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 1.2 The student will pose scientific questions and suggest investigative approaches to provide answers to questions.

Indicator 1.2.3 The student will formulate a working hypothesis.

Selected Response Item - Released in 2004

Use the description of the experiment below to answer the following.

A student washes her hands with antibacterial soap and water. Then she touches the agar in a petri dish with her thumb. The agar contains nutrients that support the growth of bacteria. Other students repeat the procedure after washing their hands with three different kinds of antibacterial soap. The petri dishes are kept warm overnight to allow bacteria to grow. The next day the students count the number of bacterial colonies in each dish.

Which of these questions are the students most likely trying to answer?

  1. How long does it take soap to kill bacteria?
  2. Which soap is most effective in killing bacteria?
  3. Which nutrients are necessary to grow bacteria?
  4. How many bacteria are on the average thumb?
/share/clg/xml/public_release/science/2004_123_bio42.xml

Correct Answer:
B

Brief Constructed Response (BCR) Item - Released in 2004

Use the technical passage Elephants Don't Need Email to answer the following.

The researchers found that the elephants could communicate with each other using infrasound over a distance of two and one half miles. The sounds that elephants hear may travel even farther.

Design an experiment that would determine the maximum distance from which elephants can hear infrasound.

Be sure to include

  • a hypothesis
     
  • a materials list
     
  • the specific steps to follow in the experiment
     
  • the method of collecting data
     

/share/clg/xml/public_release/science/2004_123_bio13.xml

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