Identify and Describe Purpose Practice Test
•15 QuestionsRead the following passage and answer the question.
At last month’s school board meeting, I watched twelve speakers plead for arts funding while the agenda clock blinked red: “Time.” The board’s response was not hostility; it was arithmetic. Our district faces a $1.2 million shortfall, and leaders keep repeating that “core academics must come first.” But that phrase is a shortcut, not a strategy. When we cut the middle school band to preserve test-prep software, we don’t protect learning; we narrow it. Students who struggle to speak in class often find a voice through performance, and the discipline of rehearsal teaches the very habits—revision, attention, endurance—that essays demand. If we can afford new stadium lights, we can afford clarinets.
The answer is not sentimental speeches; it is a budget rule. The board should adopt a simple policy: any new capital project over $50,000 must set aside 2% for arts and library programming. This does not “take” from math; it acknowledges that schools are ecosystems. I am asking board members to vote for this policy next Tuesday, and I am asking families to show up so the arithmetic includes us.
The author’s primary purpose is to…
Read the following passage and answer the question.
At last month’s school board meeting, I watched twelve speakers plead for arts funding while the agenda clock blinked red: “Time.” The board’s response was not hostility; it was arithmetic. Our district faces a $1.2 million shortfall, and leaders keep repeating that “core academics must come first.” But that phrase is a shortcut, not a strategy. When we cut the middle school band to preserve test-prep software, we don’t protect learning; we narrow it. Students who struggle to speak in class often find a voice through performance, and the discipline of rehearsal teaches the very habits—revision, attention, endurance—that essays demand. If we can afford new stadium lights, we can afford clarinets.
The answer is not sentimental speeches; it is a budget rule. The board should adopt a simple policy: any new capital project over $50,000 must set aside 2% for arts and library programming. This does not “take” from math; it acknowledges that schools are ecosystems. I am asking board members to vote for this policy next Tuesday, and I am asking families to show up so the arithmetic includes us.
The author’s primary purpose is to…