School Improvement in Maryland

Public Release Item: Public Release items have appeared on HSA forms and then are released for public viewing and use. Releasing items is one step to ensuring that schools, districts, and other stakeholders understand how the core learning goals are assessed on the HSA.

Goal 1 Skills And Processes

Expectation 1.1 The student will explain why curiosity, honesty, openness, and skepticism are highly regarded in science.

Indicator 1.1.3 The student will critique arguments that are based on faulty, misleading data or on the incomplete use of numbers.

Brief Constructed Response (BCR) Item - Released in 2003

Researchers tested a new product designed to remove mildew from household surfaces. They gave free samples of the product to 100 different households. They collected these data: 70 households reported that the product was effective in removing mildew; 30 households reported that the product was not effective in removing mildew. From these data, the researchers concluded that the product was 70% effective in removing mildew from household surfaces.

  • Why is this a misleading conclusion?
     
  • In your response, discuss how this experiment could be designed to give more reliable results.
Type your answer in the answer box below.

/share/clg/xml/public_release/science/2003_113_bio05.xml

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Brief Constructed Response (BCR) Item - Released in 2006

Students studied a species of fish. They wanted to find out if these fish grow faster in warmer water. The students designed an experiment to determine how different water temperatures affect the growth of the fish.

They placed one fish in a tank at 26°C and another fish in a tank at 22°C. The fish were fed the same amount of food during the experiment. The mass of each fish was recorded at the beginning and at the end of the experiment. The data the students collected are shown in the table below.

Analyze the procedure and the data from the experiment. In your response, be sure to

  • include the hypothesis that the students were most likely investigating
  • explain whether their data supports this hypothesis
  • describe how other variables would affect the outcome of the results
  • explain how the experiment could be redesigned to gather more reliable data

Write your answer in your Answer Book.

/share/clg/xml/public_release/science/2006_113_bio49.xml

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