Grade 5, 6, 7 and 8 STAAR Reading Test Questions Samples

STAAR Test Prep Reading Passages with Reading Comprehension Test Questions 

Grade 3 GRADE TEST FORMS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics
ANSWER KEYS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics

Grade 4 GRADE TEST FORMS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics
ANSWER KEYS 2014 Writing 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics | 2014 Writing

Grade 5 GRADE TEST FORMS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics | 2014 Science
ANSWER KEYS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics | 2014 Science

Grade 6 GRADE TEST FORMS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics
ANSWER KEYS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics

Grade 7 GRADE TEST FORMS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics | 2014 Writing
ANSWER KEYS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics | 2014 Writing

Grade 8 GRADE TEST FORMS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics | 2014 Science| 2014 Social Studies
ANSWER KEYS 2014 Reading | 2014 Mathematics | 2014 Science |
2014 Social Studies

STAAR Reading Test Vocabulary Review: Fact, Opinion, Cause, Effect, Drawing Conclusion, Inferencing, Inferring, Exaggeration, hyperbole. Editorial, and Authors view Point

Read the STAAR Test Prep Reading Passages practice selection and choose the best answer to each question.

Please read the teacher made opinion article below and discuss the key concepts, Fact, Opinion, Cause, Effect, Drawing Conclusion, Inferencing, Inferring, and Authors view Point. Socratic seminar extensions: Rank the paragraphs in order of importance and discuss the authors view-point. Writing extensions: Highlight the text with different colors bas4ed on opinion, facts, or myths and fabrications.

Top 10 scientists who changed the world: Number 1 Marie Curie

1.     While many people are familiar with male scientists and Nobel Prize winners, there are many brilliant and illustrious women out there who have made a significant difference in the world of science, which has had many repercussions in many other areas, including health care.

2.     Born Maria Sladowska in Poland in 1867, Marie Curie was the first women to win the Nobel Prize in two different categories, for her work in physics in 1903 and in chemistry in 1911. She was a pioneer in an era when women were facing many barriers in education and in particular the sciences, as well as teaching.

3.     It’s hard to imagine today that any woman would not get into university when she was a top student in her high school, but university was not permitted for women in Poland at the time, as it was in many countries around the world in the Victorian era. Marie attended a night school to further her education, known as the ‘floating university’ in Warsaw, that eluded the Russian occupation by teaching Polish students at night and changing locations frequently to avoid being intercepted

4.     At the time, the only university in Poland would not admit her, she had to leave her home country of Poland in order to complete her Ph.D. and further her studies in the scientific realm.

5.     She began interested in radium, and along with her husband, Pierre Curie, she began to study the rays it emitted, which has fascinated her. Her husband, Pierre, set aside his own work in order to pursue a joint study with her, and they worked together in their pursuit of radium, until his untimely death in a carriage accident.

6.      Both of Marie Curie’s parents were teachers and she continued in this route when she became the first female professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, as his position was made available to her after his death.

7.     While Marie Curie’s advancements in radium affected our understanding of atomic chemistry, but the most important contribution her work has made was leading to the development of X-ray technology that we still use today in health care, primarily in order to look at broken bones, and even in radiation treatments for cancer patients.

8.     During World War I she established the first radiological centres and mobile X-ray units to assist in the care of soldiers, and travelled to raise some funds so that she could establish the radium research institute, in order to continue her work on radioactivity.

9.     She was the first to speak about radioactivity, and also discovered a new radioactive element, polonium, which was named after her home country of Poland.

10.      Marie Curie died of leukemia, as a result of her ongoing exposure to radium and radioactivity. As the harmful effects and risks of radiation were not known at the time, Marie Curie would often carry test tubes in her pocket and was heavily exposed to radioactivity throughout her work, which lead to her death in 1934.

11.     While Marie Curie is widely known for her work on radioactivity, her legacy is not only tied to her breakthroughs in science, but also in how she contributed to the advancement of women in science and education with a number of important firsts to her name.

12.     Her legacy also continued beyond her death, as she has also received many posthumous awards. Many institutes recognize her work by bearing her name, such as the Maria Slodowska-Curie Institute of Oncology in her native Warsaw, Poland; and the Institut Curie in Paris, her second home.

13.     Arguably the most famous female scientist the world has known, Marie Curie has inspired many female scientists to follow in her footsteps, while also opening new doors for women to teach at the University level, and work in the field of mathematics, chemistry and physics.

Open-ended Reading Comprehension questions

1. Why was the university that Marie Curie attended known as the floating university?
2. What was Marie Curie’s contribution to the field of health care?
3. What was unique about Marie Curie’s Nobel Prize recognition?
4. Why did Marie Curie leave Warsaw?
5. What was so important about Marie Curie’s legacy?
6. What did Marie Curie contribute to the advancement of women?

Reading comprehension questions

1. Why was the university that Marie Curie attended known as the floating university?

a. The subject matter was always changing

b. It was always a different group of students

c. They always changed locations

2. What was one of Marie Curie’s contributions to the field of health care?

a. Radiation therapy

b. Chemotherapy

c. Radiotherapy

3. What was unique about Marie Curie’s Nobel Prize recognition?

a. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize

b. She was the first women to win the Nobel Prize in both physics and chemistry

c. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in physics

d. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry

4. Why did Marie Curie leave Warsaw?

a. Because she has leukemia

b. Because she could not attend the men’s university

c. Because she wanted to meet her future husband


5. What was so important about Marie Curie’s legacy?

a. She was the first woman scientist

b. She created an Oncology institute in her name

c. She inspired many women scientists

6. What did Marie Curie contribute to the advancement of women?

a. She allowed women to study science

b. She was the first woman scientist

c. She opened doors for women to teach in university

d.      She opened doors for women to be part of World War I

Pick One DOK Level 3 Question and Research, Discuss, and Share with a partner.
• How are Marie Curie's discoveries related to physics today?
• What conclusions can you draw from a lack of female scientist in the 19th Century?
• How would you adapt Marie Curie's bio into a graphic time-line?
• How would you develop a checklist for selecting a new Nobel Laureates in science?
• Can you predict who will be the next women to receive the Nobel Prizes?
• What is the best text evidence to why Marie Curie selected science as a field of study? Why?
• What conclusion can be drawn from these three texts?
• What is your interpretation of a lack of female physicist, use text evidence to support your rationale.
• How would you describe the sequence of events that lead to Marie Curies death?
• What facts would you select to support Marie Curies is a maverick?
•Can you elaborate on the reason why her work was important to WWII?
• What would happen if Marie Curie never made her discoverers?
• Can you formulate a theory for radioactivity?
• How would you test to see if a substance was radioactive?
• Can you elaborate on the reasons you agree or disagree with the articles Title? Why?

 

Deforestation Facts, Opinions, And Myths

1.     The Earth's rainforests, woodlands, and jungles are under a great deal of pressure. Our once abundant jungles are rapidly becoming extinct due to mismanagement or illicit activities such as gold mining, hydropower, timber harvesting, and the hunger for land to raise cattle and crops. Tropical rainforest and mature forests are being damaged by the lumber and paper trade. 

2.     Millions of indigenous people's livelihoods are being threatened and their aboriginal way of living in the jungles is undermined, plus a wide array of animal and plant types will cease to exist forever. If such deforestation facts are already known to man, then why is the rate of forest abolition continually growing? 

3.     Perhaps it's because poor people in some of the poorest nations are in dire need for both food and money, such things are allowed to happen. Through man's negligence, more than half of the world's irreplaceable rainforest, a rich natural treasure is gone, clear-cut, replaced with  palm plantations and cattle ranches. That is why there is no blaming mother nature if she strikes back at us through natural disasters. 

4.     Now, the earth's entire ecosystem is consciously or unconsciously being “punished” by the powers of nature. From floods to the deadly summer heatwaves, bizarre weather and to the growing global temperatures of the planet, people are buffeted by the troubles rooted in their own making. It was never implausible for such disasters to take place considering how the human race used, abused and injured the most indispensable part of the Earth, our delicate ecosystem. 

"Truths" On How Our Forests Rapidly Disappear

5.     We are suffering the loss of Earth's supreme biological reserves just as we are making a start at being grateful for their significance to the world and our own wellbeing. The tropical rainforests once made-up 14% of the planet's land mass, and presently, they make up only 6%. 

6.     Both environmentalists and experts anticipate that the remaining rainforest will be destroyed and consumed by development in approximately 40-70 years. Millions of acres of tropical forests are lost every year with disastrous and unseen consequences for both emerging and industrialized countries.
Scientist estimate that deforestation is responsible for the loss of 137 plant types, animal of various sorts, and insect species every passing day due to man's ruthless steps. The totality equates to 50,000 extinctions of flora and fauna species' per year. As the forests diversity fade away, so do many probable cures for grave and serious diseases disappear. 

7.     At present, 121 prescription drugs worldwide are derived from plant sources. The 25% of humankind's pharmaceuticals also originated from the forest's ingredients. Only 1% of the world's forest have been tested for possible medicinal cures by scientists, and the rest of the untested flora offer more possibilities of new medicines. 

8.     Through rainforest deforestation, up to 50% of the world's species of flora, fauna and organisms will be extinct or relentlessly jeopardized over the next 100 years to come. The very reason why our rich natural resources are being depleted of natural resources is because of short-sighted giant agribusiness, logging corporations, irresponsible land-owners, and feckless government administrations. 

9.     If such practices will never cease, total annihilation of all species will surely come next. If the possibilities for repairing nature are much higher now, then it is greatly suggested that bigger steps should be made to fight against the complete death of our world.

Mankind's Drive To Save Nature

10.     A call for sustainable and economically harvested rainforest crops is obligatory for conservation efforts to turn the tide of mass deforestation. Nations, governments, and corporations that opt-out doom any chance of success. Procuring essential and viable woodland products can result to positive modification by generating a marketplace for these goods while at the same time sustaining the indigenous people's financial system and providing the economic explanations and substitution ways to wounding the forest just for the mere worth of its lumber.

11.     The deforestation facts are widely known to man and thus should be given proper action. Both government and the localities should take advantage of the offered solutions to deforestation problems. If dealt with properly, our rainforests can endow the entire population's need for these biological reserves on a perpetual basis.

1. Read this sentence from paragraph 4.

Perhaps it's because poor people are in dire need for both food and money, such things are allowed to happen.

This sentence states —

A. an opinion of causes for deforestation

B. a statement of facts why deforestation happens

C. a prediction of why people allow deforestation

D. a solution to deforestation


2. Read this sentence from paragraph 1.

The Earth's rainforests, woodlands jungles are under a great deal of pressure.

This sentence infers that Earth's rainforests, woodlands, and jungles are—

A. forest are growing larger

B. forest are decreasing

C. illegal activity is destroying forest

D. people need to conserve the rainforest


3. Which word is a synonym for negligence in paragraph 3?

A. forgiven

B. carelessness

C. cautious

D. slowness

4. Read this sentence from paragraph 9.

If such practices will never cease, total annihilation of all species will surely come next.
This sentence is an example of ---

A. cause

B. effect

C. dialogue

D. fact

5. Which word is a antonym for abolition in paragraph ?

A. destruction

B. restoration

C. freedom

D. caution

6. Which passage is an example of cause and effect

A. The tropical rainforests once made-up 14% of the planet's land mass, and presently, they are only 6%. 

B. The deforestation facts are widely known to man and thus should be given proper action.

C. If dealt with properly, our rainforests can endow the entire population's need for these biological reserves on a perpetual basis.

D. Through rainforest deforestation, up to 50% of the world's species of flora, fauna and organisms will be extinct or relentlessly jeopardized over the next 100 years to come.