Version C — ELA Practice Test

The first time Nadia tried the climbing wall at camp, she fell off at the fourth hold.

She had watched other campers scale it easily — their fingers finding the colored grips like they were reaching for something ordinary. When it was Nadia's turn, she chalked her hands, placed her foot on the first hold, and began.

She made it to the fourth grip before her fingers slipped. She dropped to the mat with a thud.

Try again, said the instructor, Marco. Nadia tried again. Fourth hold. Then the mat.

By the third day, she had fallen seventeen times — she had been counting. Each fall stung a little less, but she was beginning to wonder whether the wall was simply beyond her.

Marco watched her rub chalk into her palms before her eighteenth attempt. You keep falling at the same place, he said. What do you think is happening?

Nadia thought. My feet. I'm not trusting my feet. I'm holding too much with my hands. There you go, Marco said.

On the eighteenth try, Nadia shifted her weight to her feet at the fourth hold, trusted the grip beneath her shoes, and kept climbing. Her arms ached. She reached the top and slapped the orange summit marker.

Below, Marco was already setting up for the next climber. He did not cheer. He just nodded once, the way you nod at something that was always going to happen.

Thomas Edison is remembered as one of history's greatest inventors. His laboratory produced over 1,000 patented inventions, including early versions of the motion picture camera and improvements to the telegraph. But the invention most people associate with Edison — the practical electric light bulb — came only after years of failure.

Edison was not working alone. His laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, employed dozens of scientists, engineers, and technicians. By organizing a group of talented people around a shared goal, Edison created what some historians call the invention factory.

The challenge of the light bulb was finding a filament — a thin strand of material — that could glow brightly when electricity passed through it without burning out quickly.

Edison's team tested thousands of materials: metals, plant fibers, even human hair. Most filaments burned out within minutes. According to historical accounts, Edison reportedly tested more than 10,000 combinations before finding one that worked.

When asked about so many failures, Edison is reported to have said that he had not failed — he had found 10,000 ways that did not work. Each unsuccessful test brought him closer to understanding the problem.

In 1879, Edison's team discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could burn for over 1,200 hours. Electricity could now light homes, streets, and factories reliably.

Edison's approach to failure — treating each setback as information rather than defeat — became as influential as his inventions. Scientists and engineers today still describe their work the way Edison did: not as a series of failures, but as a process of narrowing down possibilities until the solution becomes clear.

Priya had been working on the back handspring for six months.

She could do it on the trampoline. She could do it with her coach's hand at her back. But the moment she was supposed to do it alone on the floor exercise mat, her feet refused to leave the ground.

Her coach, Ms. Reyes, never forced her. The body has its own timeline, she said. Your brain is just catching up.

At regionals, Priya was in the final rotation. The handspring was the last skill in her routine. She had two options: skip it and take the deduction, or try.

She thought of the six months. She thought of all the times her feet had found the floor again, solid and safe, after the trampoline. She thought of Ms. Reyes's hand at her back — the way it was there even when she did not need it.

She went. Her hands hit the mat. For one impossible half-second she was upside down, completely committed. Then her feet came over and she landed.

She did not know if it was good enough. She only knew she had done the thing that had refused to be done.

The score was not her best. But as she walked off the mat, Ms. Reyes was already there. That, said Ms. Reyes quietly, was the hardest thing you will do this season. And you did it.

I have fallen eight times

from the same high branch.

Eight times the ground

has caught me.

Some people say: give up.

Some people say: that branch is not for you.

But the branch does not say anything.

It waits, the way all true things wait.

I am not the same person

who fell the first time.

Each fall taught me something

I could not have learned standing still.

On the ninth try

I did not think about falling.

I thought only about the branch,

and my hand reached it.