ELPAC Practice

Which sentence uses a linking word that does not fit the relationship between the ideas?

Read a Student Essay · ELPAC Grades 11–12 reading. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.

An essay written as if by a classmate, with numbered sentences. The student finds the sentence containing the error.

Read the essay. Then answer the questions.

The Year I Worked and Studied

  1. Last September I took a job stocking shelves at a hardware store three evenings a week.
  2. My parents worried that the hours would pull my grades down, and for the first two months they were right.
  3. I was finishing homework after ten o'clock and falling asleep in my first-period class.
  4. What changed was not the job but the way I planned around it.
  5. I started writing down every assignment on a paper calendar taped inside my locker door.
  6. Each of the three shifts have a different start time, so I learned to check the calendar before I agreed to anything.
  7. I also began using the forty minutes on the bus to read instead of scrolling.
  8. By December my grades had recovered, and my manager had given me a key to the stock room.
  9. The job taught me something school had not: how to work beside adults who expect me to keep up.
  10. Therefore, I would not tell every student to take an evening job.
  11. The hours cost me the debate team, and I still notice that on Saturdays.
  12. What I would say is that a schedule you write down is worth more than one you carry in your head.
  13. That habit is the part of last year I plan to take with me to college.

The question

Choose the best answer.

Which sentence uses a linking word that does not fit the relationship between the ideas?

  • Sentence 2: “My parents worried that the hours would pull my grades down, and for the first two months they were right.”
  • Sentence 8: “By December my grades had recovered, and my manager had given me a key to the stock room.”
  • Sentence 10: “Therefore, I would not tell every student to take an evening job.”Correct answer
  • Sentence 11: “The hours cost me the debate team, and I still notice that on Saturdays.”

Why “Sentence 10: “Therefore, I would not tell every student to take an evening job.”” is correct

This tests logical connectives, which at this level matter more to a reader than any single grammar rule. Sentence 9 says the job taught the writer something school had not, and sentence 10 then declines to recommend an evening job to everyone, which is a reversal and needs a contrast marker such as 'Even so' rather than the result marker 'Therefore'. Ask the student whether the second idea follows from the first or pushes against it.

Why the other answers are wrong

  • Sentence 2: “My parents worried that the hours would pull my grades down, and for the first two months they were right.” — 'And' correctly joins the parents' worry to the writer's admission that they were right.
  • Sentence 8: “By December my grades had recovered, and my manager had given me a key to the stock room.” — 'And' joins two things that had both happened by December and sits comfortably between them.
  • Sentence 11: “The hours cost me the debate team, and I still notice that on Saturdays.” — 'And' links the cost of the job to the writer's continuing feeling about it, which is an addition rather than a contrast.

Practice more of this

More reading 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.

This is an independent study resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the California Department of Education or the official ELPAC program. All questions here are original practice material written to match the published task formats.