TELPAS reading practice questions for 8th and 9th grade

The bell over the door had rung twice since six o'clock, and both times Mateo had looked up hoping it was his aunt coming back from the bank. Instead it had been customers: a man who wanted three conchas, and a woman who could not decide between empanadas and nothing at all.

At six-forty, Mateo started wiping down the glass cases. The game at Cárdenas Park started at seven-thirty, and Joaquín had already texted him four times: You coming or what? Tía Rosa had promised he could leave the minute she got back. He flipped the sign on the door from ABIERTO to CERRADO, even though the bakery did not officially close until seven.

He was carrying the last tray to the back when he heard a knock. An old man stood outside the glass, leaning on a cane, one hand cupped against the window to see in. Mateo recognized him. It was Mr. Ybarra, who came in every Saturday morning and always paid in exact change.

Mateo pointed at the sign and shrugged in a way he hoped looked apologetic. Mr. Ybarra nodded slowly, as if he had expected that answer, and turned to go. That was when Mateo noticed the thin plastic hospital bracelet still around his wrist.

Mateo unlocked the door before he had decided to.

"I'm sorry, mijo," Mr. Ybarra said. "They kept me at the hospital since Tuesday. My granddaughter's birthday is tomorrow, and I promised her the pan de polvo she likes."

There were exactly two dozen cookies left in the back. Mateo boxed them carefully and tied the string the way Tía Rosa had taught him, twice around with a bow on top.

When his aunt came in at seven-fifteen, she found him sweeping a floor that was already clean. She looked at the empty cookie tray, then at the sign, then at him.

"You're late for your game," she said.

"A little," he said, and he found that he did not mind.

Every fall, millions of monarch butterflies leave Canada and the northern United States and fly south toward the mountains of central Mexico. For many of them, the route runs straight through Texas. Because the monarchs from the eastern half of North America are all heading for the same small area of Mexico, their paths draw closer together as they travel, like sand pouring through a funnel. Texas sits near the narrow end of that funnel. That is why people in places such as Austin and San Antonio sometimes see dozens of monarchs resting in a single tree in October.

The journey is remarkable because no butterfly making it has ever made it before. A monarch born in early summer usually lives only a few weeks. It mates, lays eggs, and dies, and its offspring continue the cycle. The monarchs that hatch at the end of summer are different. Their bodies put off breeding and store energy instead, and they can live for several months. That is long enough to fly thousands of miles, spend the winter in the cool mountain forests of Mexico, and begin the trip north in the spring.

On the way back, Texas matters again. Many of the returning monarchs lay their eggs in Texas in early spring. They lay them only on milkweed, because milkweed is the only kind of plant monarch caterpillars can eat. If a female cannot find milkweed, she cannot lay her eggs where her caterpillars will survive.

Scientists who measure the area the butterflies cover in their winter forests have reported that the eastern monarch population has dropped sharply since the 1990s. The loss of milkweed is considered one of the main causes, along with the loss of other habitat and changes in weather. As a result, many Texas schools, parks, and families now plant native milkweed and other flowering plants. A garden only a few feet wide can give a traveling monarch a place to feed, and a female a place to lay her eggs.

On January 1, 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared that enslaved people in the Confederate states were free. But a proclamation is only words on paper until someone can enforce it, and Texas was far from most of the fighting. Union troops did not control the state, so enslavement there continued much as before.

The war ended in the spring of 1865. Even then, news and authority traveled slowly to the western edge of the former Confederacy. On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and issued General Order No. 3. It informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were free. The announcement came about two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued.

Freedom did not arrive all at once for everyone. Some enslavers delayed telling the people they held, and the years that followed brought new hardships and injustices. Still, June 19 became a day of celebration. Freed people and their families in Texas gathered every year for what they called Jubilee Day or Juneteenth, with prayer, food, music, and speeches. Some communities raised money to buy land for the gatherings. In Houston, a group of formerly enslaved men bought land in 1872 that became Emancipation Park.

As families moved to other parts of the country, they carried the celebration with them. In 1980, Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth an official state holiday. In 2021, it became a federal holiday, observed across the United States. A day that began with an announcement in one Texas city is now part of the nation's calendar.

From: Mr. Adeyemi To: Robotics Club members and families Subject: Schedule changes for competition week

Hello, team,

Because the gym is being used for the band concert on Tuesday, February 10, our practice that day will move to Room 214 and will end at 5:00 instead of 5:30. Please bring only your laptops. The practice field will stay in the gym storage room until Wednesday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we will practice until 6:00 to make up the lost time. If your student cannot stay late, please reply to this email so I can plan the driving and building teams.

The regional competition is Saturday, February 14, at Lakeview High School. The bus leaves our front entrance at 6:45 a.m. sharp, and it will not wait. Every student must turn in the signed permission form by Thursday. Without it, I cannot let anyone board the bus, even if a parent calls me that morning.

Thank you for all your hard work. I am proud of this team. Mr. Adeyemi

Ana Lucía had played second violin in the Río Vista Middle School mariachi for two years, and she knew every part of every song. She knew the first violin part best of all, because she had spent most of seventh grade hearing it played slightly wrong.

The player who had it wrong was Daniela Fuentes, an eighth grader with a loud laugh and an even louder bow arm. Daniela rushed the fast passages, and in "Cielito Lindo" she always played the high note a little flat. Ana Lucía never said anything. She played her own part carefully and waited.

Now Daniela had moved to Laredo, and Ms. Treviño was holding auditions for first violin.

Ana Lucía practiced the solo from "El Son de la Negra" every night for a week. She practiced until her fingertips ached and her little brother started humming it in the shower. On the morning of the audition, she could play it with her eyes closed.

Then Ms. Treviño handed her a sheet of music she had never seen.

"I already know you can learn a part," the teacher said. "I want to know if you can lead one. Play this the way you would want the rest of the section to play it."

Ana Lucía stared at the page. Her mouth felt dry. For a moment she thought about Daniela, who had never once looked worried, even when she was wrong. Then she lifted her violin, took a breath, and played the first line slowly and deliberately, loud enough to be heard at the back of the room. She missed a note in the third measure and kept going without stopping.

When she finished, Ms. Treviño was writing something on her clipboard.

"You hesitated," the teacher said without looking up. "Then you stopped hesitating. That second part is the one I needed to see."

When people picture life after high school, many of them imagine college classrooms. But for many young people in Texas, the next step is an apprenticeship. An apprentice is a worker who learns a skilled trade on the job, guided by experienced workers, while also taking classes.

Apprenticeships exist in many fields, including electrical work, plumbing, welding, and heating and air-conditioning repair. In most programs, apprentices are paid from the first day. Their wages usually start lower than an experienced worker's and rise as they learn more. This is one of the biggest differences between an apprenticeship and many other kinds of training: instead of paying to learn, the apprentice is paid while learning.

A typical week might include four days on job sites and an evening class. On the job, an apprentice electrician might begin by carrying materials and pulling wire through walls while a licensed electrician checks the work. In class, the same apprentice studies safety rules, electrical codes, and the math needed to plan a circuit. Over time, the apprentice takes on harder tasks with less supervision.

Apprenticeships take time. Many last several years, and the work can be physically demanding. Hot attics in a Texas August are part of the job. Apprentices also need to be reliable. A crew that is counting on someone to show up at 6:30 in the morning cannot wait for a person who arrives late.

Students who are curious about the trades do not have to wait until graduation to explore them. Many Texas high schools offer career and technical education courses in areas like construction and welding, where students can find out whether working with their hands is a good fit.

On a summer afternoon in Houston, the thermometer might read 94°F while the weather report says it "feels like" 108°F. In El Paso on a dry day, 94°F feels much closer to 94°F. The difference comes from water. Not the water you drink, but the water vapor in the air.

The human body cools itself mainly by sweating. Sweat is mostly water. When it evaporates from the skin, it changes from a liquid to a gas, and that change carries heat energy away from the body. This is also why a breeze feels so good on a hot day: moving air helps sweat evaporate faster.

How fast sweat evaporates depends on how much water vapor is already in the air. Humidity is a measure of that water vapor. When the air is dry, as it often is in West Texas, sweat evaporates quickly and the body cools well. When the air is humid, as it often is near the Gulf Coast, the air already holds so much water vapor that sweat evaporates slowly. It drips off or stays on the skin, and much less heat is carried away.

The National Weather Service combines air temperature and humidity into a single number called the heat index. The heat index is an estimate of how hot it feels to the human body in the shade. When the heat index is high, the body has a harder time cooling down, and the risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke goes up.

Knowing the heat index can help people make safer choices. Coaches may move practice to early morning, and outdoor workers may take more breaks in the shade. On the most humid days, drinking water and resting out of the sun matter even more, because the body's usual cooling system is not working as well.

Reza had planned to make the whole slideshow for his history project by himself. By Wednesday night, he had finished only two slides, and it was due Friday. When his partner, Mai, offered to take over the maps and graphs, Reza swallowed his pride and said yes. The next morning the slideshow was finished, and Reza admitted that her graphs were better than his would have been.

The judges stopped at Ifeoma's table last. She had tested which kind of mulch kept garden soil the coolest during a Texas summer. The judges were impressed by how ________ she explained her results. She answered every question clearly and never once looked down at her notes.