TELPAS Practice

What do the last four lines of the poem suggest about the speaker?

Analyze and Evaluate Information and Ideas · TELPAS Grades 10–12 reading. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.

Reporting category 3: make inferences, draw conclusions, and think about why the author wrote a text and how it is built.

Read the poem. Then answer the questions.

Two Languages

At school I speak in careful steps,

each word a stone I test

before I put my weight on it,

in case it slips or gives.

At home the words run out ahead of me,

loud and quick, a river

that knows where it is going

before I have even started.

My teacher says my English

is coming along nicely.

My grandmother says my Spanish

is starting to sound like English.

Some nights I lie awake

between my two languages,

a bridge with traffic going both ways,

holding, and holding.

The question

Choose the best answer.

What do the last four lines of the poem suggest about the speaker?

  • The speaker feels pulled between two languages but keeps them connected.Correct answer
  • The speaker has decided to stop speaking Spanish at home with family.
  • The speaker cannot sleep at night because of noise from a nearby bridge.
  • The speaker's teacher and grandmother do not like each other at all.

Why “The speaker feels pulled between two languages but keeps them connected.” is correct

This asks for an interpretation of an image. A bridge sits between two sides and carries traffic in both directions; the speaker is that bridge between English and Spanish. "Lie awake" shows strain, and "holding, and holding" shows the speaker keeps going. Students need to read the image, not the literal words.

Why the other answers are wrong

  • The speaker has decided to stop speaking Spanish at home with family. — Nothing suggests giving up a language; the bridge carries traffic both ways.
  • The speaker cannot sleep at night because of noise from a nearby bridge. — The bridge and traffic are part of a comparison, not real noise.
  • The speaker's teacher and grandmother do not like each other at all. — They are mentioned in the lines before, but the poem never says they disagree with each other.

Practice more of this

More reading practice for Grades 10–12, or see the TELPAS practice test for 10th–12th grade.

This is an independent study resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Texas Education Agency or the official TELPAS program. All questions here are original practice material written to match the published test design.