How Text Reveals Character: Short Fiction Practice Test
•15 QuestionsRead the following passage and answer the question that follows.
On the first warm day of April, the track team practiced in the smell of cut grass and sunscreen. Coach Ramirez shouted times and encouragement in the same breath. Owen ran his laps with the others, his lungs burning in that familiar, satisfying way, until Coach blew the whistle and called them to the bleachers.
“Meet on Friday,” Coach said. “And remember: grades. No grades, no meet.”
The team groaned. Someone tossed a water bottle. Owen laughed along, but his laughter felt like a borrowed jacket—close enough to wear, not his.
After practice, he walked to the guidance office. The hallway was empty, the lockers shut like teeth. He had told his friends he had “to talk to a teacher,” which was true in the way a shadow is true.
Ms. Halprin looked up from her computer. “Owen. You’re early.”
He sat and stared at the college posters on the wall, all smiling faces and impossible lawns. “I just wanted to check,” he said.
“Check what?”
Owen pulled a folded paper from his pocket: his report card, creased so many times it had softened at the edges. He slid it across the desk. “If… if it’s official,” he said.
Ms. Halprin scanned it. “These are not your final grades.”
Owen exhaled, but his shoulders didn’t drop. He kept his hand on the report card as if it might slide away, and asked, “But it could be, right?”
Which inference about Owen is best supported by the detail “kept his hand on the report card as if it might slide away”?
Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.
On the first warm day of April, the track team practiced in the smell of cut grass and sunscreen. Coach Ramirez shouted times and encouragement in the same breath. Owen ran his laps with the others, his lungs burning in that familiar, satisfying way, until Coach blew the whistle and called them to the bleachers.
“Meet on Friday,” Coach said. “And remember: grades. No grades, no meet.”
The team groaned. Someone tossed a water bottle. Owen laughed along, but his laughter felt like a borrowed jacket—close enough to wear, not his.
After practice, he walked to the guidance office. The hallway was empty, the lockers shut like teeth. He had told his friends he had “to talk to a teacher,” which was true in the way a shadow is true.
Ms. Halprin looked up from her computer. “Owen. You’re early.”
He sat and stared at the college posters on the wall, all smiling faces and impossible lawns. “I just wanted to check,” he said.
“Check what?”
Owen pulled a folded paper from his pocket: his report card, creased so many times it had softened at the edges. He slid it across the desk. “If… if it’s official,” he said.
Ms. Halprin scanned it. “These are not your final grades.”
Owen exhaled, but his shoulders didn’t drop. He kept his hand on the report card as if it might slide away, and asked, “But it could be, right?”
Which inference about Owen is best supported by the detail “kept his hand on the report card as if it might slide away”?