Optional English II · untimed · unscored writing

Sustained Reading: Clear Plans, Open Questions

Ten single-choice questions sample specific reading moves across two sustained, related passages. One independent short response supports unscored reflection. This sample does not establish standards mastery or predict passing.

Wholly original, unofficial English II reading supplement. Not an official STAAR item set or a full practice exam.

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literary fiction

A Map with Room

1By Thursday evening, Mara had made the neighborhood fit on one sheet. The streets ran in clean gray lines; blue squares marked the library, the market, and the community center. Even the creek looked obedient. She lifted the printout beside the old walking map in the center's entrance. That map was a thicket of arrows and handwritten corrections. Her version would be ready for Saturday's open house, and nobody would have to ask what anything meant.

2Leo, who had helped make the old map, studied her work without touching it. He had brought a tin of pencils to repair a faded label. Mara had expected an argument about the missing drawings, especially the enormous heron that seemed to own the creek. Instead, he pointed to her neat dotted line behind the market. “Have you walked that part?”

3“I traced it from the last map,” she said. “I checked the street names.” She had spent three afternoons adjusting the lettering so that people could read it without leaning close. The dotted line was a minor detail. Leo nodded at the lettering. “That will help.” Then he offered her the pencils, as if they might be useful to someone who had a computer.

4The next afternoon, Mara followed the dotted route with her younger brother, Nico. He was going to the market anyway, with a list folded inside an empty shopping bag. Behind the loading dock, the path ended at a new fence. Someone had tied a strip of orange cloth to the wire. Beyond it lay the smooth, inviting line Mara had drawn all the way to the creek.

5Nico turned toward a narrow gap beside a shed. “Everybody goes here now.” The gap led to a steep bank and three boards laid across mud. He crossed easily, then held the bag out of the way while Mara followed. On the other side she imagined their neighbor returning with two heavy bags. “Everybody” was doing considerable work in her brother's sentence.

6At the community center, Mara found Leo taping down a curled corner of the old map. She told him about the fence and waited for him to look pleased. He looked annoyed instead. “I put that path on there,” he said. “Two summers ago.” He pulled his pencil from behind his ear. Mara had thought the map was messy because people kept adding things. Now she saw that some of its confidence came from things nobody had checked.

7Together they walked the longer way, past the bakery and across the creek bridge. It took twelve minutes from the center to the market. Near the bridge, a bench had been removed, although its little drawing remained on the old map. Leo stopped in the empty patch of shade. “I used to tell people they could rest here.” He crossed out the bench in his notebook, pressing hard enough to break the point.

8That evening Mara deleted the shortcut. The longer route fitted neatly on the page, but when she added a note about the missing bench, the market label collided with it. She shrank the note. Then she remembered how carefully she had enlarged the street names. A map could look clear from a distance and become difficult the moment someone needed to use it.

9She called Leo to ask whether they could hang a larger map. He suggested keeping her smaller version as a handout and putting changeable notes beside the big one. “Not over the streets,” Mara said. “Beside them.” She was surprised by how quickly she defended the empty space. They agreed to date the route they had checked and to leave the unverified paths off both versions.

10At the open house, a visitor studied the map and asked where the creek bench had gone. Mara almost said that the bench was not her department. Instead, she showed him the space headed “What changed?” and wrote down his question. Another visitor said deliveries sometimes blocked the pavement by the bakery. Mara added that observation too, marking it “needs checking.” The sheet was no longer finished. That troubled her less than she had expected.

11Before leaving, Leo laid his tin of pencils on the table. Mara chose the bluntest one and sharpened it. Then she returned to the big map, where the blue squares were still exactly the same size and the lettering was still easy to read. Beneath it, in handwriting nothing like the type on her computer, she added a time for their next route walk. There was room for several names.

argumentative editorial

A Public Plan Needs a Reply

1When a community center changes its hours or redesigns a shared space, organizers often ask residents what they want. A questionnaire appears; a meeting is held; a box fills with comments. These are useful beginnings. They are not, by themselves, evidence that the resulting plan serves the people who will use it. Public participation should include a visible reply: what organizers learned, what they changed, and what they could not change.

2Consider a hypothetical center deciding when to open a study room. Most questionnaire responses favor the afternoon. Yet a student who works after school may need evening access and may never see a form distributed during an afternoon activity. The original responses are not worthless. They accurately describe the preferences of those who answered. The mistake would be treating those respondents as a complete portrait of everyone affected. Before settling the schedule, organizers could ask who is missing and offer another way to respond.

3More listening will not make every preference compatible. Staffing, available rooms, and different users' needs can rule out a popular request. Nor should one vivid complaint automatically outweigh many quieter responses. Organizers must make decisions, and delaying every decision until every person agrees would make a shared space difficult to run. But these limits strengthen the case for explaining a decision; they do not excuse silence. A reply can distinguish a request that was overlooked from one that was considered but could not be met.

4For the study room, that reply might be a short notice beside the new schedule. It could state which times were requested, identify the staffing limit, and explain why the center will try one late evening rather than five. It should also name a date for reviewing the trial. Residents would then have something specific to examine: not a promise that everyone will be satisfied, but a decision whose reasons and results can be questioned. If the trial fails, the next discussion can begin with what happened rather than with guesses about why nobody listened.

5This approach requires more than publishing a large file of comments. Information can be technically available and practically invisible. A brief notice where the change takes place, together with a clearly named person or place for follow-up questions, gives residents a usable route back into the discussion. The same channel will not reach everyone, so organizers should consider how people actually encounter the center, not merely which communication tool is easiest to operate.

6A form can collect an answer; a reply can show what happened to it. The purpose of asking is not to display a full comment box. It is to make a better, more accountable decision. Organizers cannot promise a plan without trade-offs. They can promise that asking people to speak will not be the last step in listening.

Sustained Reading: Clear Plans, Open Questions

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Read, choose, then draft

In “A Map with Room,” how do the pencils help reveal a change in Mara’s attitude toward collaboration? Explain your interpretation using two relevant details from different parts of the story.