The East African fable goes like this: A man frees a snake that is trapped between two rocks, and as a reward the snake gives him a charm that will allow him to hear what animals say, but only if the man keeps it a secret. The man betrays his new power by giggling at the things he hears, arousing his wife’s curiosity. He eventually tells her about the charm, and it stops working.

This story, which was included on this year’s New York State third-grade reading test, is easy to read. But a couple of the questions that went along with it on the test were trickier, stumping many third graders and, perhaps, even a few much older readers.

The passage and accompanying questions were publicly released Monday by the New York State Education Department, along with dozens of other reading and math questions from the third- through eighth-grade tests, giving parents a look at the kind of work their children are now expected to do. The school-by-school results from the tests will be announced later this week.

New York’s exams are considered some of the toughest in the country; last year, only 31 percent passed the reading tests and 36 percent passed the math exams.