MCAS 2002, 4th Grade English (ELA), Questions 17 to 20

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Read this poem about December. Use information from the poem to answer the questions that follow.

    December days are short, and so
    there’s not much time to play,
    the fun has hardly started
    when the sun has gone away.

⁵ Today, right after breakfast,
    while the sky was growing light,
    I ran to meet my friends outside
    and have a snowball fight.

    We began to build a fortress
¹⁰ then raced our wooden sleds,
    we belly-whopped and spun like tops
    and tumbled on our heads.

    We stopped for lunch, then once again
    threw snowballs for a while,
¹⁵ we made a giant snowman
    with a really silly smile.

    We fed some hungry pigeons
    and went sliding on the ice,
    my mother brought some cake for us,
²⁰ a dog ate half my slice.

    We made another snowman
    and we finished off our fort,
    then suddenly, the sun went down...
    December days are short.

–Jack Prelutsky

TEXT COPYRIGHT © 1984 BY JACK PRELUTSKY.
ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT © 1984 BY JEANNE TITHERINGTON
Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Question #17

The reader can tell from the poem that the weather is cold because

A. the children stopped for lunch.

B. the mother brought some cake.

C. the children slid on the ice.

D. there is not much time to play.

According to the poem, the MAIN problem with playing outside in December is that

A. the days are long.

B. there is too much snow on the ground.

C. there are not enough hours of daylight.

D. the sun melts the ice.

The rhyming pattern in each stanza is

A. first and third lines rhyme.

B. second and third lines rhyme.

C. second and fourth lines rhyme.

D. third and fourth lines rhyme.

Which word shows that something happened in the PAST?

A. ate

B. are

C. meet

D. will