IREAD Purpose 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A third-grade student writes a story about a rabbit who learns to share. What is the student's most likely purpose for writing this story?
- To inform readers about rabbit behavior in the wild
- To entertain readers while sharing a lesson about sharing (Correct answer)
- To persuade readers to adopt rabbits as pets
- To explain how rabbits find food
Correct answer: To entertain readers while sharing a lesson about sharing
A fiction story with a moral lesson is written to entertain while teaching a value.
Question 2: An author writes 'You should eat more vegetables because they give you energy and keep you healthy.' What is the author's purpose?
- To entertain readers with a recipe story
- To inform readers about the history of vegetables
- To describe what vegetables look like
- To persuade readers to eat more vegetables (Correct answer)
Correct answer: To persuade readers to eat more vegetables
Using 'you should' and giving health reasons shows the author wants to convince readers to change their behavior.
Question 3: A text titled 'How Volcanoes Form' includes labeled diagrams and numbered steps. What is the author's purpose?
- To scare readers about volcanic eruptions
- To tell an exciting adventure story near a volcano
- To inform readers about how volcanoes are created (Correct answer)
- To persuade readers to visit volcanoes
Correct answer: To inform readers about how volcanoes are created
Diagrams and numbered steps are informational text features used to explain a topic clearly.
Question 4: A book review says a story 'made readers laugh on every page.' What does this suggest about the author's purpose?
- The author's purpose was to persuade
- The author's purpose was to inform
- The author's purpose was to entertain (Correct answer)
- The author's purpose was to explain a process
Correct answer: The author's purpose was to entertain
Making readers laugh is a sign that the author's main purpose was to entertain.
Question 5: Which type of writing would MOST LIKELY have the purpose of persuading?
- A science article about how fish breathe
- A fairy tale about a princess and a dragon
- A letter asking the city to add more bike lanes (Correct answer)
- A poem about a sunset at the beach
Correct answer: A letter asking the city to add more bike lanes
A letter requesting a change from city leaders is written to persuade decision-makers to take action.
Question 6: A passage explains that Indiana's state bird is the cardinal and describes where cardinals live. What is the author's purpose?
- To persuade readers to protect cardinals
- To entertain readers with a story about a cardinal
- To inform readers about the cardinal and its habitat (Correct answer)
- To describe the author's pet cardinal
Correct answer: To inform readers about the cardinal and its habitat
Describing a real animal's characteristics and habitat is the purpose of informational writing.
Question 7: An author ends a story with, 'And they all lived happily ever after.' This ending is a clue that the author's purpose was to —
- persuade readers to be kind
- inform readers about a historical event
- entertain readers with a fairy tale (Correct answer)
- explain how to solve a problem
Correct answer: entertain readers with a fairy tale
'Happily ever after' is a classic fairy tale ending, signaling that the purpose was to entertain.
A third-grade student writes a story about a rabbit who learns to share.
What is the student's most likely purpose for writing this story?