MCAS ELA Grade 4 cheat sheet

English Language Arts - Grade 4 MCAS Reference

• Reading comprehension questions on MCAS Grade 4 ask for answers supported by the text; a correct choice must be traceable to specific words, sentences, or paragraphs, not to prior knowledge alone.

• Main idea vs. theme: main idea states what a passage is mostly about (often one sentence), while theme is the underlying message or lesson about life that a story develops through events and character change.

• Text structure signal words: cause/effect (because, as a result, so), compare/contrast (both, unlike, however), sequence (first, next, finally), problem/solution (the trouble was, they decided to).

• Summarizing rule: a good summary of a fiction passage names the characters, the central problem, the key events in order, and the resolution, and leaves out minor details and personal opinion.

• Figurative language identification: simile uses like or as; metaphor states one thing is another; personification gives human traits to nonhuman things; idiom's meaning cannot be figured out from the literal words.

• Point of view: first person uses I, me, we; third person uses he, she, they. A narrator who is a character in the story speaks in first person and knows only what that character knows.

• Context clues for unknown words: definition clue (the word is explained right after), example clue (examples follow, often after such as), contrast clue (an antonym appears after but or unlike), and inference from surrounding sentences.

• Writing standards tested: opinion pieces state a claim with reasons and evidence; informative pieces use facts grouped by topic with linking words; narrative pieces establish a situation, use dialogue and description, and show events in order.

• Language conventions: use commas in a series, after introductory phrases, and in compound sentences before and/but/or; use quotation marks around exact spoken words with correct end punctuation inside the closing mark.