Sample TSEDC Passage and Questions
| Passage: |
| Chris decided to have a party on Saturday. |
| He invited his friends Harry and Bill from out of town. |
| Unfortunately, Bill couldn’t come on Saturday. |
| Chris moved the party to Sunday. |
| There was a heavy snowstorm the day of the party. |
| The roads were icy. |
| On his way to the party, a truck began to pass Harry’s car. |
| The car and the truck began to swerve. |
| The truck hit the car.2/The car was hit by the truck.3 |
| Harry and the truck driver got out of their vehicles and began arguing. |
| Suddenly, the arguing stopped. |
| Harry was shaking the truck driver.1/Harry was shaking.2 |
| A bystander called 911. |
| Questions: |
| 1. Explicit question, semantically constrained sentence |
| When was the party? |
| a. Thursday |
| b. Friday |
| c. Saturday |
| d. Sunday |
| 2. Implicit question, semantically constrained sentence |
| Why did Chris move the day of the party? |
| a. Bill couldn’t come on Saturday |
| b. Harry couldn’t come on Saturday |
| c. There was a heavy snowstorm on Saturday |
| d. There was a heavy snowstorm on Sunday |
| 3. Explicit question, semantically reversible sentence |
| What happened after the truck began to pass Harry’s car? |
| a. Only the truck swerved |
| b. Only the car swerved |
| c. The car hit the truck |
| d. The truck hit the car |
| 4. Implicit question, semantically reversible sentence |
| When calling 911, would the bystander ask for? |
| a. Animal control to help Harry |
| b. An ambulance to help the truck driver |
| c. Animal control to help the truck driver |
| d. An ambulance to help Harry |
2
included in syntactically simple version of passage
3
included in syntactically complex version of passage