TELPAS reading practice questions for 6th and 7th grade

Mariana had played violin with the Bowie Middle School mariachi for only six weeks. The spring concert was on Saturday, and Thursday's practice was the last rehearsal.

Halfway through the second song, Mr. Cárdenas raised his hand, and the music stopped. "Violins, one more time from measure twenty," he said. Then he added, "Mariana, just you."

Her face turned hot. Twelve students turned around to look at her. She lifted her bow, but her fingers felt as stiff as frozen crayons. She played the first four notes, then lost her place in the quick run of notes that followed. The sound that came out was thin and shaky.

"Again," Mr. Cárdenas said, not unkindly. "Slower this time." She tried again, and again she stumbled in the same place.

After rehearsal, Mariana packed her violin as fast as she could. She wanted to leave before anyone could say anything to her. But Daniela, who had played in the group since sixth grade, sat down on the bench beside her.

"That run used to destroy me too," Daniela said. "Last year I played it so badly that Mr. Cárdenas had me play it alone four times in a row."

Mariana looked up. "Really? You?"

"Really. Here's what helped." Daniela took out her own violin and played the run at half speed, then a little faster, then faster again. "Don't start from the beginning of the song every time. Just practice the hard part, slowly, until your fingers get bored."

That night, Mariana stood in her bedroom and played the same eight notes for forty minutes. Her little brother knocked on the wall twice. By the time she went to bed, her fingers knew the way on their own.

On Saturday, when the violins reached measure twenty, Mariana did not look at the music at all. Across the row, Daniela caught her eye and gave a small nod.

Every evening from spring to fall, crowds gather near the Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin. They are not waiting for a parade or a concert. They are waiting for bats.

Under the bridge lives a colony of Mexican free-tailed bats. By late summer it can hold as many as 1.5 million bats, which makes it the largest urban bat colony in North America. Most of the bats are females. They arrive in the spring, and in early summer most of them give birth to a single baby, called a pup. In the fall, the colony flies south to spend the winter in Mexico.

The bats did not always live there. When the bridge was rebuilt, narrow gaps were left in the concrete underneath it. These dark, warm spaces turned out to be a perfect place for bats to roost during the day before they fly out to hunt at night. Within a few years, hundreds of thousands of bats had moved in.

At first, many people in Austin were afraid. Some believed the bats were dangerous and asked the city to get rid of them. Scientists and bat experts worked to change people's minds. They explained that bats rarely bother people, as long as people never touch or pick up a bat. They also pointed out how useful the bats are.

Each night, the bats fly out to hunt insects, including moths that damage farm crops. A colony this size can eat thousands of pounds of insects in a single night.

Today, the bats are one of Austin's best-known sights. On summer evenings, visitors line the bridge and the riverbank to watch dark clouds of bats pour out from under the bridge at sunset and stream away across the sky.

On Saturday mornings, Tuan's grandfather, whom he called Ông, rode the bus to a community garden on the east side of Houston. This spring, Tuan's mother said that Tuan had to go with him.

Tuan did not see the point. The grocery store down the street sold vegetables in neat plastic bags, and nobody there had to kneel in the dirt to get them.

Ông's garden plot was small, only about as long as a car. He handed Tuan a trowel and showed him how to dig a hole as deep as his finger. Into each hole went two pale seeds. "Bitter melon," Ông said. "Your grandmother's favorite."

For two weeks, nothing happened. Tuan checked every Saturday and found only dirt. "Maybe the seeds were bad," he said. Ông just poured water along the rows and said, "Seeds do not listen to complaining."

In the third week, small green leaves pushed up through the soil. By June, the vines had climbed the wooden frame Ông had built and covered it like a green curtain. Bumpy, pale green melons hung underneath.

Ông picked the first melon and turned it over in his hand. Then he told Tuan a story Tuan had never heard: how, as a boy in Vietnam, he had helped his own grandmother grow the same vegetable behind her house, and how she had cooked it with eggs for him whenever he was sick.

That evening, Tuan's mother cooked the melon with eggs. It was so bitter that Tuan made a face at the first bite. Ông laughed. Tuan took a second bite anyway, and then a third.

The next Saturday, Tuan was waiting at the bus stop before his grandfather got there.

On January 1, 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared that enslaved people in the states fighting against the United States were free. In Texas, however, the order changed very little at first. Few Union soldiers were in Texas to enforce it, and many enslaved people never heard about it.

The war ended in the spring of 1865. On June 19, 1865, in the port city of Galveston, Union General Gordon Granger announced an order stating that all enslaved people in Texas were free. The news came about two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

The next year, freed people in Texas began celebrating June 19 as a day of freedom. They called it Juneteenth, a blend of the words June and nineteenth. Early celebrations included prayer, speeches, music, and large outdoor meals. Some communities raised money to buy land where they could gather for the celebrations, such as Emancipation Park in Houston.

As families moved from Texas to other states, they took the holiday with them. In 1980, Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth an official state holiday. In 2021, it became a federal holiday celebrated across the United States.

Today, Juneteenth is marked with parades, festivals, and family gatherings. For many people, it is also a day to learn about history and to remember that freedom did not reach everyone at the same time.

Pecan Grove Branch Library: Teen Makerspace

Open to students ages 11 to 17. The makerspace has a 3D printer, two sewing machines, a button maker, and laptops with design software.

Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Closed Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Before your first visit: Every student must complete a 20-minute safety training. Trainings are held on the first Saturday of each month at 10:00 a.m. A parent or guardian must also sign a permission form, which you can pick up at the front desk.

3D printing: Bring your design on a USB drive or email it to the front desk. Each student may print one project per week. A print must take less than 2 hours to finish. Prints are free, but you must pick up your print within 7 days.

Questions? Ask for Ms. Adeyemi at the front desk.

Many Texans call it a "horny toad," but the Texas horned lizard is not a toad at all. It is a lizard, and it is the official state reptile of Texas.

The horned lizard has a wide, flat body covered with spiny scales. Large horns stick out from the back of its head. Its brown, spotted colors help it blend in with dirt and dry grass, so when it stays still, it can be very hard to see.

Its main food is the harvester ant, a large red ant that builds its nests in open, sandy, or rocky ground. A single lizard can eat a large number of these ants in one day.

Hiding is the lizard's first defense, but it has others. It can puff up its body so that it looks bigger and is harder to swallow. If a coyote or a dog attacks, the lizard can do something surprising: it squirts a stream of blood from the corners of its eyes. The blood has a taste these animals dislike, so they often drop the lizard and leave it alone.

Texas horned lizards were once common across much of the state, but today they have disappeared from many areas, especially in the eastern half of Texas. Scientists believe several causes worked together. Land where the lizards lived was turned into roads, houses, and farms. Pesticides and invasive fire ants reduced the number of harvester ants the lizards depend on for food. Because of this decline, the Texas horned lizard is now a protected species in Texas, and it is against the law to collect one or keep one as a pet.

Kayla had practiced her opening speech for the class debate every night that week. On the morning of the debate, she read her notes one last time while she waited outside the classroom. "Stop worrying," her friend Omar said. "You know this topic inside out. Nobody in our class has read more about it than you."