Why does the author tell the reader that many insects eat crops?
Analyze and Evaluate Information and Ideas · TELPAS Grade 3 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 passage. Then answer the questions.
The Bats Under the Bridge
In Austin, the Congress Avenue Bridge crosses Lady Bird Lake. Under the bridge lives a huge colony of bats. A colony is a big group of animals that live together. In summer, more than one million bats may live there.
These bats are called Mexican free-tailed bats. During the day, they sleep in narrow cracks under the bridge. When the sun goes down, they fly out to hunt. So many bats come out at once that they look like a dark cloud moving across the sky.
The bats eat insects, such as moths. In one night, the colony can eat thousands of pounds of bugs. That helps farmers, because many of those insects eat crops.
On summer evenings, crowds of people gather by the lake to watch the bats fly out. In the fall, the bats fly south to Mexico for the winter.
The question
Choose the best answer.
Why does the author tell the reader that many insects eat crops?
- To explain how farmers grow crops
- To show that insects are dangerous to bats
- To describe what moths look like
- To show one way the bats help peopleCorrect answer
Why “To show one way the bats help people” is correct
This tests understanding why an author includes a detail. Paragraph 3 says the bats eat thousands of pounds of insects and that “that helps farmers, because many of those insects eat crops.” The detail about crops explains why eating so many insects is useful to people.
Why the other answers are wrong
- To explain how farmers grow crops — The passage never explains how crops are grown.
- To show that insects are dangerous to bats — The bats eat the insects; nothing says insects hurt bats.
- To describe what moths look like — Moths are named, but the passage does not describe them.
Practice more of this
More reading practice for Grade 3, or see the TELPAS practice test for 3rd 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.