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 Reading, Reviewing and Responding to Texts

Expectation 1.2 The student will construct, examine, and extend meaning of traditional and contemporary works recognized as having significant literary merit.

Indicator 1.2.4 The student will identify and/or explain connections between and among themes and/or styles of two or more texts.

Assessment Limits:

  • Analyzing the similarities or differences in styles (e.g., formal, informal, conversational, scholarly, journalistic, poetic) of two or more texts
  • Analyzing the similarities or differences in themes of two or more texts
  • Analyzing the ways in which different texts illustrate a similar theme

Selected Response Item - Released in 2005

Read the excerpt from "On Safari with the Experts," an article about a safari outfitting camp in Kenya, East Africa. Then answer the following about both "In the Country of Grasses" and "On Safari with the Experts."

Which pair of words best completes the following statement?

While the essay "In the Country of Grasses" is mostly written in a ___ style, the article "On Safari with the Experts" is mostly written in a ___ style.

  1. poetic...creative
  2. formal...scholarly
  3. descriptive...factual
  4. journalistic...conversational
/share/clg/xml/public_release/english/2005_124_eng42.xml

Correct Answer:
C