Study Guide

MoGEA Writing Subtest
Sample Constructed-Response Assignment

The following materials contain:

Sample Test Directions for the Constructed-Response Assignment

This subtest consists of one constructed-response assignment in which you will be asked to respond to an educational issue described in two passages that contain opposing viewpoints on the issue. You should prepare a response of approximately 400–600 words. You may use the word-count feature in the lower left-corner of the response box to monitor the length of your response. You will not be allowed to type more than 1000 words.

Read the assignment carefully and think about how you will organize your response before you begin to type.

Your response will be evaluated on the following criteria:

  • Appropriateness: The extent to which the response is written in the candidate's own words, addresses the purpose of the assignment, and uses language and style appropriate for the specified audience
  • Focus and Unity: The extent to which the response clearly states, and maintains clear connections to, the main idea or thesis statement, written in the candidate's own words
  • Organization: The extent to which the response is effectively and coherently sequenced from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph
  • Development: The extent to which the response provides relevant, varied, and specific support to elaborate on the main idea or thesis statement, including addressing counterclaims
  • Grammar and Conventions: The extent to which the response is written in the candidate's own words and shows control of grammar, sentence structure, usage, and mechanical conventions (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization)

Be sure to write about the assigned topic. You may not use any reference materials. Your response must be your original work, written in your own words, and not copied or paraphrased from some other work. Remember to review what you have written to ensure that you address all aspects of the assignment and make any changes you think will improve your response. The final version of your response should conform to the conventions of edited American English.

Sample Constructed-Response Assignment

Read the articles below on the effectiveness of letter grades for evaluating student performance; then complete the assignment that follows.

Education Roundtable
Grades: What Are They Good For?

In his 2011 article entitled "The Case Against Grades," veteran educator Alfie Kohn notes a surprising phenomenon. Offering rewards to students—from prizes to grades—seems to actually hinder learning. The prospect of being graded tends to reduce students' interest in what they are learning while encouraging them to pick easier tasks at which they know they will be more likely to receive good marks. Traditional letter grades belong to a behaviorist view of children as objects of technocratic control, claims Kohn, rather than subjects capable of loving learning for its own sake.

Moreover, rather than helping each student develop his or her own intellectual abilities, grades promote unhelpful and ultimately uninformative comparisons between students. This hurts both students who are struggling academically and students who find it easy to get good grades. The former become discouraged, while the latter have little motivation to push themselves harder.

Qualitative assessment—involving regular reports on each individual student focusing on attitude, effort, self-discipline, and organization, as well as areas of academic strength and concrete strategies for improvement—is far more useful than traditional letter grades in understanding how far a child has progressed toward specific learning goals and helping that child move forward. It is also a more humane approach than the current system of grading, which seems to be more designed to diagnose a condition—"You are a C"—rather than point toward ways to improve and enhance student learning.

Miriam Cambero
Chief Executive Officer
The New Schoolhouse
Portland, Oregon

Education Roundtable
Grades: A Critical Feedback Mechanism

A grade does not sum up all there is to know about a child's learning, but it does give useful and important information. Without some external standard of measurement, how are students to assess their own progress? Grades link a student's self-perceived achievement to an objective measure of success in a way that is profoundly helpful, anchoring students' judgment of their own improvement and performance in reality.

The critique of grades is part of a wider assault on traditional, standards-based education. But a turn away from objective standards does no good service to those who are going to have to compete in the twenty-first-century workplace. In a 2012 editorial criticizing the anti-grade movement, commentator Michael Petrilli noted that "democratic decision-making, self-directed studies, internal motivation, and the like are wonderful aspirations. But when it comes to lifting children out of poverty, heavy doses of basic skills, rich content, and clear expectations have been proven time and again to be more effective."

Mastery of content matters, and rubric-based letter grades supply critical objective feedback about student content mastery without the subjectivism, favoritism, and bias that often afflict "qualitative" evaluations. Combined with good teaching of genuinely important and interesting content, traditional letter grades are an important component of high-quality education. Rather than attempting to reinvent the wheel when it comes to assessment, we should be focused on teaching itself—and on our students.

Dr. Henry Washington
Superintendent of Schools
Copper Valley School District
Copper Valley, Arkansas

In an essay written in your own words for an audience of educated adults, present a clear, coherent, and cohesive argument to fully support a claim about the effectiveness of letter grades for evaluating student performance.

Your essay must:

While you should use ideas from the articles, your writing and the development of your argument must be your own.

Sample Strong Response to the Constructed-Response Assignment

At the foundation of the American education system is the premise that assessment's utility outweighs its deficits. Though traditional letter grades never show the total picture of a student's aptitude, they provide certain benchmarks: Has a student learned what he is or she was expected to learn? Is he or she ready to apply to college and enter a profession? American schools need letter grades because they test mastery of content and they are a fair way for students to gauge their level of understanding. Moreover, emphasizing the importance of letter grades can prevent students from trying to enter professions for which they may not be prepared.

No one would argue that letter grades cannot measure a student's degree of mastery over specific content. When educators test whether students can calculate the area under a curve in Calculus, or whether they understand the plot of Light in August, they are looking for specific answers. The extent to which a student knows how to use an integral is measurable at levels that correspond to the traditional A–F grading scale; the same is true of a student's ability to interpret a novel. If a student divides when he or she should subtract, or writes that Lena Grove and Joe Christmas live happily ever after, teachers need letter grades to clearly indicate the level of content knowledge that such performance represent.

This clarity benefits students. If a given student's skills are not adequate, that student needs to know as soon as possible; however, the amount of effort that a student applies to certain courses should be his or her choice. For example, if a student receives consecutive Ds on History exams, likely they will want to improve their grades, but the magnitude of that improvement can only be determined by the individual student. If the student's goal is to receive an A or a B, then he or she will know that there is quite a bit of work to do. Perhaps hiring a tutor is in order. But if that student's goal is simply to pass the class, the improvement may require much less time and effort. Letter grades allow students to know where they stand and how much they need to improve relative to the grade that they seek.

At the same time, some students do not meet their goals; or, they meet their goals at a level that makes them unemployable in their field. This problem is endemic to the legal profession. Thousands of potential lawyers pass the LSAT each year and enter law school. Close to half of would-be lawyers even pass the BAR exam. However, typically only those who graduate at the top of their classes—both as undergraduates and in law school—end up practicing law. Paying closer attention to letter grades could have saved some of those students time and money. Educational institutions shouldn't do away with letter grades; instead, they should emphasize to students how important an indication of professional success letter grades truly are.

Miriam Cambero claims that qualitative assessment is more humane than traditional letter grades because it focuses on several factors such as attitude, effort, self-discipline, and organization. She is certainly right to see that all of those factors should weigh in an assessment; what she neglects to observe however, is that letter grades do in fact account for such factors already. Most teachers account for effort (e.g. participation) and self-discipline (e.g. daily journal entries) in the final letter grade they assign. In this way, letter grades are already humane and qualitative. We already expect letter grades to account for a student's total performance rather than just scores on tests and quizzes.

Letter grades need to remain in place, and we may need to enforce them to a greater degree. Overall, they are clearly the most humane and efficient way for educators to provide concrete feedback to students about their performance, and that kind of clarity is exactly what students need.

Rationale for the Sample Strong Response

Appropriateness: The response is written in a style that is appropriate for the specified audience of educated adults; it is written in formal American English without casual speech or slang. The response is written in the candidate's own words, not borrowed from the stimulus material. It fulfills the purpose of the assignment: take a position, include reasons in addition to those given in the stimulus material, and address counterclaims. The position is taken in paragraph one, arguments are developed in paragraphs two through four, and counterclaims are addressed in paragraph five.

Focus and Unity: The main idea is presented in the opening paragraph: "American schools need letter grades because they test mastery of content and they are a fair way for students to gauge their level of understanding. Moreover, emphasizing the importance of letter grades can prevent students from trying to enter professions for which they may not be prepared." The body paragraphs focus on each of the points contained in the main idea with reference to the position (pro letter grades). Paragraph two argues that letter grades can measure mastery of content, paragraph three argues that they are a way for students to gauge their level of understanding, paragraph four argues that letter grades can indicate readiness for further study or professions, and paragraph five addresses the counterclaim that qualitative assessment is more human that traditional letter grades. The conclusion returns to the main idea. The response does not drift in focus to other topics.

Organization: From sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph, the response is effectively and coherently sequenced. Transitions from sentence to sentence ("However," "For example," and "instead") are clear and purposeful. Transition from paragraph to paragraph ("This clarity benefits students," "At the same time, some students do not meet their goals") are clear and purposeful. The counterclaim in paragraph five is organized in a separate paragraph, but integrated into the organization of the whole response. Each paragraph is organized around an argument from the main idea or a counterclaim.

Development: There is support relevant to each of the arguments. It is varied and specific ("whether students can calculate the area under a curve in Calculus, or whether they understand the plot of Light in August," "If the student's goal is to receive an A or a B, then he or she will know that there is quite a bit of work to do"). It includes arguments in addition to those found in the stimulus ("a fair way for students to gauge their level of understanding and determine how much effort to expend on certain courses" and "letter grades can prevent students from applying to colleges or trying to enter professions for which they may not be prepared"). Counterclaims are addressed in paragraph five, where the writer rebuts the claim that qualitative assessment is more humane than traditional letter grades because it focuses on several factors such as attitude, effort, self-discipline, and organization. The paragraph clearly lays out Cambero's claim and argues against it.

Grammar and Conventions: The response is written in the candidate's own words and shows strong control of grammar and conventions (i.e., there are only a few minor errors, including one agreement error in paragraph three: "For example, if a student receives consecutive Ds on History exams, likely they will want to improve their grades"; and one missing comma in paragraph 5: "what she neglects to observe however, is that letter grades"). Sentence structure is varied and effective ("Perhaps hiring a tutor is in order. But if that student's goal is simply to pass the class, the improvement may require much less time and effort"). Punctuation is used correctly, including the use of a semicolon to connect two independent clauses (paragraph two, paragraph five). While there should be a comma after "observe" (paragraph six), the essay contains very few errors. Usage and word choice are precise and effective ("emphasizing," "magnitude," "unemployable").

Performance Characteristics

The following characteristics guide the scoring of responses to the constructed-response assignment.

Appropriateness The extent to which the response is written in the candidate's own words, addresses the purpose of the assignment, and uses language and style appropriate for the specified audience
Focus and Unity The extent to which the response clearly states, and maintains clear connections to, the main idea or thesis statement, written in the candidate's own words
Organization The extent to which the response is effectively and coherently sequenced from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph
Development The extent to which the response provides relevant, varied, and specific support to elaborate on the main idea or thesis statement, including addressing counterclaims
Grammar and Conventions The extent to which the response is written in the candidate's own words and shows control of grammar, sentence structure, usage, and mechanical conventions (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization)

Scoring Scale

Scores will be assigned to each response to the constructed-response assignment according to the following scoring scale.

Score Point Score Point Description
4 The "4" response demonstrates a strong command of writing skills.
  1. The response is written in the candidate's own words and fully addresses the purpose of the assignment. Language and style are appropriate.
  2. The main idea or thesis statement is clearly expressed and written in the candidate's own words. Connections to the main idea or thesis statement are effectively maintained.
  3. The response is effectively organized. Connections from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph are clear and purposeful.
  4. Support is strong and full. It is relevant, varied, and specific and includes arguments not found in the stimulus material. Counterclaims are effectively addressed.
  5. The response is written in the candidate's own words and there are very few, if any, errors in grammar and mechanics. Usage and word choice are effective and precise. Sentence structure is correct, effective, and varied.
3 The "3" response demonstrates a general command of writing skills.
  1. The response is generally written in the candidate's own words and generally addresses the purpose of the assignment. Language and style are generally appropriate.
  2. The main idea or thesis statement is expressed and generally written in the candidate's own words. Connections to the main idea or thesis statement are generally maintained.
  3. The response is mostly organized. Connections from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph are generally clear.
  4. Support is general. It is generally relevant, may not be varied, and includes at least one argument not found in the stimulus material. There are some specifics. Counterclaims are addressed.
  5. The response is generally written in the candidate's own words and there are minor errors in grammar and mechanics. Usage and word choice may be basic and contain minor errors. Sentence structure may contain minor errors and show only some variation.
2 The "2" response demonstrates a limited command of writing skills.
  1. The response may be only partially written in the candidate's own words and it partially addresses the purpose of the assignment. Language and style may be inappropriate.
  2. The main idea or thesis statement may have to be inferred or may be only partially written in the candidate's own words. Connections to the main idea or thesis statement are only partially maintained.
  3. The response is only partially organized. Connections from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph may be unclear.
  4. Support is limited. It may be only partially relevant and may not be specific. It may use only the arguments found in the stimulus material. The response includes an attempt to address counterclaims.
  5. The response may be only partially written in the candidate's own words and major and minor errors in grammar, mechanics, usage, word choice, and sentence structure are distracting and may interfere with meaning.
1 The "1" response demonstrates a weak command of writing skills.
  1. The response may be almost entirely written in language copied from the stimulus material. It attempts to address the purpose of the assignment. Language and style are inappropriate.
  2. The main idea or thesis statement is not clear or is merely copied from the stimulus material. Connections to the main idea or thesis statement are not maintained.
  3. There is little or no organization in the response. Connections from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph are unclear.
  4. Support is weak. There is little or no relevant development. It uses only the arguments found in the stimulus material. Counterclaims are not addressed.
  5. The response may be almost entirely written in language copied from the stimulus material. Numerous major and minor errors in grammar, mechanics, usage, word choice, and sentence structure impede meaning.
U The response is unrelated to the purpose of the assignment, illegible, primarily in a language other than English, not of sufficient length to score, or merely a repetition of the assignment.
B There is no response to the assignment.