TELPAS Practice

What does the last stanza show about the speaker?

Analyze and Evaluate Information and Ideas · TELPAS Grades 8–9 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.

Abuela's Garden

My grandmother talks to her tomatoes in Spanish, softly, the way you would talk to a baby who is almost asleep.

She has never owned a book about gardens. Her lessons are in her hands: press the soil down, but not too hard, leave the roots room to breathe.

In July the San Antonio sun is a heavy hand on the back of my neck, and I want to go inside. She only pulls her hat lower.

When I complain that the seeds are slow, she laughs and says, Mija, the best things in this garden are the ones that make you wait.

Now it is August. I kneel beside her in the dirt, and without thinking, I tell the tomatoes good morning.

The question

Choose the best answer.

What does the last stanza show about the speaker?

  • She wants to go back inside.
  • She is tired of waiting for the seeds.
  • She has started to garden like her grandmother.Correct answer
  • She is learning to speak Spanish with her grandmother.

Why “She has started to garden like her grandmother.” is correct

This question asks about a change in the speaker. In stanza 1 only the grandmother talks to the tomatoes. In the last stanza the speaker does it "without thinking." The repeated action shows she has taken on her grandmother's habits.

Why the other answers are wrong

  • She wants to go back inside. — That was her feeling in July, in stanza 3.
  • She is tired of waiting for the seeds. — She complained in stanza 4, but by August she kneels in the dirt beside her grandmother.
  • She is learning to speak Spanish with her grandmother. — The poem does not say what language she uses with the tomatoes.

Practice more of this

More reading practice for Grades 8–9, or see the TELPAS practice test for 8th and 9th 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.