Why does Mr. Garcia say the canyon walls are "like a history book"?
Analyze and Evaluate Information in Spoken English · TELPAS Grades 6–7 listening. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.
Reporting category 3: make inferences from what was said, and work out a speaker's purpose, opinion, or what will happen next.
Listen to the lesson.
How a Canyon Forms
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Mr. Garcia: Today we're starting our unit on erosion, and I want to begin with a place right here in Texas: Palo Duro Canyon, in the Texas Panhandle. Palo Duro is one of the largest canyons in the United States. Some people call it the Grand Canyon of Texas.
Mr. Garcia: So how does a canyon this big form? The answer is water and a very long time. A river runs along the bottom of Palo Duro Canyon. Over a very long time, the moving water carried away tiny pieces of rock and soil, a little bit at a time. Wind and rain helped, too. That process of wearing away rock and soil and carrying it somewhere else is called erosion.
Mr. Garcia: If you ever visit, look at the canyon walls. You'll see stripes of different colors: red, orange, yellow, and white. Each stripe is a layer of rock that formed at a different time. The layers at the bottom are the oldest, and the layers near the top are younger. So you could say the walls are like a history book, and the river opened it up for us to read.
Mr. Garcia: Tomorrow we'll go outside, build a hill out of sand and soil, and pour water over it to watch a tiny version of this happen.
The question
Choose the best answer.
Why does Mr. Garcia say the canyon walls are "like a history book"?
- The park has a museum with many old books.
- The walls are flat and smooth like pages.
- The rock layers show, in order, what formed over time.Correct answer
- Visitors over the years have carved their names into the walls.
Why “The rock layers show, in order, what formed over time.” is correct
This asks the student to analyze a comparison. Just before it, Mr. Garcia explains that each colored stripe formed at a different time, with the oldest at the bottom. Like a book read from the start, the layers record what happened in order.
Why the other answers are wrong
- The park has a museum with many old books. — No museum is mentioned; the comparison is about the rock itself.
- The walls are flat and smooth like pages. — The walls are described by their colored layers, not by being flat or smooth.
- Visitors over the years have carved their names into the walls. — Nothing in the lesson mentions writing or carving on the walls.
Practice more of this
More listening practice for Grades 6–7, or see the TELPAS practice test for 6th and 7th 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.