ELPAC Grades 9–10 Practice Tests

Part 1 — Listen to a Short Exchange

Listen to the conversation. Then answer the question.

1. What will the girl probably do at lunch? (A) Go with Owen to see Ms. Carter (B) Finish her lab report at home alone (C) Help Owen write his conclusion

Part 2 — Listen to a Short Exchange

Listen to the conversation. Then answer the question.

1. What does the girl mean when she says, “I really need to hit the books”? (A) She needs to return some books to the library. (B) She needs to study hard. (C) She is upset about her history grade.

Part 3 — Listen to a Short Exchange

Listen to the conversation. Then answer the question.

1. What does the boy plan to do? (A) Work alone in the library after school (B) Ask his group to meet at his house (C) Reserve a study room online

Part 4 — Listen to a Classroom Conversation

Listen to the conversation. Then answer the questions.

1. What are the students working on? (A) A report that compares two newspapers (B) A campaign poster for a school election (C) An analysis of a source on voting rights
2. Why does the teacher suggest that the students use the poster? (A) It was created to persuade people. (B) It includes more facts than the article. (C) It is easier to find than the article.
3. What will Leo do next? (A) Search the online archive for the poster (B) Take notes on the newspaper article (C) Ask the teacher for a different topic

Part 5 — Listen to an Oral Presentation

Listen to the presentation. Then answer the questions.

1. What is the presentation mainly about? (A) How GPS uses satellites and timing to find a location (B) Why the military built the first GPS satellites (C) How map apps on phones are designed
2. According to the speaker, why does a receiver need a signal from a fourth satellite? (A) To measure how high the satellites are (B) To correct small errors in the receiver's clock (C) To make the radio signals travel faster
3. The speaker says that the spheres “overlap” at just one point. What does “overlap” mean? (A) Move away from each other (B) Grow larger over time (C) Cover part of the same space
4. Why does the speaker mention farmers, pilots, and banks? (A) To show GPS has uses beyond directions (B) To explain who pays for the GPS satellites (C) To compare GPS with older ways of navigating

Part 6 — Listen to an Oral Presentation

Listen to the presentation. Then answer the questions.

1. According to the speaker, why did people in California want faster mail in 1860? (A) Ships had stopped sailing to California. (B) They wanted news from the East during a tense time. (C) They needed to send gold to banks in Missouri.
2. How did the Pony Express keep the mail moving quickly? (A) Riders traveled only during daylight hours. (B) Riders changed to fresh horses at stations. (C) Stagecoaches carried the heaviest mail pouches.
3. What was the main reason the Pony Express closed? (A) Its riders refused to cross the mountains. (B) The government stopped using it for mail. (C) The telegraph could send messages much faster.
4. What point does the speaker make at the end of the presentation? (A) The Pony Express is remembered as a symbol of the American West. (B) The Pony Express should have lasted longer than the telegraph. (C) The telegraph was less important than the Pony Express.

Part 7 — Listen to a Speaker Support an Opinion

Listen to the speech. Then answer the questions.

1. What is the speaker's opinion? (A) Students should learn about money from their families. (B) The school should require a personal finance class. (C) Economics classes should be shorter.
2. Why does the speaker tell the story about her first job? (A) To show how a class could have helped her understand her paycheck (B) To explain why she wants to work at a snack stand again (C) To prove that summer jobs for teenagers do not pay enough
3. How does the speaker respond to people who say student schedules are too full? (A) She says the school day should be made longer. (B) She agrees and changes her opinion completely. (C) She says it could fit into an existing course.
4. What does the speaker say about students in states that already require the course? (A) They took fewer elective classes in school. (B) They earned higher grades in math classes. (C) They tended to borrow money more wisely.

Part 8 — Listen to a Speaker Support an Opinion

Listen to the speech. Then answer the questions.

1. What is the main purpose of the speech? (A) To report the results of a city traffic study (B) To convince the city to add protected bike lanes (C) To ask the school to change its drop-off rules
2. What evidence does the speaker give that students want to ride bikes to school? (A) In a survey, over half said they'd ride if it were safer. (B) Most students already ride bikes to school every day. (C) Parents have complained about the long drop-off line.
3. According to the speaker, how would more student cyclists help other people? (A) Local shops would sell more bicycles and gear. (B) The drop-off line would shrink, with less exhaust. (C) The city would save money on road repairs.
4. How does the speaker address the business owners' concern? (A) He says parking is not important to shoppers. (B) He suggests that the shops move to Grove Street. (C) He proposes keeping some parking and adding a nearby lot.

Part 1 — Talk About a Scene

1. What is this student doing?
2. What are these?
3. What are these students learning about?
4. Tell me what students can do with these materials.

Part 2 — Speech Functions

1. You were absent for two days last week and missed a chemistry quiz. You want to ask your teacher, Ms. Carter, if you can make up the quiz. What would you say to Ms. Carter?
2. You are interested in a summer engineering program at a local college. You want to get information about it from your school counselor, Mr. Lewis. What would you say to Mr. Lewis?

Part 3 — Support an Opinion

1. Which one do you think the city should build: a job-training center or a music studio?

Part 4 — Support an Opinion

1. Which class do you think the school should add: a coding class or a public speaking class?

Part 5 — Present and Discuss Information

1. What does the graph show about how students at Oak Valley High School get to school? Include details from the graph in your answer.
2. Is the following claim supported or not supported based on the information in the graph? “A greater percentage of Grade 10 students than Grade 9 students get to school by family car.” Give details from the graph to support your answer.

Part 6 — Summarize an Academic Presentation

1. Summarize the information you heard. Be sure to: • explain what tardigrades are and where they live • describe how they survive when they dry out • explain what they can survive and why scientists study them • use relevant details and clear language.

Part 7 — Summarize an Academic Presentation

1. Summarize the information you heard. Be sure to: • explain why the canal was needed • describe how the canal was built • explain the effects of the canal • use relevant details and clear language.

Part 1 — Read a Short Informational Passage

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Why Onions Make You Cry

If you have ever chopped an onion, you have probably felt your eyes sting and fill with tears. This reaction is not caused by sadness, of course. It is caused by chemistry.

Onions absorb sulfur from the soil, and their cells store compounds that contain sulfur. As long as an onion is whole, these compounds are kept apart from certain enzymes, which are proteins that speed up chemical reactions. When a knife breaks the onion's cells, the compounds and the enzymes mix. Within seconds, the reaction produces a gas called syn-propanethial-S-oxide. The gas drifts upward, and when it reaches your eyes, it irritates the nerves there. Your eyes respond by producing tears to wash the irritating substance away.

Scientists think this reaction may help protect onions from animals that would otherwise eat them. For cooks, though, it is simply a nuisance. Luckily, there are ways to reduce it. Chilling an onion before cutting it slows down the reaction, and a sharp knife crushes fewer cells than a dull one, so less gas is released.

1. What is the main purpose of the passage? (A) To give recipes that use onions (B) To explain why cutting onions causes tears (C) To compare onions with other vegetables (D) To describe how farmers grow onions
2. According to the passage, what are enzymes? (A) Gases that rise from a cut onion (B) Nerves that are found in the eyes (C) Minerals that onions take from soil (D) Proteins that speed up chemical reactions
3. Why does chilling an onion before cutting it help? (A) It slows down the chemical reaction. (B) It makes the onion's cells stronger. (C) It removes the sulfur from the onion. (D) It makes the knife cut more smoothly.

Part 2 — Read a Short Informational Passage

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Finding a Book by Number

Walk into almost any school or public library in the United States, and you will see numbers such as 551.2 or 973.7 on the spines of nonfiction books. These numbers come from the Dewey Decimal Classification, a system created by Melvil Dewey in 1876.

Before Dewey's system, many libraries arranged books by size or by the date they were added to the collection. As a result, a reader could not easily find all the books on one subject. Dewey's idea was to organize knowledge itself. He divided nonfiction into ten main classes, each numbered in the hundreds. For example, the 500s cover natural sciences and mathematics, and the 900s cover history and geography. Each class is divided into smaller and smaller subjects, and decimals allow the system to become as specific as needed.

Today, the system is updated regularly to include new fields of study, and it is used by libraries in more than one hundred thirty countries. Not every library uses it, though. Many large university libraries prefer the Library of Congress system, which uses letters as well as numbers.

1. What is the passage mainly about? (A) How to become a librarian (B) Why university libraries are larger than school libraries (C) How the Dewey Decimal system organizes books by subject (D) The childhood of Melvil Dewey
2. According to the passage, what problem did the Dewey system help solve? (A) Readers could not easily find all the books on one subject. (B) Libraries owned too many books about history. (C) Many books were too large to fit on shelves. (D) Libraries did not have enough money to buy new books.
3. Which statement about the Library of Congress system is supported by the passage? (A) It was created before the Dewey system. (B) It is used mainly in school libraries. (C) It has exactly ten main classes. (D) It uses letters as well as numbers.

Part 3 — Read a Student Essay

Read the essay a student wrote for a class assignment. The essay may need some changes. Then answer the questions.

Why Our School Needs Peer Tutors

(1) Many students at Riverside High School struggle in at least one class, but they do not always ask for help. (2) Some are too shy to talk to a teacher, and others cannot stay after school because of sports, family responsibilities, or jobs. (3) Our school should start a peer tutoring program in which trained juniors and seniors help younger students during lunch and study hall. (4) A program like this would benefit both the students who receive help and the students who give it.

(5) First, students often feel more comfortable asking questions to someone close to their own age. (6) A classmate may remember exactly what confused them about a topic last year. (7) They can explain it in everyday language. (8) When I was struggling with algebra in ninth grade, my friend's older sister showed me a simple way to check my answers, and the equations finally made sense. (9) Algebra has been studied for more than a thousand years.

(10) Second, tutoring helps the tutors, too. (11) Explaining an idea to someone else forces you to understand it deeply. (12) Tutors also build skills like patience, communication, and leadership. (13) These skills look good on college applications and job résumés.

(14) Some people may argue that students should simply go to their teachers for help. (15) Teachers are important, but many of them have more than one hundred fifty students and only a few minutes between classes. (16) A peer tutoring program would not replace teachers. (17) ________, it would give students one more place to turn.

(18) Starting the program would not be expensive. (19) The library already has tables that sit empty during lunch. (20) Teachers could recommend students who are strong in their subjects, and the counseling office could organize a simple weekly schedule. (21) Last year, a nearby high school starts a similar program, and the number of students failing math dropped.

(22) Every student deserves a fair chance to succeed. (23) A peer tutoring program is a simple, low-cost step our school could take right away.

1. Which sentence best states the writer's main claim? (A) Sentence 1 (B) Sentence 3 (C) Sentence 11 (D) Sentence 22
2. Which sentence should be removed because it does not support the ideas in the second paragraph? (A) Sentence 5 (B) Sentence 6 (C) Sentence 8 (D) Sentence 9
3. What is the best way to combine sentences 6 and 7? (A) A classmate may remember exactly what confused them about a topic last year, so they can explain it in everyday language. (B) A classmate may remember exactly what confused them about a topic last year, but they can explain it in everyday language. (C) Although a classmate may remember exactly what confused them about a topic last year, they can explain it in everyday language. (D) A classmate may remember exactly what confused them, or they can explain a topic last year in everyday language.
4. Which word or phrase best completes sentence 17? (A) For example (B) Similarly (C) Instead (D) As a result
5. Which change should be made to sentence 21? (A) Change “nearby” to “nearly” (B) Change “starts” to “started” (C) Change “dropped” to “drops” (D) Change “students” to “student's”
6. The writer wants to use more precise and formal language in sentence 13. Which is the best way to revise sentence 13? (A) These skills strengthen college applications and job résumés. (B) These skills are kind of cool for college applications and job résumés. (C) These skills are stuff that colleges and jobs like. (D) These skills look good on college applications and job résumés, I think.
7. The writer wants to add this sentence to the essay: “In fact, several studies have found that tutors often improve their own grades in the subjects they teach.” Where should the sentence be added? (A) After sentence 4 (B) After sentence 8 (C) After sentence 11 (D) After sentence 19
8. Which sentence would be the best conclusion to add after sentence 23? (A) Algebra can be difficult for many students in their ninth-grade year. (B) Teachers have many students in each of their classes every day. (C) The library is usually quiet and mostly empty during lunch. (D) If we begin this year, more students can get the support they need.

Part 4 — Read a Literary Passage

Read the story. Then answer the questions.

Figuring Out

[1] The bell above the door of Harlan's Bicycle Repair rang for the third time that morning, and Ruby sighed before she could stop herself. It was the first Saturday of summer vacation, and instead of sleeping late like her friends, she was standing behind her grandfather's workbench in an apron streaked with grease.

[2] “Customer,” Grandpa Walt said without looking up from the wheel he was straightening. His hands moved slowly, turning a tiny wrench a quarter turn, then spinning the wheel, then watching it wobble a little less.

[3] A boy of about nine wheeled in a blue bike with a chain that hung loose like a tired necklace. “It keeps falling off,” he said. “Every time I go up the hill by the school.”

[4] Ruby knew this one. She had watched her grandfather fix a dozen loose chains in the past week. She grabbed a wrench, loosened the back wheel, pulled it tight, and had the chain back on in four minutes. “All set,” she said, proud of herself. The boy paid, grinned, and pedaled away.

[5] Twenty minutes later, he was back, pushing the bike, the chain dangling again.

[6] Ruby felt her face grow warm. Grandpa Walt set down his wheel, wiped his hands, and crouched beside the bike. He didn't reach for a tool. Instead, he turned the pedals backward slowly and listened. Click. Click. Click. He ran his thumb along the teeth of the rear gear, then held the chain up to the light.

[7] “Your fix was fine,” he said to Ruby. “But it wasn't the problem. See this?” He pointed to a single link that bent stiffly while the others moved freely. “One stiff link. On a hill, when he pushes hard, it jumps right off the gear. Tightening the wheel just hid the problem for a while.”

[8] He handed her a small chain tool. “Your turn. Slowly.”

[9] Ruby's first impulse was to hurry, to make up for her mistake. But her grandfather was watching, and the boy was watching, and she made herself breathe. She worked the stiff link back and forth, added a drop of oil, and worked it again until it moved as easily as the rest. Then she did what her grandfather had done: she turned the pedals and listened. The clicking was gone.

[10] After the boy left for the second time, Ruby leaned against the counter. “I thought fast meant good,” she admitted.

[11] Grandpa Walt laughed, a low rumble. “Fast is good, once you know what's wrong. Most of this job isn't fixing. It's figuring out.” He tapped the side of his head. “Bikes tell you what they need, if you give them a minute.”

[12] For the rest of the day, Ruby tried it his way. She spun wheels and watched where they rubbed against the brakes. She squeezed tires and felt for soft spots. When a woman brought in a bike that squeaked, Ruby didn't just spray oil on everything. She rode it once around the parking lot, noticed that the squeak came only when she braked, and found a pebble wedged against the brake pad.

[13] By closing time, her apron was dirtier than ever, and her feet ached. Her friends had sent pictures from the beach, and for a moment she felt the old sting of missing out.

[14] Then the bell rang one last time. It was the boy with the blue bike, riding this time, not pushing. He skidded to a stop in the doorway.

[15] “I made it all the way up the hill,” he announced. “Twice. Without stopping.”

[16] Ruby smiled, a real smile, not the polite one she had been giving customers all day. When he was gone, she picked up the wheel her grandfather had been working on that morning and gave it a slow spin. It turned perfectly straight.

[17] “Tomorrow,” said Grandpa Walt, “I'll show you how to do that.”

[18] Ruby was surprised to find that she was looking forward to it.

1. In paragraph 1, why does Ruby sigh? (A) She is tired from riding her bike to the shop. (B) She is worried about a difficult repair. (C) She would rather be on summer vacation than working. (D) She is annoyed that her grandfather is ignoring her.
2. Why does the boy's bike break down again after Ruby fixes it the first time? (A) The boy rode it too fast down the hill. (B) A stiff link in the chain was the real problem. (C) Ruby forgot to tighten the back wheel enough. (D) The chain was too short for the bike's gears.
3. In paragraph 3, the author says the chain “hung loose like a tired necklace.” What does this comparison suggest? (A) The chain was drooping and out of place. (B) The chain was shiny and new. (C) The boy had worn the chain as jewelry. (D) The chain was too heavy for the bike.
4. What does Grandpa Walt mean when he says, “Most of this job isn't fixing. It's figuring out”? (A) Repairing bikes is easier than it looks. (B) Ruby should look for a different summer job. (C) Working quickly is the most important skill in a repair shop. (D) Finding the real problem is the most important part of a repair.
5. How does Ruby change over the course of the story? (A) She becomes less interested in bicycles and more interested in the beach. (B) She learns to slow down and work carefully, and she begins to enjoy the work. (C) She decides that her grandfather's methods are too old-fashioned. (D) She becomes more confident about doing repairs quickly without help.
6. Which statement best expresses a theme of the story? (A) Family members should always agree with each other. (B) Hard work is worth it only when it earns money. (C) Taking time to understand a problem leads to better solutions. (D) Summer vacation is the best time to learn a new hobby.

Part 5 — Read an Informational Passage

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Mary Anning: The Fossil Hunter of Lyme Regis

[1] On the southern coast of England, the town of Lyme Regis sits beneath crumbling gray cliffs. Storms and waves constantly wear away these cliffs, and when rock falls to the beach, it sometimes reveals fossils of creatures that lived roughly 200 million years ago, when the area lay under a warm, shallow sea. In the early 1800s, a young woman named Mary Anning searched these beaches almost every day. Although she had little formal schooling, her discoveries helped change how scientists understood the history of life on Earth.

[2] Anning was born in Lyme Regis in 1799. Her family was poor. Her father, a cabinetmaker, collected fossils from the beach and sold them to tourists as curiosities, and he taught his children to search for them too. When he died in 1810, the family was left in debt, and selling fossils became an important way to earn money.

[3] Soon afterward, the family made its first remarkable find. Around 1811, Mary's older brother, Joseph, discovered a strange skull in the cliffs. Over the following months, Mary, who was only about twelve, carefully uncovered the rest of the skeleton. The creature was an ichthyosaur, a large sea reptile with a long snout and a body shaped somewhat like a dolphin's. It was one of the first ichthyosaur skeletons to attract serious attention from scientists, and it was later displayed in a museum in London.

[4] Fossil hunting was difficult and dangerous work. The best time to search was in winter, after storms had loosened the cliffs, but those same conditions caused sudden landslides. Anning had to work quickly to rescue fossils before the tide washed them away. She also had to be patient and precise, since a single careless blow with a hammer could shatter a specimen that had survived for millions of years.

[5] In 1823, Anning made her most famous discovery: the first complete skeleton of a plesiosaur, a sea reptile with a small head, a wide body, four flippers, and an extraordinarily long neck. The neck was so long that the French scientist Georges Cuvier, one of the most respected experts of his time, at first suspected that the fossil was a fake. After examining the evidence more closely, he accepted that it was genuine. Five years later, Anning found the first pterosaur skeleton discovered in Britain, the remains of a flying reptile. She also noticed that certain stones, often found inside ichthyosaur skeletons, contained bits of fish bones and scales. She realized that the stones were fossilized droppings, a discovery that helped scientists learn what these ancient animals ate.

[6] Despite these achievements, Anning was often left out of the scientific world. As a woman from a working-class family, she was not allowed to join the Geological Society of London, which did not admit women until long after her death. Scientists bought her fossils and wrote papers about them, but they frequently failed to mention her name. Anning read scientific articles and taught herself anatomy, and many visiting experts admitted that she knew more about fossils than they did. Still, she rarely received public credit during her lifetime.

[7] Anning died in 1847. Afterward, the president of the Geological Society honored her in a speech, an unusual tribute for someone who had never been allowed to become a member. In the years since, her reputation has only grown. In 2010, Britain's Royal Society named her one of the ten British women who most influenced the history of science. Today, her fossils can be seen in museums, and visitors to Lyme Regis still search the same beaches, hoping to find a piece of the ancient world.

1. What is the central idea of the passage? (A) Mary Anning made major fossil finds but got little credit while alive. (B) Fossil hunting in Lyme Regis was more dangerous than most other work. (C) Georges Cuvier was the most important scientist of the early 1800s. (D) The cliffs of Lyme Regis contain the oldest fossils in the world.
2. According to paragraph 2, why did selling fossils become important to the Anning family? (A) Mary wanted to become a famous scientist. (B) Tourists had stopped visiting the town. (C) The Geological Society paid high prices for fossils. (D) The family was in debt after her father died.
3. In paragraph 4, what does the word “precise” mean? (A) fast (B) exact (C) strong (D) curious
4. Why does the author include the information about Georges Cuvier in paragraph 5? (A) To show that Anning often worked with French scientists (B) To explain how plesiosaurs used their long necks (C) To show how surprising and unusual the plesiosaur discovery was (D) To prove that some of Anning's fossils were fake
5. Which sentence from the passage best supports the idea that Anning was an expert even without much formal schooling? (A) “Anning read scientific articles and taught herself anatomy, and many visiting experts admitted that she knew more about fossils than they did.” (B) “Her family was poor.” (C) “The best time to search was in winter, after storms had loosened the cliffs, but those same conditions caused sudden landslides.” (D) “Today, her fossils can be seen in museums, and visitors to Lyme Regis still search the same beaches, hoping to find a piece of the ancient world.”
6. How does paragraph 7 relate to paragraph 6? (A) Paragraph 7 gives more examples of fossils that Anning found on the beach. (B) Paragraph 7 explains why Anning could not join the Geological Society. (C) Paragraph 7 describes the dangers of fossil hunting in the winter. (D) Paragraph 7 shows how Anning was finally honored after being overlooked.

Part 1 — Describe a Picture

Look at the picture. Your partner wrote a paragraph about the picture. You will help your partner revise the paragraph.

Part 2 — Describe a Picture

Look at the picture again and read your partner's paragraph.

Part 3 — Write About an Experience

Read the question. Then write your answer in the box.

Part 4 — Write About Academic Information

Look at the graphic organizer. Then answer the question.

Part 5 — Write About Academic Information

Look at the graphic organizer again. Then answer the question.

Part 6 — Justify an Opinion

Read the information. Then write your essay in the box.