Why does Teresa shorten her father’s answers when she translates them?
Read a Literary Passage · ELPAC Grades 11–12 reading. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.
A short story or scene, with questions about characters, events and what words mean in context.
Read the passage. Then answer the questions.
What My Father Said
The loan officer had a habit of tapping her pen against the folder whenever she finished a sentence, and by the third tap Teresa had started to dread it.
“Ask your father,” the woman said, “whether the food truck has been profitable for the past twelve months.” Tap.
Teresa turned to her father and put the question into Spanish. He listened with his hands folded on the table, the way he listened to the news on the radio, and then answered at length. The truck had made money every month except the two when the generator broke, and that was the generator’s fault, not his. He had paid back every dollar he had ever borrowed, including the money from his own brother, which was more than his brother could say.
Teresa turned back to the officer. “He says it has been profitable for ten of the last twelve months. The two exceptions were due to an equipment repair.”
It was true. It was also not what he had said. She had left out the brother, and the pride, and the place where his voice rose a little. She had made him sound like a man who filled out forms.
The officer nodded and wrote something down, and the meeting went on that way for twenty minutes: long answers in Spanish, short answers in English, and Teresa in the middle, trimming.
In the parking lot her father unlocked the truck and did not start it.
“Ten of twelve,” he said in English. “Equipment repair.”
Teresa stared at him. In seventeen years she had never heard him put together an English sentence longer than a price.
“I understand more than I say,” he said, in Spanish now. “You did well. You made me sound like a bank.” He turned the key, and the engine coughed and caught. “Next time, leave in my brother. She would have liked that part.”
The question
Choose the best answer.
Why does Teresa shorten her father’s answers when she translates them?
- She does not know the English words for what he said.
- Her father asked her ahead of time to keep his answers brief.
- She thinks the officer will believe him only if he sounds angry.
- She wants his answers to sound like the brief, factual replies she thinks the officer expects.Correct answer
Why “She wants his answers to sound like the brief, factual replies she thinks the officer expects.” is correct
This is an inference question: the passage never states Teresa's reason, but the evidence points one way. She keeps the facts and cuts the pride, the brother and the raised voice, turning his answer into language suited to a loan file, and the narration says she 'made him sound like a man who filled out forms'. The officer's tapping pen adds to the formal pressure she is responding to.
Why the other answers are wrong
- She does not know the English words for what he said. — Her translation is fluent and accurate; she leaves details out by choice, as 'It was true. It was also not what he had said' makes clear.
- Her father asked her ahead of time to keep his answers brief. — Nothing suggests her father gave her instructions, and his comment afterward shows he would have kept more in.
- She thinks the officer will believe him only if he sounds angry. — She removes the moment when his voice rose, which is the opposite of making him sound angry.
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.
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