Book excerpt: This practice book will prepare students for the Smarter Balanced (SBAC) English Language Arts/Literacy assessments. It will develop all the skills that students need and provide ongoing practice with the types of questions and tasks found on the real assessments. Just like the real SBAC assessments, it includes tasks covering reading, writing, listening, and research. Provides Ongoing Skill Development and Practice - Convenient practice sets allow for ongoing skill development - Flexible format allows practice sets to be completed to suit any schedule - Helps students transition to the more rigorous SBAC assessments - Format allows for review after each set to provide feedback and promote improvement Developed Specifically to Match the Smarter Balanced (SBAC) Assessments - Covers all the Common Core skills assessed on the real SBAC assessments - Includes sets covering reading, writing, listening, and research - Provides practice completing multiple-choice, constructed-response, and technology-enhanced questions - Contains writing tasks for informational essays, opinion pieces, and narratives - More rigorous questions prepare students for the higher difficulty of the new assessments - Strong focus on key Common Core features including close reading, using evidence from text, and analyzing and evaluating texts - Full answer key lists the Common Core skill assessed by each question Key Benefits of this Book - Builds confidence by helping students prepare before taking the real tests - Develops all the English Language Arts skills that students need - Provides experience answering all types of questions and completing all types of tasks - Reduces test anxiety by allowing low-stress practice - More rigorous tasks encourage deeper understanding and more advanced thinking - Detailed answer key allows for student work to be reviewed and improved on