Read and Comprehend Grade-Level Literature Practice Test

Read the story.

Eli found a lost mitten on the playground, striped blue and gray. He held it up and called, “Does anyone need this?” but the wind carried his voice away. During class, he kept the mitten on his desk, and it looked lonely, like it was waiting. At recess, Eli made a plan: he asked the office for a “lost and found” box and wrote a neat label. Then he walked to each teacher on duty and showed the mitten, repeating the colors so they would remember. By the end of the day, a first grader ran up, eyes wide. “That’s mine! I thought it was gone forever.” Eli felt relieved, not because he owned something, but because he had returned it.

What caused Eli to make a lost-and-found box?

Read the story.

On the day of the class talent share, Niko’s stomach fluttered like a small bird. He had practiced a short drum rhythm on his desk at home, but the classroom felt louder and brighter. “You don’t have to go first,” his teacher, Mr. Reyes, reminded him. Niko watched as Ava did a jump-rope trick and as Jordan told a funny joke. Each time someone finished, the class clapped, and the sound was warm, not sharp. Niko held his drumsticks, and his hands felt a little sweaty. When Mr. Reyes asked who was next, Niko surprised himself by raising his hand. He walked to the front and sat on a stool that wobbled once. “I made this rhythm for rainy days,” he said, because rain always helped him think. He tapped slowly at first, then faster, making a pattern like footsteps on a sidewalk. A few students nodded their heads to the beat. When he finished, the room was quiet for a second, and then the clapping burst out. Niko’s chest felt lighter, as if he had opened a window. Later, he told Mr. Reyes, “I thought I would freeze.” Mr. Reyes smiled and said, “Courage can be quiet, but it still counts.”

How did Niko probably feel when the class started clapping?