Record MA25-2 · 2024–2025
MA25-2: Source Based Argument
Written and published in the 2025 grade 10 MCAS cycle. Massachusetts grade 10; exact age unknown.
Original student excerpt
Alternative methods for growing food benefits communities by bringing them closer to the food that they eat and benefits individuals by improving access to higher quality food. Both Green Thumb by Kendrick Foster and How Far Can Vertical Farming Go? by William Park highlight these benefits. Urban farming/alternative farming brings communities together. In Green Thumb, Foster argues this point. He explains that urban farms inspire people to grow food, and this common movement brings community together.
Five consecutive sentences from the image-only agency response, visually transcribed; presentation italics removed, original language preserved.
Prompt and conditions
Exact prompt. Based on ‘Green Thumb’ and ‘How Far Can Vertical Farming Go?,’ write an essay arguing that alternative methods of growing food can benefit both individuals and communities. Be sure to use information from both articles to develop your essay.
- Source conditions
- Two Supplied Texts; supplied texts; only authorized dictionaries/glossaries for eligible students.
- Time
- Exact duration unknown. Two-session secure test; exact individual duration unknown.
- Production / archive
- CBT default, paper accommodation possible; individual mode unknown; anonymized or image response in agency PDF.
- Drafting
- in-session work only; no post-feedback revision.
- Population and selection
- Massachusetts grade 10 operational MCAS response; age, district, mode, time, and supports unknown. Operational response purposively published as a score-point sample.
Scorer and feedback role
Institutional Assessor. Not an authenticated classroom-teacher feedback pair.
- Original source classification
- 6 of 8 — moderately developed ideas; top conventions. Idea Development 3/5 plus Standard English Conventions 3/3, sample D.
- Form
- Scoring Annotation; response-specific.
- Revision after feedback
- None survives.
“Evidence from both articles, quoted or paraphrased, is generally explained throughout the body paragraphs. Supporting details are appropriate, and ideas are adequately expressed.”
Read the evidence coding
Conceptual claimUrban and vertical farming benefit communities and individual health.
Ideas and relationships3 coded units. Cultivation is linked to cohesion/beautification, supply chain to quality/access, and lower inputs to environment.
AbstractionEmerging
Causal reasoningSimple
Qualification / counterargumentNone
Evidence useBoth Sources Quoted Or Paraphrased
OrganizationCommunity Then Individual Benefits
Sentence controlControlled
Lexical precisionClear General
Articulation limitCausal mechanisms are brief and tradeoffs absent.
These are descriptive codes, not scores. No composite or rank is calculated. Idea Development 3/5 is general/moderately developed; Conventions 3/3 creates a conventions skew; not a population estimate.