Common Core: 4th Grade English Language Arts : Reading: Informational Text
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for Common Core: 4th Grade English Language Arts
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Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Common Core: 4th Grade English Language Arts
Passage and table adapted from "Why Leaves Change Color" on "Northeastern Area," a website by the USDA Forest Service. <https://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/pubs/leaves/leaves.shtm>.
There are two main types of trees: coniferous trees and deciduous trees. Coniferous trees have small, needle-like leaves. They keep these leaves all year. One example of a coniferous tree is a pine tree, which has green needles during all seasons. In contrast, deciduous trees lose their leaves every autumn. Before these leaves drop and blow away, they change from green to colors like red, orange, yellow, and brown.
Have you ever wondered why deciduous leaves change color in the fall? This color change is caused by a chemical process in the cells of tree leaves.
Green leaves are green because they contain a green molecule, chlorophyll. This is a very important molecule in the natural world. Leaves use this molecule to turn carbon dioxide, sunlight, and water into sugar and oxygen in a process called “photosynthesis.” So, chlorophyll lets the plant store energy as sugar, which it can use as food. It also lets the plant provide food for anything that eats it, like a cow, a bird, or even a human!
So, what does chlorophyll, a green molecule, have to do with autumn leaf colors? Deciduous leaves also contain molecules of other colors, but the chlorophyll in the leaves covers them up in the summer. In the fall, deciduous trees stop making chlorophyll. Eventually there is no more chlorophyll in their leaves. The colors of the other molecules show through. The colors of these other molecules are the colors we see in autumn leaves. The next time you see colorful leaves in the fall, you’ll know more about the chemistry at work!
Based on what you learn in the paragraph and the table, which of the following is true about the striped maple, a plant whose leaves change color in the fall?
In the autumn, its leaves don't contain any chlorophyll, and they don't contain many molecules of other colors either.
In the autumn, its leaves contain chlorophyll.
In the autumn, its leaves do not contain chlorophyll, but they contain red molecules.
It is a coniferous tree.
In the autumn, its leaves don't contain any chlorophyll, and they don't contain many molecules of other colors either.
The striped maple isn't mentioned anywhere in the passage, but it appears as an entry in the table. In this row, we learn that the striped maple has "nearly colorless" leaves in the fall. We can take what we learn in the passage and use it to interpret this data and answer the question correctly.
According to what we learn in the passage, the striped maple cannot be a coniferous tree. In the passage's first paragraph, we learn that coniferous trees have needle-like leaves that they keep all year. "One example of a coniferous tree is a pine tree, which has green needles during all seasons," the passage states. Coniferous trees' leaves don't change color in the fall, it seems. Since the question says that the striped maple is "a plant whose leaves change color in the fall," it cannot be a coniferous tree.
Furthermore, we can tell that the striped maple's leaves do not contain chlorophyll in the fall. We learn in paragraph three that chlorophyll is a green molecule that makes leaves containing it appear green. Since the striped maple's leaves are "nearly colorless" in the fall, we can infer that they do not contain chlorophyll. If they did, they would be green, and they are not.
The two remaining answer choices both begin by stating that in the fall, the striped maple's leaves don't contain chlorophyll. This is correct. They differ in their other claims, though: one answer choice claims that the striped maple's leaves "don't contain many red, orange, yellow, or brown molecules either," and the other states that "they contain red molecules." We can tell from the explanation provided in the last paragraph that if these leaves contained red molecules, they would appear red, and they do not. The best answer is "In the autumn, its leaves don't contain any chlorophyll, and they don't contain many red, orange, yellow, or brown molecules either." This lack of colorful molecules fits with the table's data that the striped maple's leaves appear "nearly colorless" in the fall.
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