Version D — Grade 3 ELA Practice Test

Every afternoon, Jonah built things. He built towers out of cereal boxes and bridges out of rulers and tape. He built a working drawbridge for his toy castle out of cardboard, string, and two paper clips. "You should be an engineer," his grandfather said once. Jonah did not know exactly what an engineer did, but he liked the sound of it. The problem was school. At school, there was no building. There was reading and writing and math, and Jonah was okay at all of it, but okay was not the same as good. He never raised his hand. He never felt like the answer in his head was the right one. One afternoon, his teacher, Mr. Park, put a tray of craft supplies on each table. "Build something that holds ten pennies and uses only these materials," Mr. Park said. Jonah looked at the straw, the tape, the index cards, and the rubber bands. He had an idea immediately. He started building. He did not stop until his structure held twelve pennies. "How did you know that would work?" said his partner, who had been watching. "I didn't," Jonah said. "I tried things until one did." Mr. Park wrote that on the board. Jonah looked at his own words up there and felt something new.

In 1977, scientists exploring the deep ocean floor made a surprising discovery. Nearly two miles below the surface, in total darkness and crushing pressure, they found communities of living creatures clustered around cracks in the seafloor. These cracks, called hydrothermal vents, release scalding hot water and chemicals from deep inside Earth. Before this discovery, scientists believed that all life on Earth depended on sunlight. Plants use sunlight to make food through photosynthesis, and animals eat plants or other animals that do. The energy in nearly every food chain on Earth comes from the sun—or so scientists thought. The animals around the hydrothermal vents had never seen sunlight. Instead, their food chain was based on bacteria that use chemicals from the vents to produce energy through a process called chemosynthesis. Tube worms up to eight feet long, blind shrimp, ghostly white crabs, and giant clams all lived off this chemical energy. The discovery changed how scientists think about life. If life can thrive in darkness, crushing pressure, and extreme heat using chemical energy alone, then the conditions needed for life are far broader than previously imagined. Scientists now wonder whether life might exist in similar environments elsewhere in our solar system—beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Enceladus, where liquid oceans and possible hydrothermal vents might exist. The deep sea vents taught scientists that life finds a way, even in the most unexpected places.

Grandma Soo had made origami cranes for as long as Isabel could remember. They were everywhere in the house—hanging from the kitchen window, perched on shelves, folded into small stacks on the coffee table. Some were the size of a thumb. Some were bigger than Isabel's hand. "Why so many?" Isabel asked one afternoon. "The old story says that if you fold a thousand cranes, your wish will be granted," Grandma Soo said. "What do you wish for?" Grandma Soo was quiet for a moment. "Different things at different times," she said. "When your mother was sick last year, I wished for that. When your grandfather died, I wished for peace. Now I suppose I wish for your happiness." Isabel looked at the cranes differently after that. They were not just decorations. They were a record of everything Grandma Soo had hoped for. "Can you show me?" Isabel asked. Grandma Soo took a square of red paper. Her hands moved quickly—fold, press, turn. In less than two minutes, a small crane sat in her palm. She set it in Isabel's hand. It was lighter than Isabel expected, and somehow, it felt like more than paper.

Earth's outer layer, called the crust, is not one solid piece. It is broken into large sections called tectonic plates that fit together like a giant puzzle. These plates move slowly—only a few centimeters each year. But that slow movement is what causes earthquakes. Tectonic plates are always pushing, pulling, and sliding past one another. Along the edges where plates meet, called fault lines, the rock on either side can get stuck. Pressure builds up over years, decades, or even centuries. When the pressure finally becomes too great, the rock slips suddenly. This release of energy sends shockwaves through the Earth's crust—an earthquake. The point underground where the slip occurs is called the focus. Directly above it on the surface is the epicenter. The strongest shaking usually occurs near the epicenter and weakens as it travels outward, though the exact pattern depends on the type of rock and soil in the area. Earthquakes are measured on the Richter scale, which describes how much energy is released. A magnitude 3 earthquake is barely noticeable. A magnitude 7 earthquake can cause major damage. Each number on the scale represents about 32 times more energy than the number below it, which means a magnitude 7 releases far more energy than a magnitude 5. Scientists who study earthquakes are called seismologists. They use sensitive instruments called seismographs to detect shockwaves. While scientists can identify areas where earthquakes are likely, they cannot currently predict exactly when one will strike.

Every year at the end of winter, Mei's family made paper lanterns for the Lantern Festival. Her grandmother cut and folded the red paper. Her father painted characters on each side with a small brush. Mei and her younger cousins decorated the handles with golden fringe. When it was dark, they carried the lanterns through the neighborhood. The candles inside made the characters glow, and the lanterns swung gently as they walked, throwing small shifting patches of red light on the sidewalk. "What does it mean?" Mei's cousin Leo asked. He had not grown up celebrating the Lantern Festival. "It means winter is ending," Mei said. Then she thought for a moment. "And it means we remember who made us." Leo looked at the lantern in his hands. "Grandma made this," he said. "Yes," Mei said. "And her grandmother made lanterns too, and her grandmother before that." Leo held his lantern a little higher after that. Mei watched the red light move across his face and thought about the long line of hands that had made light in the dark.

Sound is energy that moves through matter in waves. When an object vibrates—like a guitar string or a tuning fork—it pushes the air particles next to it. Those particles bump into the ones next to them, and so on, creating a chain reaction that spreads outward in all directions. These moving pressure waves reach your ears and are interpreted by your brain as sound. Sound travels at different speeds through different materials. In air at room temperature, sound travels about 343 meters per second—roughly 768 miles per hour. In water, sound travels about four times faster, because water molecules are packed more closely together than air molecules. In steel, sound travels even faster than in water, nearly 17 times faster than through air. This is why putting your ear to railroad tracks can let you hear an approaching train long before you can hear it through the air. The steel tracks carry the vibrations more efficiently than air does. Sound cannot travel through empty space. This is why astronauts in space cannot speak to each other directly—there are no air molecules to carry the sound waves. All communication in space must happen through radios, which use electromagnetic waves instead of sound waves. The pitch of a sound is determined by how quickly the sound waves vibrate. High-pitched sounds, like a whistle, vibrate many times per second. Low-pitched sounds, like a bass drum, vibrate more slowly. The number of vibrations per second is called the frequency.