What is the main point of Elena's presentation?
Listen to an Oral Presentation · ELPAC Grades 11–12 listening. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.
A presentation on an academic topic, followed by three or four questions.
Listen to Elena give her presentation to the class. Then answer the questions.
Why Our School Moved First Period
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Show transcript
Good afternoon. I am Elena, and I looked at what happened when our district moved the high school start time from seven forty to eight thirty.
The research behind the change is about biology, not discipline. During adolescence, the body's sleep timing shifts later by about two hours, so a teenager told to fall asleep at nine is being asked to sleep before the body is ready.
Two years after the change, our district reported that first period absences fell by nearly a third, and the number of students arriving late dropped as well.
I want to be careful here. Those are attendance numbers, not test scores, and the district changed two other things in the same year. Whether grades improved because of the start time is a question nobody has answered yet.
So the clearest result is also the least dramatic one. More students are in the room when the day begins.
The question
Choose the best answer.
What is the main point of Elena's presentation?
- Teenagers should go to bed earlier than they currently do.
- The later start time improved attendance, though its effect on grades is not established.Correct answer
- The district should move the start time later still.
- Test scores rose after the district changed the start time.
Why “The later start time improved attendance, though its effect on grades is not established.” is correct
This is a main-idea question on a presentation that deliberately limits its own claim. Elena reports a real improvement in attendance, withholds any conclusion about grades, and closes on the one finding she is prepared to defend, that more students are in the room when the day begins. Any option that goes further than the speaker went is wrong, however reasonable it sounds.
Why the other answers are wrong
- Teenagers should go to bed earlier than they currently do. — The biology she describes says a teenager cannot easily fall asleep earlier, which is the reverse of this advice.
- The district should move the start time later still. — She makes no recommendation about further change; she reports what followed one change.
- Test scores rose after the district changed the start time. — She states explicitly that attendance figures are not test scores.
Practice more of this
More listening practice for Grades 11–12, or see the ELPAC practice test for grades 11–12. For other grades, see free ELPAC practice tests by grade.
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