Reading informational texts on the NC English II EOC: complete overview - North Carolina

Reading informational texts is the largest category on the NC English II EOC, weighted at about 42 to 46 percent of the test per the NCDPI specifications. The reading-focused exam presents previously unseen nonfiction (articles, essays, speeches, and arguments, sometimes paired) and asks you to analyze them and support your answers with evidence. This site breaks the skill into six dot points. This overview maps the six skills, how they connect, and how to study them.

The six informational-reading skills

Each skill is a way of reading an unseen informational passage closely.

• Central ideas. Stating the main point as a full sentence, telling it apart from details, and summarizing objectively. See central ideas in informational texts.
• Text structure and organization. Recognizing patterns (cause and effect, compare and contrast, problem and solution) and why an author chose one. See text structure and organization.
• Author's purpose and perspective. Telling apart informing, persuading, and describing, and reading the author's stance from word choice. See author's purpose and perspective.
• Text evidence and inference. Drawing a supported inference and citing the strongest line, including in two-part items. See text evidence and inference.
• Comparing paired texts. Synthesizing across two passages on one topic, weighing how they relate. See comparing paired texts.
• Analyzing graphics and text features. Reading charts and features and integrating them with the prose. See analyzing graphics and text features.

The thread through every skill: evidence and integration

Two habits run through all six skills. The first is evidence: the NC standards begin with reading closely and citing textual evidence, and the two-part items and constructed responses build directly on that habit. A central idea, an inference, a comparison, all must be tied to specific text. The second is integration: the EOC rewards combining information, across a passage (tracing how a central idea develops), across two passages (synthesizing a pair), and across formats (reading a graphic with the prose). Central idea connects to structure (the organization carries the point), purpose connects to word choice (the stance shows in the language), and evidence connects everything. Reading for evidence and integration ties the module together.

How the informational skills are tested

• Multiple choice: the best statement of a central idea, the text structure, the author's purpose, how two passages relate.
• Technology-enhanced items: select supporting sentences, sort statements by passage, match features to functions, highlight evidence.
• Constructed response: state a reading (central idea, comparison, evaluation) and support it with evidence from the passage, for 2 points.

How to study reading informational texts

1. Read a lot of nonfiction (articles, essays, speeches, arguments) on previously unseen topics.
2. State the central idea of each as a full sentence, and name its structure and the author's purpose.
3. Find the line. For any reading, locate the evidence; the two-part items make that line worth a point.
4. Compare pairs by summarizing each text in a sentence, then stating how the two relate.
5. Read graphics carefully, checking the title, axes, units, and key before drawing a conclusion, and integrate them with the prose.

For the official exam materials

NCDPI publishes the test specifications, released forms, and the NC Standard Course of Study for English Language Arts. See the EOC English II test specifications and the English Language Arts Standard Course of Study. Always study from the current released materials, because the blueprint, item types, and achievement levels are set by NCDPI.