through the hot, damp air like snow that never landed, and it settled in Abby's hair, her eyelashes, and the back of her throat. She was learning to tend a loom beside Hannah, and her fingers soon stung from tying broken threads. By Saturday night her feet were so swollen that she could barely unlace her boots.

   On Sunday afternoon she wrote her first letter home.

   "Dear Mother," she wrote. "Lowell is a fine place, and the work is not hard. Mrs. Dalton keeps a good table, and I am learning quickly." She paused and examined her cracked red fingers. Then she added, "Tell Father not to worry," and folded the letter before she could write anything true.

   At the end of the month, Abby was paid for the first time. Once the cost of her board was subtracted, only a few dollars remained, but it was more money than she had ever held in her hands. She kept a little for paper and postage and sent the rest home with a brief note: "For the bank, and for Daniel's books."

   One evening Hannah came in late from a meeting and dropped a slim magazine onto the bed. "The Lowell Offering," she announced. "Every word in it was written by women who work in the mills. I have a poem on page twelve."

   Abby stared at her. "You write? After an entire day at the looms?"

   "The company pays for my hands from bell to bell," Hannah said. "It doesn't own what I think."

   That night Abby read the magazine until Mrs. Dalton knocked and told them to put out the candle. There were stories about farms that resembled her own, an essay on the value of education, and a poem about a girl who missed the brook behind her father's house. The writers were exhausted girls like her, and yet they had found the time to say something, and someone had considered it worth printing.

   The next Sunday, Abby wrote to her mother again. The letter began the same way, but this time she did not stop where it was comfortable. She described the lint and the swollen feet and the clatter that followed her into her dreams. She also described the lending library in town, the evening lectures, and Hannah's poem. "I am tired, Mother," she wrote, "but I am not sorry I came."

   Then she took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote two words across the top: "The Bell." Underneath, she began: "It wakes us and feeds us and sends us to our beds. But there is one hour it cannot ring for, and that hour is mine."

   She was still writing when Mrs. Dalton's knock came at ten. Abby blew out the candle and lay smiling in the darkness. Tomorrow the bell would ring before sunrise, the way it always did. But tonight, for the first time since she had arrived in Lowell, she had been the one to decide when the day was over.

   1.

   What does Hannah's remark, "You'll hate the bell for a month. After that, you'll only hate it most days," reveal about her?

   1. AShe expects the company to change its rules very soon.
   2. BShe does not understand why Abby came to Lowell at all.
   3. CShe is honest about how hard mill life is but faces it with dry humor.
   4. DShe is trying to frighten Abby into going back to the farm.
2. 2.

   Which TWO details best show that Abby's attitude toward her life in Lowell changes by the end of the story? Choose two answers.

   1. AShe has "been the one to decide when the day was over."
   2. BShe writes, "I am tired, Mother, but I am not sorry I came."
   3. CHer feet are so swollen that she can barely unlace her boots.
   4. DShe learns that the bell, not the sun, decides when a day begins.
   5. EShe adds, "Tell Father not to worry," to her first letter.
3. 3.

   Abby "folded the letter before she could write anything true." Why does she most likely do this?

   1. AShe has run out of paper and must save what is left.
   2. BShe plans to tell her mother the truth in person soon.
   3. CShe does not want her family to worry or feel guilty about her.
   4. DShe thinks her mother would refuse to believe her.
4. 4.

   How do Abby's two letters to her mother help develop the story?

   1. AThey show Abby moving from hiding her hardship to describing it honestly.
   2. BThey show Abby's letters growing more cheerful and less detailed over time.
   3. CThey reveal that Abby is secretly planning to return to the farm.
   4. DThey explain exactly how the mill wages were counted and paid out.

5. Read this aloud to your child.

   Dim the Skyline for the Birds

   Every spring and fall, billions of birds pass over North America on their way between their winter homes and their summer nesting grounds. Most songbirds, including warblers, thrushes, and sparrows, make this journey at night, using the stars and Earth's magnetic field to find their way. When they fly over a brightly lit city, however, many of them get into serious trouble.

   Artificial light draws night-migrating birds off course, especially on cloudy or foggy nights. Confused by the glare, they circle lit buildings until they are exhausted, or they crash into windows. Scientists estimate that collisions with buildings kill hundreds of millions of birds in the United States every year.

   That is why this newspaper urges the city of Riverton to adopt a "Lights Out" policy. During the spring and fall migrations, city-owned buildings should switch off lights in empty offices, lobbies, and decorative spotlights between 11 p.m. and dawn, and the city should encourage private building owners to do the same. Several large cities already run programs like this, and where buildings have dimmed their lights, researchers have counted far fewer dead birds below their windows.

   The change would cost the city almost nothing. In fact, it would save money, because every light switched off is electricity that taxpayers no longer have to buy.

   Some readers may doubt that the problem is serious here. But last May, a reader on Linden Street found a small yellow bird lying stunned beneath her apartment window, which proves that the problem in Riverton grows worse every year.

   The birds that pass over Riverton have flown thousands of miles to reach our sky. The least we can do is turn off the lights and let them pass.

   5.

   The talk says the birds are "confused by the glare." What does the word "glare" suggest about the city's lights?

   1. AThey are beautiful for the birds to look at.
   2. BThey are soft and comforting to the birds.
   3. CThey are harsh and blinding rather than helpful.
   4. DThey are too dim for the birds to notice.

6. Read this aloud to your child.

   Why the Sky Is Blue and Sunsets Are Red

   On a clear afternoon the sky overhead is a deep blue, yet a few hours later, near the horizon, the same sky can blaze orange and red. Both colors come from the same sunlight. The difference lies in how that light travels through the air.

   Sunlight looks white, but it is actually a mixture of all the colors of the rainbow. Each color travels as a wave of a different length. Red light has the longest wavelength of the visible colors, while blue and violet have the shortest.

   On its way to your eyes, sunlight passes through the atmosphere, which is made mostly of tiny molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. These molecules are far smaller than the wavelengths of visible light, and when light strikes them, some of it bounces off in new directions. This process is called scattering. Molecules this small scatter short wavelengths much more strongly than long ones, so blue light is scattered far more than red. The scattered blue light reaches your eyes from every part of the sky, and the whole sky glows blue. Scientists call this effect Rayleigh scattering, after the British physicist who explained it in the late 1800s.

   Violet light is scattered even more than blue, so why isn't the sky violet? Sunlight contains less violet than blue to begin with, and human eyes are more sensitive to blue.

   At sunrise and sunset, the sun sits low on the horizon, and its light must travel through much more air to reach you. Along that long path, most of the blue light is scattered away before it arrives. What remains is mostly the longer wavelengths: yellow, orange, and red. Dust, smoke, or tiny droplets in the air can deepen these colors even further, which is why some sunsets seem to set the whole sky on fire.

   6.

   According to the talk, why doesn't the sky look violet, even though violet light is scattered the most?

   1. AViolet light has the longest wavelength of all the colors.
   2. BViolet light cannot pass through molecules of oxygen.
   3. CViolet light is scattered only when the sun is low at sunrise and sunset.
   4. DSunlight has less violet than blue, and our eyes respond more to blue.
7. 7.

   The eagle's sharp ______ helps it spot a fish from high in the air.

   Which word best completes the sentence?

   1. Asigt
   2. Bcite
   3. Csite
   4. Dsight
8. 8.

   Which sentence uses commas correctly?

   1. AThe campers told stories on a dark stormy night in a small wooden cabin.
   2. BThe campers, told stories on a dark stormy night in a small wooden cabin.
   3. CThe campers, told stories on a dark, stormy night in a small wooden cabin.
   4. DThe campers told stories on a dark, stormy night in a small wooden cabin.
9. 9.

   The gym was hot during the August basketball camp, and players poured cold water over their heads between drills to cool off.

   Which word could replace hot to make the sentence more exact?

   1. Afreezing
   2. Bsweltering
   3. Cchilly
   4. Dwarm
10. 10.

    Omar heard the smoke alarm. Right away, Omar jumped out of bed.

    Which sentence best combines the two sentences without changing what they mean?

    1. AOmar heard the smoke alarm he jumped out of bed right away.
    2. BWhen Omar heard the smoke alarm, he jumped out of bed right away.
    3. CAlthough Omar heard the smoke alarm, he jumped out of bed right away.
    4. DOmar heard the smoke alarm, he jumped out of bed right away.