School Improvement in Maryland

Public Release Item: Public Release items have appeared on HSA forms and then are released for public viewing and use. Releasing items is one step to ensuring that schools, districts, and other stakeholders understand how the core learning goals are assessed on the HSA.

Goal 1 Skills And Processes

Expectation 1.4 The student will demonstrate that data analysis is a vital aspect of the process of scientific inquiry and communication.

Indicator 1.4.6 The student will describe trends revealed by data.

Selected Response Item - Released in 2004

The graph below shows the relationship between annual rainfall and plant tissue growth rates in an ecosystem.

Which of these statements describes the trend shown by the data in the graph?

  1. As rainfall increased, the amount of plant material decreased.
  2. The amount of rainfall decreased as the amount of plant material increased.
  3. As rainfall increased, the amount of plant material increased.
  4. Rainfall had no effect on the amount of plant material.
/share/clg/xml/public_release/science/2004_146_bio03.xml

Correct Answer:
C

Selected Response Item - Released in 2003

Scientists wanted to study the effect of water temperature on the swimming speed of goldfish. They set up an experiment in which they raised populations of goldfish in two different aquariums. Population 1 was raised at 5°C. Population 2 was raised at 25°C. All other variables were constant in both aquariums. The results of this experiment are shown in the graph below.

According to the graph, as the water temperature increases from 5°C to 25°C, the average speed of the goldfish in Population 1

  1. increases
  2. decreases
  3. first increases, then decreases
  4. first decreases, then increases
/share/clg/xml/public_release/science/2003_146_bio21.xml

Correct Answer:
C