Grade 3 Reading & Writing · Smarter Balanced

Take it yourself. See what you think.

This is the English Language Arts test your third grader takes every spring. The passages. The questions. The writing task. All of it.

You have 60 minutes. The clock starts when you do.

No skipping ahead. One question at a time.

15

Questions

60

Minutes

3rd

Grade level

60:00

1 of 15

Section 4 — Writing Task

One more thing. This part is timed too.

Opinion Writing In "The Garden Door," Maya visits a place that holds special memories for Mr. Reyes. Think about what makes a place feel special or important to someone.

Write an opinion paragraph that states your opinion about what makes a place feel special. Use at least one reason or example to support your opinion. Your paragraph should have at least three complete sentences.

This task is separately graded by a teacher. A third grader must write this too — by hand, at a computer, after completing the 15 questions above.

Time's up

Here's how you did.

0

Correct

0

Wrong

0

Skipped

One more thing

The writing task is graded separately — by a rubric that scores organization, evidence, and language conventions. The score determines whether your child is reading and writing "at grade level."

For every child who is not wired for this kind of abstract inference and formal writing at age 8 or 9, this test does not measure what they know. It measures how far they are from what the system decided everyone should know, on this schedule, by this age.

That gap becomes their identity. It follows them.

Your child will take a version of this test every year through grade 8, and again in grade 10 — where the score determines whether they can graduate.