Constructed Response Examples

1. Constructed Response Examples

2. Example1 (A short-answer item for eighth-graders:) According to Robert’s Rules of Order, a _______________ motion can be _______________ effectively delayed if someone introduces a motion to refer the _______________ to a _______________. This item violates the fourth item-writing guideline for short-answer items because it’s an incomplete statement with more than two blanks. This sort of Swiss-cheese item is certain to confuse test-takers.

3. Example 2 (An essay item for eleventh-graders:) Based on the 10-week unit of study on the three branches of government that our class has just concluded, please indicate whether you believe the legislative, executive, or judicial branch is most powerful. Defend your choice as persuasively as you can using relevant arguments and evidence. Please do so, using the paper supplied or employing one of the computers in our classroom, in 500 words or less. Your response to this item will count for one-third of this test’s total points, and you should spend no more than a half-hour in composing your response. This essay item, in my estimate, looks pretty solid. I find no major flaws in the item, especially because it appears to be based on a recently concluded unit of study.

4. Example 3 (A short-answer item for sixth-graders:) _______________ and _______________ are the two least frequently used parts of speech in the English language. Here we see a failure to follow the third of the item-writing guidelines for short-answer items, namely, the guideline indicating the blanks for incomplete statements should be placed near the end of the statement. This item commences with a pair of blanks. It would require little effort to revise this weak item so that its blanks were at the end of the statement.

5. Example 4 (A short-answer item for third-graders:) In the story you read yesterday about the “Tardy Turtle,” we learned that this kind of turtle usually lives for __________ years. Because this short-answer item was written for young students (third graders), it should have taken the form of a direct question. It would be easy to morph this item into a direct question. (Measurement morphing can, at times, be downright exhilarating.)

6. Example 5 (An essay item for ninth-graders:) Please choose one of the three types of map projections we have studied in this geography class, then describe the distinctive features of that map-projection and, having done so, evaluate the usefulness of such maps to everyday citizens. Please devote no more than 20 minutes to this item. If you prefer to respond to one of the two following 20-minute questions regarding the role of maps in geographic studies, you may omit this item. The fourth item-writing guideline for essay items indicated that optional items not be used because such an approach would reduce the comparability of students’ essays. That, to me, is the chief shortcoming of this geography item. (I used to teach ninth-graders about geography and we had to study homolographic maps. The occasion to use that tidbit of geographic knowledge, at least for me, hasn’t come up—yet.)

7. Example 6 (An essay item for twelfth-graders:) Facing a quandary, being enervated by an excessive expenditure of energy, and making an irrevocable determination are all situations faced by the world’s leaders. “Crossing the Rubicon” is a metaphor for one of the foregoing three situations. In less than 200 words, please explain which of these situations is best represented by the metaphor, whose crossing of the Rubicon is involved, and how that event actually worked out. This item appears to flop on several courts. First off, it violates the item-writing guideline that the students’ task should be explicitly described. The item also seems to sin against the initial two general item-writing commandments presented in Chapter 6. There’s way too much ambiguity and opacity in this item. (Don’t you just love it when you can incorporate opacity in a sentence?) This item also violates the commandment to avoid complex syntax in an item. A student would need to read the item several times and, only if quite lucky, could then figure out what sort of response is being sought. This is, clearly, a loser item.

8. Example 7 (A short-answer item for fourth-graders:) One of America’s most important documents, a document that led to the founding of this nation, was ___ ___________ __ ____________. The final item-writing guideline for short-answer items urges item-writers to make certain all of an item’s blanks are equal in length. Because this item’s blanks aren’t equal, cunning fourth-graders (And most of them are.) will figure out that what’s being sought for an answer is The Declaration of Independence.

9. Example 8 (A short-answer item for a second-grader:) These letters are all vowels: A, O, U, E. What is another vowel? _____ This item looks okay to me. I don’t have the foggiest notion whether the content of the item is developmentally appropriate or curricularly appropriate for second-graders. I hope so. The item is intended to elicit an I as an answer. I think you’d have to agree that, because of the brevity of the item’s intended answer, it is almost a “shortest-answer item.” If some precocious second-grader tossed in a Y or W, those two “occasional” vowels, I’d give such a kid full credit.

10. Example 9 (An essay item for tenth-graders:) In the blank (half-page) space provided below, please evaluate the rubric that we have been using for the past two months to judge the quality of students’ persuasive essays. More specifically, consider each of the rubric’s five evaluative criteria, then indicate which of those criteria is least important in appraising the quality of a persuasive essay. Briefly defend your choice of this criterion. You should spend no more than 15 minutes on your response to this item. Your response to this item will be weighted twice as heavily as your response to other items in the test. I don’t see any serious flaws in this item. Perhaps you do. I think that, were I a tenth-grader, I’d know how to respond to an item such as this.

11. Example 10 (A short-answer item for eighth-graders:) What is the most blatant manifestation of a teenager’s daily intake of 60 fat grams and 4,000 calories? _____________________ I believe this item has a major flaw, and it stems from the item’s use of “blatant manifestation.” The inclusion of this unnecessarily opaque phrase violates the fifth of Chapter 6’s general item-writing commandments, namely, avoiding the use of vocabulary terms more advanced than required. The item also has only one blank for a response space, probably not enough space for some test-takers. However, many eighth-grade students simply won’t know what a “blatant manifestation” really is. There are oodles of more understandable phrases that could be substituted. For example, “significant outcome” would do a better communication job.

12. Example 11 (The following item was written for 5th graders.) Before the United States became an independent nation, most of the men and women who had come to settle were from which European nation or nations? _______, ______, ______ This item really doesn’t violate any of the guidelines listed on page 151 but it’s a weak item because it violated one of the general purpose errors in Chapter 6. The item presents an ambiguous task. “no violation but cruddy none-the-less.

13. Example 12 (This item is for high school students.) You have just viewed a videotape containing 3 widely seen television commercials. What is the one classic propaganda technique present in all 3 commercials? _________ This item violates no guidelines and isn’t really all that shabby.

14. Example 13 (This item is for 8th grade students.) If a friend has asked you to engage in the use of alcohol or ______, and you wish to decline, you should _______ and ___________ without delay. This item violates a pair of guidelines. It uses too many blanks and the blanks are of unequal length

15. Example 14 (This item was written for 11th grade English students.) In the space provided below and on the attached sheet, please complete a brief 200-word editorial in favor of the school district’s expanded after-school tutorial program. The intended audience for your position statement consists of those people who read the local newspaper’s editorial page. Because you have the entire class period to prepare your response, please use the scratch paper provided for a first draft, then revise your draft editorial before copying it on these sheets. The editorial will contribute 40% to your 6-week’s Persuasive Writing grade. Not a bad prompt.

16. Example 15 (This item was written for 6th graders.) Thinking back over the mathematics lesson and homework assignments you had during the past 12 weeks, what conclusion can you draw? Take no more than one page for you’re your response. Ambiguity about the task the wants students to do. Guideline 2 violation. Guideline 3 violation.

17. Example 16 • http://wps.ablongman.com/ab_popham_classassess_5/64/16437/4207944.cw/index.html