A Sample Question from the Content Specialty Exam for Future Teachers of English

The passage is followed by questions. Please note that the sentences in the passage have been numbered. This is one of our many concessions to fairness on this test. You are welcome.

1. Sedimentary rocks are rocks made of other rocks. 2. Other rocks break, or crumble. 3. Then, by various processes, they are reformed into rocks, except that they are now sedimentary. 4.Sedimentary rocks can be found in places where other rocks are. 5.A riverbed is one example.

48. The writer was best able to communicate the main idea of the passage by which of the following methods:
A. The writer's repetition of the words 'rock' or 'rocks' wears on the reader like the processes that create sedimentary rocks.
B. The passage used causal organization that allows the reader to use context clues to determine the meaning of the word 'crumble' in sentence 2.
C. The writer takes alternate interpretations into account, which helps the reader evaluate the literary merits of sedimentary rocks.
D. Onomatopoeia.

49. If this passage were to be accompanied by a chart, which would be the most appropriate?
A. A flow chart demonstrating the quantitative number of sediments in a riverbed.
B. A pie chart showing the proportion of rocks to other types of rocks in one sedimentary rock.
C. A bar chart showing the number of readers who had nodded off while reading each sentence.
D. I'm sorry, did I miss the chapter on charts in the Aeneid? Because I want to be an English teacher.