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 1.4.7 The student will determine the sources of error that limit the accuracy or precision of experimental results.

Brief Constructed Response (BCR) Item - Released in 2005

A student reads an advertisement from a fertilizer company. The advertisement claims their fertilizer increases the growth of tomato plants by 25 percent. The student decides to perform an experiment to test this claim. She performs the following procedure.

  1. Choose three similar-sized tomato plants.
  2. Plant each tomato plant in a small pot.
  3. Place all three small pots into one container and place on a window sill.
  4. Add fertilizer mixed with water to Plants 1 and 2.
  5. Add only water to Plant 3.
  6. Record the heights of the three plants after four weeks.

The student's results are shown in the table below.

Analyze the student's experiment to determine if it supports the claims made in the fertilizer company's advertisement. In your response, be sure to include

  • a description of the data needed to support the company's claim
  • an explanation of the results of the student's experiment
  • an evaluation of the student's experiment
  • a description of any changes you would make to the experiment; explain your answer

Write your answer in your Answer Book.

/share/clg/xml/public_release/science/2005_147_bio05.xml

View Scoring Information

Selected Response Item - Released in 2009

Use the technical passage and the drawing below to answer Numbers 45 through 48.

Use the technical passage and drawing to answer the following item.

Which is one reason that the estimates for the bog turtle population may be inaccurate?

  1. Bog turtles are small and can hide well.
  2. There are too many turtles to count accurately.
  3. Bog turtles are mistaken for other types of turtles.
  4. Population data from precolonial times is incomplete.
/share/clg/xml/public_release/science/2009_147_bio45.xml

Correct Answer:
C