School Improvement in Maryland

Sample Assessments: Each sample assessment item gives an idea of how an assessment item on the High School Assessment (HSA) might be presented. The items appropriately measure the content of the Core Learning Goals and are formatted similarly to those appearing on the HSA.

Goal 3 Controlling Language

Expectation 3.1 The student will demonstrate understanding of the nature and structure of language, including grammar concepts and skills, to strengthen control of oral and written language.

Indicator 3.1.3 The student will determine grammatical classification of words by using meaning, position, form, and function.

Assessment Limits:

  • Using the position and form to determine the function or classification of words and phrases
    • subjects and objects: noun, pronoun, gerund, infinitive, appositive, simple, compound
    • predicates: verb, verb phrase, simple, compound
    • modifiers: adjective (including pronouns used as adjectives), adverb, prepositional phrase, participle, infinitive, article
    • conjunctions: coordinating, subordinating, correlative, and conjunctive adverbs

Selected Response Item - Released in 2003

"Checkouts" is the story of a girl who moves to a new town. To keep from feeling lonely, she offers to do the family's grocery shopping. At the store, she sees a bag boy and believes she has fallen in love with him. Coincidentally, he notices her, too, but both the boy and the girl fail to initiate any meaningful conversation.

Read this sentence from the story.

But it is difficult work, suffering, and in its own way a kind of art, and finally she didn't have the energy for it anymore, so she emerged from the beautiful house and fell in love with a bag boy at the supermarket.

In this sentence, both underlined pronouns (it) refer to

  1. work
  2. suffering
  3. art
  4. energy
/share/clg/xml/sample_assessment/english/2003_313_eng47.xml

Correct Answer:
B

Selected Response Item - Released in 2002

Read the sentence below.

Equipped with all the proper tools, the student constructed impressive scenery for the play.

In this sentence, the word equipped modifies

  1. tools
  2. student
  3. scenery
  4. play
/share/clg/xml/sample_assessment/english/2002_313_eng14.xml

Correct Answer:
B

Selected Response Item - Released in 2002

Read this sentence from the story, “Tina.”

She talks as if these are medals and I know I can't tell her they aren't medals; a 16-year-old needing attention and love won't listen to a lecture, or even a sentence that contradicts the only things that in her mind are recognizable.

In the sentence above, which of these is not a verb?

  1. talks
  2. know
  3. love
  4. contradicts
/share/clg/xml/sample_assessment/english/2002_313_eng19.xml

Correct Answer:
C

Selected Response Item - Released in 2003

Read this sentence from the essay, “Starving Pea Pickers.”

On the seat beside her was a box full of exposed film, ready to be mailed back to Washington, D.C.

Which word is the subject of this sentence?

  1. seat
  2. her
  3. box
  4. Washington, D.C.
/share/clg/xml/sample_assessment/english/2003_313_eng08.xml

Correct Answer:
C

Selected Response Item - Released in 2003

Read lines 1 through 4 from the poem, “Dust and Rain.”

On Sunday,
winds came,
bringing a red dust
like prairie fire,

Which line is not a modifying phrase?

  1. line 1
  2. line 2
  3. line 3
  4. line 4
/share/clg/xml/sample_assessment/english/2003_313_eng26.xml

Correct Answer:
B
Resources for 3.1.3:
Public Release Items | SAMPLE ASSESSMENT ITEMS |