Dive Deeper Into Your Performance-Based Assessment Report
Better understand your scores using the tools below.
Students who are emerging do not meet the minimum requirements to merit a basic level of mastery.
Students at the developing level should be able to demonstrate that they at least read the documents, made a reasonable attempt at an analysis of the details, and are able to communicate in a manner that is understandable to the reader. Students should also show some judgment about the quality of the evidence.
Students at the developing level should also know the difference between correlation and causality. They should be able to read and interpret a bar graph, but not necessarily a scatter plot or comprehend a regression analysis. Tables may be out of reach for basic students as well.
Students at the proficient level should be able to extract the major relevant pieces of evidence provided in the documents and provide a cohesive argument and analysis of the task. Proficient students should be able to distinguish the quality of the evidence in these documents and express the appropriate level of conviction in their conclusion given the provided evidence. Additionally, students should be able to suggest additional research and/or consider the counterarguments.
Proficient students have the ability to correctly identify logical fallacies, accurately interpret quantitative evidence, and distinguish the validity of evidence and its purpose. They should have the ability to determine the truth and validity of an argument. Finally, students should know when a graph or table is applicable to an argument.
Students at the accomplished level of mastery should be able to analyze the information provided in the documents, extract relevant pieces of evidence, and make correct inferences about this information. Accomplished students should be able to identify bias, evaluate the credibility of the sources, and craft an original and independent argument. When appropriate, students will identify the need for additional research or further investigation. They will refute some but not all of the counterarguments within the documents and use this information to advance their argument. Accomplished students also have the ability to correctly identify logical fallacies, accurately interpret and analyze qualitative and quantitative evidence (e.g., graphs and charts), and incorporate this information into their argument. Students will be able to correctly identify false claims and other sources of invalid information and integrate this information in their responses.
Student responses are presented in a cohesive and organized fashion. There may be infrequent or minor errors in writing fluency and mechanics, but they will not detract from the reader’s comprehensionof the text.
Students at the advanced level demonstrate consistency, completeness, and show a command of the English language in their response. They have a level of sophistication that is not seen in the proficient or basic levels. Advanced students create and synthesize the provided evidence, are comfortable with ambiguity, are able to structure their thoughts, understand causality, add new ideas, and introduce new concepts in order to create or seek new evidence. They think about conditions and nuances and express finer points and caveats by proposing a conditional conclusion.
The students at this level display creativity and synthesis, while understanding the finer points in the documents. For example, advanced students will be able to synthesize the information across multiple documents and address the ambiguities in the data that are presented, such as outliers and knowing how sample size affects outcomes. Advanced students will also be able to identify and highlight gaps in logic and reasoning.
What Your Mastery Level Means
To learn more about your Mastery Level and how to further improve your skills, click on the corresponding category below.
Students at the Emerging level can improve by:
- Stating a claim or decision and supporting it with evidence from the information in the documents
- Refraining from using opinions when citing evidence
- Countering opposing positions
- Understanding the purpose of data
- Analyzing the data, but not necessarily perfectly
- Organizing responses in a manner that reads logically
- Paying attention to language and vocabulary conventions
Students at the Developing level can improve by:
- Stating a claim or decision and supporting it with evidence from the information in the documents
- Refraining from using opinions when citing evidence
- Countering opposing positions
- Understanding the purpose of data
- Analyzing the data, but not necessarily perfectly
- Organizing responses in a manner that reads logically
- Following language and vocabulary conventions
Students at the Proficient level can improve by:
- Making a claim and supporting that claim using some evidence that is based upon the information provided in the documents
- Understanding the data that are presented in the task and using and interpreting the data, although not perfectly
- Presenting a basic argument, but may miss the opposing position(s)
- Writing simple sentences that generally follow language and vocabulary conventions
To become Accomplished, students can improve by:
- Better identifying the reliability of information
- Synthesizing information across multiple documents
- Identifying areas where data and arguments are conflicted
- Making accurate predictions based upon data
- Identifying information bias
- Evaluating alternate conclusions
To become Advanced, students can improve by:
- Being much more thorough in their analyses of the information
- Understanding the complexity of the issue or situation and generating a response that makes this evident
- Acknowledging that there are valid points on the opposing side, but still being able to refute that position
- Identifying gaps in logic and reasoning
- Demonstrating command of the written language
Understanding Your Score in Each Skill Area
To learn more about your scores in each skill group, click on the score you received below.
Making a logical decision or conclusion (or taking a position) and supporting it by utilizing appropriate information (facts, ideas, computed values, or salient features) from the Document Library.
- May state or imply a decision/ conclusion/ position.
- Provides minimal analysis as support (e.g., briefly addresses only one idea from one document) or analysis is entirely inaccurate, illogical, unreliable, or unconnected to the decision/ conclusion/ position.
- States or implies a decision/ conclusion/ position.
- Provides analysis that incorporates a few supporting ideas, some of which is inaccurate, illogical, unreliable, or unconnected to the decision/ conclusion/ position.
- States or implies a decision/ conclusion/ position.
- Provides some valid support, but omits or misrepresents critical information, suggesting only superficial analysis and partial comprehension of the documents.
- May not account for contradictory information (if applicable).
- States an explicit decision/ conclusion/ position.
- Provides valid support that addresses multiple pieces of relevant and credible information in a manner that demonstrates adequate analysis and comprehension of the documents; some information is omitted.
- May attempt to address contradictory information or alternative decisions/ conclusions/ positions (if applicable).
- Organizes response in a logically cohesive way that makes it fairly easy to follow the writer’s arguments.
- Provides valid elaboration on facts or ideas related to each argument and cites sources of information.
- Organizes response in a logically cohesive way that makes it very easy to follow the writer’s arguments.
- Provides valid and comprehensive elaboration on facts or ideas related to each argument and clearly cites sources of information.
Constructing organized and logically cohesive arguments. Strengthening the writer’s position by providing elaboration on facts or ideas (e.g., explaining how evidence bears on the problem, providing examples, and emphasizing especially convincing evidence).
- Does not develop convincing arguments; writing may be disorganized and confusing.
- Does not provide elaboration on facts or ideas.
- Provides limited, invalid, overstated, or very unclear arguments; may present information in a disorganized fashion or undermine own points.
- Any elaboration on facts or ideas tends to be vague, irrelevant, inaccurate, or unreliable (e.g., based entirely on writer’s opinion); sources of information are often unclear.
- Provides limited or somewhat unclear arguments; presents relevant information in each response, but that information is not woven into arguments.
- Provides elaboration on facts or ideas a few times, some of which is valid; sources of information are sometimes unclear.
- Organizes response in a way that makes the writer’s arguments and logic of those arguments apparent but not obvious.
- Provides valid elaboration on facts or ideas several times and cites sources of information.
- Organizes response in a logically cohesive way that makes it fairly easy to follow the writer’s arguments.
- Provides valid elaboration on facts or ideas related to each argument and cites sources of information.
- Organizes response in a logically cohesive way that makes it very easy to follow the writer’s arguments.
- Provides valid and comprehensive elaboration on facts or ideas related to each argument and clearly cites sources of information.
Demonstrating facility with the conventions of standard written English (agreement, tense, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling) and control of the English language, including syntax (sentence structure) and diction (word choice and usage).
- Demonstrates minimal control of grammatical conventions, with many errors that either makes the response difficult to read or provides insufficient evidence to judge.
- Writes sentences that are repetitive or incomplete, and some are difficult to understand.
- Uses simple vocabulary, and some vocabulary is used inaccurately or in a way that makes meaning unclear.
- Demonstrates poor control of grammatical conventions, with frequent minor errors and some severe errors.
- Consistently writes sentences with similar structure and length, and some may be difficult to understand.
- Uses simple vocabulary, and some vocabulary may be used inaccurately or in a way that makes meaning unclear.
- Demonstrates fair control of grammatical conventions, with frequent minor errors.
- Writes sentences that read naturally but tend to have similar structure and length.
- Uses vocabulary that communicates ideas adequately but lacks variety.
- Demonstrates good control of grammatical conventions, with few errors.
- Writes well-constructed sentences with some varied structure and length.
- Uses vocabulary that clearly communicates ideas but lacks variety.
- Demonstrates very good control of grammatical conventions.
- Consistently writes well constructed sentences with varied structure and length.
- Uses varied and sometimes advanced vocabulary that effectively communicates ideas.
- Demonstrates outstanding control of grammatical conventions.
- Consistently writes well constructed, complex sentences with varied structure and length.
- Displays adept use of vocabulary that is precise, advanced, and varied.