At the community center, volunteers are ______ boxes of food to the people waiting in line.

Vocabulary and Grammar in Context · ELPAC Grades 6–8 reading. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.

Extra practice, not a separate task on the real test: a sentence with one word missing, testing the vocabulary and grammar the passages assume.

Look at the picture. Then read the sentence about it.

Read image description

A line of people waits outside the open door of a community center. Just inside the door is a folding table stacked with cardboard boxes. A volunteer behind the table is handing a box to the man at the front of the line. Two more volunteers lift boxes from a pallet and set them on the table.

The question

Look at the picture. Choose the word that best completes the sentence about it.

At the community center, volunteers are ______ boxes of food to the people waiting in line.

• AdistributingCorrect answer
• Bdisturbing
• Cdiscovering

Why “distributing” is correct

This tests an academic verb that students meet in social studies and science but often confuse with similar-looking words. "Distributing" means handing things out to a number of people, which is exactly what the volunteer behind the table is doing. Encourage the student to read each choice back into the sentence and ask whether it describes the picture.

Why the other answers are wrong

• disturbing — "Disturbing" means bothering or interrupting someone, which is the opposite of helping the people in line.
• discovering — "Discovering" means finding something for the first time; the volunteers already have the boxes stacked on the table.

Practice more of this

More reading practice for Grades 6–8, or see the ELPAC practice test for grades 6–8. For other grades, see free ELPAC practice tests by grade.