English Language Arts: Making Predictions (TEKS.ELA.9-12.5.C)

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Texas High School ELA › English Language Arts: Making Predictions (TEKS.ELA.9-12.5.C)

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1

By the time the radio stitched together a warning through the static, we had already passed the last lit exit before the fairgrounds. My father tapped the wheel in his old three-beat habit—the rhythm he used when bills came due or calves took sick. The sky to the west had the color of spent copper, and the wind carried the sweet, dusty smell that means fences will be down by morning. "Shelters open at church basements," the announcer said, voice thinning, then returning, like a kite tugged at the edge of its string. In my lap, the entry form for Comet, my calf, stayed folded. Dad had handed it to me without looking. The cattle trailer jostled; somewhere behind us, a latch ticked like a grasshopper. The green sign for County Road 6 slid past, and with it the route we always took to the show. Dad checked the mirrors, calculating, as the stormline raised its dark seam.

Based on the structural cues and genre conventions of realistic literary fiction, what is most likely to happen next?

They continue straight to the fairgrounds and arrive on time for check-in.

They turn back toward home across open prairie to beat the storm.

They pull off toward a nearby church shelter instead of the fairgrounds.

They wait on the highway shoulder for the storm to pass before deciding.

Explanation

The radio's shelter notice, the father's three-beat tapping (associated with hard decisions), the folded entry form, and missing their usual turn all foreshadow a safety-first detour to a shelter. Sophisticated readers weigh these converging signals over surface expectations about the stock show.

2

Debate over the 1876 Texas Constitution unfolded less as a single revolution than as a layering of cautions. County officials, chastened by Reconstruction-era receiverships, pressed for tax ceilings and debt brakes; agrarian delegates, wary of distant boards, scattered authority so that no Austin bureau could spend freely. Yet railroads arrived with the impatience of iron. Term limits and biennial sessions promised thrift but also ensured that long projects would be parceled into emergency measures. School finance, cut loose from reliable revenue, turned to local bonds whose promoters spoke the language of "temporary necessity." The pattern is familiar: restraints authored to discipline the state induced a migration of ambition into special districts and lease authorities, where the same appetite for growth could be pursued under another name. Having traced the populist critique, and its constitutional expression, the next section considers what followed when tax caps met the infrastructural demands of track, water, and classrooms.

Given the text's structure and historical argumentation, what will the historian most likely analyze next?

The unintended shift of policymaking and financing into special districts and bond mechanisms, with trade-offs for accountability and equity.

A celebratory account of how tax caps quickly expanded services without cost or complexity.

A biographical sketch of a prominent governor only tangentially related to fiscal design.

An immediate jump to twentieth-century oil revenue that fully resolved constitutional constraints.

Explanation

The passage signals a causal sequence from restraints to alternative financing and names special districts and bonds. The final sentence previews consequences when tax caps met infrastructure demands; thus the next analysis will unpack those mechanisms and trade-offs.

3

Coastal marshes along the upper Gulf, especially those fringing Galveston Bay, are losing elevation relative to sea level at rates that outpace plant accretion. We tested a paired-intervention design on eight plots: thin-layer sediment placement followed by prescribed burns, staggered against burns alone. For two years, elevation gains and Spartina cover increased in augmented plots, while macroinvertebrate richness declined after each burn before partially recovering. Storm tides during year three reset creek sill heights unevenly, amplifying salinity pulses in two augmented plots. Preliminary generalized additive models suggest a threshold regime: beyond a salinity-duration window, vegetation gains reverse, and nekton nursery usage falls. In the following analysis, we reconcile short-term gains with long-term stability by modeling plot-scale hydrology, then evaluate management sequences under projected storm frequencies. We also revisit our assumption that burning resets surface roughness beneficially across conditions. The discussion will distinguish interventions that bank elevation from those that merely defer submergence.

Considering the signposted structure of a scientific article, what will the paper most likely do next?

Conclude that the project should be abandoned immediately without modeling or further analysis.

Pivot to coral reef bleaching literature with no connection to marsh hydrology.

Declare the data inconclusive and end with a generic call for more samples only.

Present a hydrologic model to explain threshold responses and propose staggered, conditional intervention sequences.

Explanation

The passage explicitly previews modeling plot-scale hydrology and evaluating intervention sequences under storm scenarios. Sophisticated prediction follows these structural signposts rather than ignoring them.

4

When we describe freedom as the absence of interference, we risk treating a locked door and an unmarked cliff as equivalents merely because no hand is pushing. The factory worker whose schedule bars every town-hall meeting is, on that view, as free to speak as the heiress with leisure, provided neither faces a censor. I have argued that this metric fails to register the enabling conditions that make an option effectively available. Nonetheless, any remedy that folds opportunities into the definition of liberty threatens to smuggle in a paternal state, eager to declare which options truly count. To proceed, we require a test that admits enabling conditions without endorsing an unlimited mandate. We might begin by asking not whether options are many, but whether $A$ could reasonably exercise $x$ without subordinating $B$'s equal standing. The next section revisits street protest and medical leave as gray cases where enabling provisions appear to augment, rather than replace, freedom.

Based on the argument's logical progression, what is the author most likely to do next?

Announce sweeping policy prescriptions without first refining the conceptual test.

Offer a conditional criterion for when enabling provisions count as freedom-promoting, then apply it to cases like protest and leave while addressing the paternalism objection.

Shift to a biographical survey of a celebrated political thinker unrelated to the present framework.

Abandon the concern about enabling conditions and revert to a strict negative-liberty view.

Explanation

The passage signals the need for a test, then points to specific gray cases. A sophisticated prediction anticipates a conditional principle followed by applications and an engagement with the paternalism worry.

5

By the time the sun had shrugged itself loose from the mesquite, the windmill had fallen still. I told myself it was only fatigue in the gears, not an omen, and set the oil can down like a prayer. The county's letter about "temporary conservation measures" is folded in my pocket, warm with sweat. My father used to say water isn't a resource; it's a neighbor—you don't take more than you can return. I nodded then, a boy with a canteen and no notion of July. Lately, July has had teeth. Tonight the co-op will vote whether to close the pipe to the Blackburn herd upstream to save pressure for the school and the clinic. My sister is bringing the minutes and the gavel; Blackburn is bringing a promise and a frown. Out past the cattle guards, dust lifts like breath. I grease the crank one more time and think of who will be asked to bend first.

Based on the excerpt's cues about roles, values, and the impending vote, what is most likely to happen next?

The co-op votes to permanently cut off Blackburn's water without discussion.

The narrator skips the meeting to work on the windmill and remains silent about the vote.

During a tense meeting, the narrator invokes his father's ethic to propose a rotating schedule that prioritizes the school and clinic without fully cutting Blackburn off.

A sudden storm fills the tanks, making the vote unnecessary.

Explanation

The passage foreshadows negotiation: the sister's gavel suggests procedural authority, the father's neighbor ethic implies compromise, and "who will be asked to bend first" signals trade-offs. A rotating, priority-based plan aligns with these structural and thematic cues. The other options ignore the nuanced setup or rely on deus ex machina.

6

Analysts often describe Texas as an energy monolith—first for oil, first for natural gas—yet the state's most significant infrastructure bet of the early twenty-first century was invisible: lines. In 2005, lawmakers authorized Competitive Renewable Energy Zones, not because windmills looked photogenic above cotton fields, but because surplus generation stranded in the Panhandle was economically irrational. The build-out detached politics from geography, turning gusts into contracts. Still, the decision to keep ERCOT largely islanded from interstate grids, celebrated for sovereignty and speed, also meant resilience would be earned, not borrowed. During typical summers, this gamble appears prescient: prices dampen, emissions fall. During atypical winters, vulnerabilities surface with embarrassing clarity. The pattern here matters. Having traced intent (cheap power) and constraint (islanded grid), the historian must next consider how institutional memory translates shocks into rules—or fails to. Policy does not learn automatically; it is taught by committees, and sometimes by pain.

Considering the structure of the analysis and its signposts, what is the author most likely to do next?

Pivot to a moral condemnation of fossil fuels without discussing institutions or rules.

Present a case study of ERCOT or legislative committees revising reliability rules after a winter shock, evaluating how lessons were or weren't codified.

Describe individual homeowners installing fireplaces as a primary solution.

Conclude that policy is unpredictable and end the discussion without further examination.

Explanation

The passage explicitly signals a next step: examining how shocks become rules. In historical analysis, this typically means a concrete institutional case study. The distractors ignore the established analytical trajectory or contradict the stated plan.

7

Coastal tallgrass prairie once occupied the margins of Galveston Bay, buffering storms and storing carbon; less than one percent remains. We established twelve 10-by-10 meter plots on retired pasture, crossing two factors: seed mix richness (5 vs. 20 species) and soil microtopography (flat vs. constructed hummocks). After two growing seasons, high-richness hummock plots exhibited greater native cover and invertebrate diversity than low-richness flats, as predicted. However, during a late-summer king tide, salinity pulses penetrated farther inland than five-year models suggested, reducing germination in flats regardless of seed mix. Because weather anomalies are becoming the rule, not the exception, inference from short trials risks optimism bias. The structure of our study therefore shifts: rather than concluding with effect sizes alone, we extend monitoring into a third year and add porewater salinity loggers at 10 and 30 cm. The question is no longer whether richness helps, but under what hydrologic regimes it matters.

Given the study's evolving design and the problem it identifies, what is the most logical next step in the paper?

Detail the extended monitoring protocol and model interactions between species richness and salinity thresholds, revising predictions accordingly.

Jump to broad international climate policy recommendations unrelated to plot-level mechanisms.

Discard salinity data and focus exclusively on invertebrate counts.

Declare the project unsuccessful and stop data collection.

Explanation

The authors signal an extension with added salinity loggers and a reframed question about regimes, implying methods detail and interaction modeling. The distractors either ignore the new variables or contradict the declared plan.

8

Freedom, in the sense cherished by every small‑town myth, is usually narrated as an absence: no gate, no ledger, no neighbor counting your water glass. But this negative definition collapses under ordinary errands. A driver's promise, for example, is not less free than a teenager's; it is differently bound. Contracts are the choreography of plural liberty. To those who accuse obligations of masquerading as freedom, I grant the danger: a rule can be smuggled in as "choice" the way a tax can be called a "fee." Yet the conclusion that all obligations are fetters is too hasty. A useful test is to ask which commitments we would keep even if enforcement slept. If none, we have mistaken freedom for evasion. If some, we have located a seam between coercion and consent. Having posed the test, I have not yet answered the skeptic who insists that consent is always manufactured.

Based on the essay's argumentative progression, what is the most likely move the author will make next?

Abruptly switch to a nostalgic memoir about childhood summers.

Provide an appendix of legal codes to catalog every possible obligation.

Restate the introduction and conclude without addressing the skeptic's challenge.

Develop a rebuttal by analyzing cases of manufactured consent and proposing criteria that distinguish genuine consent from coercion disguised as choice.

Explanation

The author flags an unresolved counterargument ("have not yet answered the skeptic"), so a philosophically coherent next step is to engage it by offering distinctions and criteria. The distractors ignore the signposted debate or abandon the argumentative thread.