MASSACHUSETTS COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM - PRACTICE TEST - English Language Arts - Grade 10 - Session 1 - Directions for answering questions

Oct 4, 2026

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Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System English Language Arts Grade 10 Practice Test, Session 1, presents 13 questions based on an excerpt and a poem about characters seeking to change their names. The test provides clear directions for reading passages carefully, recording answers in a booklet, darkening answer circles completely, and avoiding marks outside circles. It also explains response writing rules, including using only the provided space for scored written answers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages50

Reading Time2 h 6 min

AccessFree to download

Session 1

Directions

Excerpt from The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

MASSACHUSETTS COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM PRACTICE TEST English Language Arts Grade 10 | Student Name | | --- | | School Name | District Name Grade 10 English Language Arts PRACTICE TEST SESSION 1 This session contains 13 questions. Directions Read each passage and question carefully. Then answer each question as well as you can. You must record all answers in this Practice Test Booklet. For most questions, you will mark your answers by filling in the circles in your Practice Test Booklet. Make sure you darken the circles completely. Do not make any marks outside of the circles. If you need to change an answer, be sure to erase your first answer completely. Some questions will ask you to write a response. Write each response in the space provided. Only responses written within the provided space will be scored. 2 Go On 􀂨 Read the excerpt and the poem about characters who want to change their names. Then answer the questions that follow. In this excerpt, Gogol Ganguli, whose family is from India but who is named after the Russian author Nikolai Gogol, decides to change his name. from The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 1 The idea to change his name had first occurred to him a few months ago. He was sitting in the waiting room of his dentist, flipping through an issue of Reader’s Digest. He’d been turning the pages at random until he came to an article that caused him to stop. The article was called“Second Baptisms.”“Can you identify the following famous people?”was written beneath the headline. A list of names followed and, at the bottom of the page, printed in tiny letters upside down, the famous personalities they corresponded to. The only one he guessed correctly was Robert Zimmerman, Bob Dylan’s real name. He had no idea that Molière had been born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin and that Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein. That Gerald Ford’s name was Leslie Lynch King, Jr., and that Engelbert Humperdinck’s was Arnold George Dorsey. They had all renamed themselves, the article said, adding that it was aright belonging to every American citizen. He read that tens of thousands of Americans had their names changed each year. All it took was a legal petition, the article had said. And suddenly he envisioned “Gogol” added to the list of names,“Nikhil” printed in tiny letters upside down. 2 That night at the dinner table, he brought it up with his parents. It was one thing for Gogol to be the name penned in calligraphy on his high school diploma, and printed below his picture in the yearbook, he’d begun. It was one thing, even, for it to be typed on his applications to five Ivy League colleges, as well as to Stanford and Berkeley. But engraved, four years from now, on a bachelor of arts degree? Written at the top of a résumé? Centered on a business card? It would be the name his parents picked out for him, he assured them, the good name they’d chosen for him when he was five. 3 “What’s done is done,” his father had said. “It will be a hassle. Gogol has, in effect, become your good name.” 4 “It’s too complicated now,” his mother said, agreeing.“You’re too old.” 5 “I’m not,” he persisted. “I don’t get it. Why did you have to give me a pet name in the first place? What’s the point?” 6 “It’s our way, Gogol,” his mother maintained. “It’s what Bengalis do.” 7 “But it’s not even a Bengali name.” 8 He told his parents what he’d learned in Mr. Lawson’s class, about Gogol’s lifelong unhappiness, his mental instability, about how he’d starved himself to death.“Did you know all this stuff about him?” he asked. 9 “You forgot to mention that he was also a genius,” his father said. 10 “I don’t get it. How could you guys name me after someone so strange? No one takes me seriously,” Gogol said. 11 “Who? Who does not take you seriously?” his father wanted to know, lifting his fingers from his plate, looking up at him. 12 “People,” he said, lying to his parents. For his father had a point;

FAQs

How should students record multiple-choice answers in the Practice Test Booklet?

Students mark answers by filling in the circles completely and avoid making any marks outside the circles.

What should students do if they need to change an answer?

Students must erase the first answer completely before marking the new choice.

How are written responses scored in this session?

Only responses written within the provided space will be scored, so students should write in the designated area only.

Oct 4, 2026

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