The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) recently released sample assessment items. They come complete with a new way of categorizing questions, both for mathematics — where the questions are of Type I, Type II or Type III — and in ELA, where they are EBSRs, TECRs and PCRs. For a guide to deciphering the new typology, see below:
Mathematics
Type I: Tasks assessing concepts, skills and procedures
Type I tasks include a balance of conceptual understanding, fluency, and application. These tasks can involve any or all mathematical practice standards.
Type I tasks will be machine scorable and will include innovative, computer-based formats.
Type I tasks will appear on the End of Year and Performance Based Assessment components and generate evidence for measuring major, additional, and supporting content with connections to the mathematical practices
Type II: Tasks assessing expressing mathematical reasoning
Type II tasks call for written arguments/justifications, critique of reasoning, or precision in mathematical statements (MP. 3, 6). These tasks can also involve other mathematical practice standards.
Type II tasks may include a mix of innovative, machine scored and hand scored responses.
Type II tasks will be included on the Performance Based Assessment component and generate evidence for measuring mathematical reasoning with connections to content.
Type III: Tasks assessing modeling / applications
Type III tasks call for modeling/application in a real-world context or scenario (MP.4) and can also involve other mathematical practice standards.
Type III tasks may include a mix of innovative, machine scored and hand scored responses.
Type III tasks will be included on the Performance Based Assessment component and generate evidence for measuring mathematical modeling/application with connections to content.
English Language Arts
Performance-Based Component
Literary Analysis Task
The Literature Task plays an important role in honing students’ ability to read complex text closely, a skill that research reveals as the most significant factor differentiating college-ready from non-college-ready readers. This task will ask students to carefully consider literature worthy of close study and compose an analytic essay.
Narrative Task
The Narrative Task broadens the way in which students may use this type of writing. Narrative writing can be used to convey experiences or events, real or imaginary. In this task, students may be asked to write a story, detail a scientific process, write a historical account of important figures, or to describe an account of events, scenes or objects, for example.
Research Simulation Task
The Research Simulation Task is an assessment component worthy of student preparation because it asks students to exercise the career- and college- readiness skills of observation, deduction, and proper use and evaluation of evidence across text types.
In this task, students will analyze an informational topic presented through several articles or multimedia stimuli, the first text being an anchor text that introduces the topic. Students will engage with the texts by answering a series of questions and synthesizing information from multiple sources in order to write two analytic essays.
End-Of-Year Assessment
On the end-of-year assessment, students have the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to read and comprehend complex informational and literary texts. Questions will be sequenced in a way that they will draw students into deeper encounters with the texts and will result in more thorough comprehension of the concepts.
Question Types for English Language Arts
Evidence-Based Selected Response (EBSR)
Combines a traditional selected-response question with a second selected-response question that asks students to show evidence from the text that supports the answer they provided to the first question. Underscores the importance of Reading Anchor Standard 1 for implementation of the CCSS.
Technology-Enhanced Constructed Response (TECR)
Uses technology to capture student comprehension of texts in authentic ways that have been difficult to score by machine for large scale assessments (e.g., drag and drop, cut and paste, shade text, move items to show relationships).
Range of Prose Constructed Responses (PCR)
Elicits evidence that students have understood a text or texts they have read and can communicate that understanding well both in terms of written expression and knowledge of language and conventions. There are four of these items of varying types on each annual performance-based assessment.
For more on PARCC’s item and task prototypes, see http://www.parcconline.org/
