Record TX24-2 · 2024–2025
TX24-2: Source Based Informational
Written in the spring 2024 STAAR administration and published in the 2024 guide. Texas English II EOC; exact grade and age unknown.
Original student excerpt
Antarctica sparks many individuals interest. What makes it so unusual is how different countries had a common goal to preserve the continent and to regulate its tourism. First, several countries had a common goal of preserving Antarctica. This is unusual due to the fact that never before have so many countries agreed on preserving a single land. There would also have been some disputes on certain ideas on how to preserve Antarctica as well, however according to this article, they consistently agreed upon a certain topic eventually.
Five consecutive sentences from the agency-published response; original language preserved.
Prompt and conditions
Exact prompt. Read the article ‘Antarctica: Governing the Icy Continent.’ Based on the information in the article, write a response to the following: Explain what makes the situation in Antarctica unusual. Write a well-organized informational composition that uses specific evidence from the article to support your answer.
- Source conditions
- One Supplied Text; one supplied text; outside access not documented as allowed.
- Time
- Exact duration unknown. About three hours expected and seven-hour same-day maximum for the whole test absent approved extension; essay-specific time unknown.
- Production / archive
- typed online; anonymized response in agency scoring-guide PDF.
- Drafting
- planning/revising/editing allowed in test; no post-feedback revision.
- Population and selection
- Texas STAAR English I or II EOC operational response; exact grade, age, district, and supports unknown. Operational response purposively published as a score-point exemplar.
Scorer and feedback role
Institutional Assessor. Not an authenticated classroom-teacher feedback pair.
- Original source classification
- 4 of 5 — partial understanding with consistent conventions. Organization and Development 2/3 plus Conventions 2/2, Score Point 4 Response 1.
- Form
- Scoring Annotation; response-specific.
- Revision after feedback
- None survives.
“This evidence is appropriate but lacks sufficient explanation. In the third paragraph, it is unclear how tourism regulation of ‘illnesses or injuries’ affects ‘interference of other life.’”
Read the evidence coding
Conceptual claimMultinational preservation and regulated tourism make Antarctica unusual.
Ideas and relationships3 coded units. International agreement, scientific use, and tourism risks are linked to governance.
AbstractionSustained
Causal reasoningComparative Institutional
Qualification / counterargumentQualification
Evidence useAccurate Paraphrase One Source
OrganizationTwo Part First Second Conclusion
Sentence controlControlled
Lexical precisionFunctional Mixed
Articulation limitEvidence is often listed rather than explained, and medical access is not clearly linked to the thesis.
These are descriptive codes, not scores. No composite or rank is calculated. Organization/Development 2/3 is partial and Conventions 2/2 is top; one point below full exemplar, but not a Texas median.