English Language Arts: Genre Knowledge (TEKS.ELA.9-12.8.A) Practice Test

Excerpt 1: On the morning the pecan tree began to drop glass-blue marbles instead of nuts, no one in our street called the news. Tía Lucha swept them into a coffee can as if late frost had peeled the tree's patience into spheres. Each marble carried a small, steady hum, and if you pressed one to your temple, a name condensed behind your eyes. The first I heard was Monday—spoken not as a day but a person clearing his throat. Abuela kept that one near the stove; the caldo thickened into a glossy calm. Children traded the marbles like weather, the way you trade a breeze for shade. By dusk the marbles rolled uphill toward the church steps and clicked themselves into a halo. Sheriff Ortega wrote a ticket for unlawful marbles and tucked it under the tree's bark, which closed over the paper like a polite mouth. No one was surprised; dreams had been leaking lately.

Excerpt 2: Welcome to the City's Annual Authenticity Festival, proudly curated by our Office of Strategic Sincerity. This year, to streamline heartfelt expression, attendees must reserve a five-minute window to feel feelings. Premium wristbands guarantee spontaneous laughter at approved intervals; budget patrons may select from Smirk, Nod, or Emote Later. In our Transparency Pavilion (opaque for your comfort), local leaders will demonstrate how to apologize without admitting anything. Food vendors will serve farm-to-brand cuisine, harvested at the peak of narrative. For safety, please limit unlicensed epiphanies to designated zones; our Compassion Ambassadors are trained to redirect rogue empathy into recyclable bins. Last year's incident—an unpermitted hug that spread to three booths—will not be repeated. By entering, you consent to the recording of your candor for quality assurance. Should you feel actual wonder, a volunteer will escort you to the Decompression Tent, where it can be converted to store credit.

Excerpt 1: September 8, 1900, Galveston smelled of salt and iron as the barometer dropped like a promise reneged. Eli Vargas tightened the shutters his father planed by hand, listening to the telegraph clicks gutter and die. Neighbors crossed themselves, but still walked down to the beach to watch the mild afternoon become a rumor that became a roar. When the Gulf rose into the streets, piano legs lifted and chimed against doorframes; postcards loosened from their tacks and sailed like gulls. Eli's mother wrapped the family Bible in oilcloth and tied it to her waist with a length of clothesline. There were no sirens, only the wooden language of houses un-building themselves. The lantern burned low; they marked the water's climb in pencil on the stair. Later, they would tell it backward—the train that never came, the orphanage lantern bobbing like a second moon—but that night, history arrived as a weight against the door.

Excerpt 2: We argued at the county library, in the quiet like a held breath. Leena said a person is the sum of choices; I asked whether a river chooses its mouth. Suppose, I said, two channels braided through limestone meet a buried fence post and split: one carries silt toward a field that will bloom, the other drowns a fox's den. The water's nature hasn't changed, only the furniture of the world. Are we more responsible than water for the furniture we did not arrange? Leena bent a paperclip straight, then back again. Maybe responsibility is the bending, she said—the stubborn insistence on a shape. We drew little diagrams in the margins of a map, which refused to answer. Outside, rain staged its case on the roof. Nothing was settled except the feeling that thought could be a kind of weather: passing over you, or passing because of you.