(1) The strange tabby cat’s disheveled appearance created a sensation with the neighborhood cats. (2) “She must be one tough feline,” whispered the cats amongst themselves. (3) The tabby cat wandered the streets alone with her slender build. (4) Every cat was amazed by her effortless walks across the top of the fences as if it were a high-wire act performer. (5) Even the toughest alley cats conceded that the tabby cat had a remarkable air about her. (6) Then, one day, the tabby cat disappeared and in her stead appeared a new cat with a sleek, striped coat. (7) The cat sauntered around the neighborhood as if she knew where everything was and how everything worked. (8) All the other cats eyed her suspiciously. (9) “How does this cat know the neighborhood so well? We’ve never seen her before,” discussed the cats small and large. (10) After weeks of constant observation, they came to a surprising conclusion—it was the tabby cat! (11) She had the same air and same qualities; however, none of them had the nerve to prove it. (12) After all, she was still the tabby cat.

Read the excerpt from "mother tongue." those tests were constructed around items like fill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such as “even though tom was mary thought he was ” and the correct answer always seemed to be the most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, “even though tom was foolish, mary thought he was ridiculous.” well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what tom could have been and what mary might have thought of him. so i never did well on tests like that. how does tan build a central idea of her story in the excerpt? tan discusses the types of questions on achievement tests to support the idea that the tests limit students’ ability to write well. tan explains a question on a language achievement test to support the idea that the tests should include more interesting content. tan gives an example of her experience with achievement tests to support the idea that they are not always accurate measures of language ability. tan considers how her mother might answer a question on a test to support the idea that nonstandard english limits a person’s ability to communicate.