College & Workforce Readiness News in Brief

Consortium Releases Sample Test Items

By Catherine Gewertz — October 16, 2012 1 min read
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To help guide educators as they implement the common standards, a group of states released a new round of sample questions and performance tasks from its planned assessment.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, made up of 25 states, posted dozens of examples of multiple-choice, constructed-response and performance items on its website last week. Users can interact with the items the way students will when they take the computer-based tests in 2014-15.

Smarter Balanced and the other consortium, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, have been circulating sample test items in the field, for feedback and to guide vendors developing the tests. (Consortia Provide Preview of Common Tests, Aug. 22, 2012.) PARCC also released a set of prototype items in August.

The consortium is seeking feedback on the samples.

A version of this article appeared in the October 17, 2012 edition of Education Week as Consortium Releases Sample Test Items

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