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Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System

2021 MCAS Sample Student Work and Scoring Guides

Below you will find scoring guides and samples of student work for released items from the spring 2021 MCAS tests. Scoring guides and student work samples are provided for the following item types: constructed-response items and essay questions. In addition, annotations are included at all score points with the student work samples for ELA essay questions.

With only a few exceptions, at least two different samples of student work have been included at the highest score point for all grades and subjects to show that students may achieve a top score even if they approach an essay question differently or arrive at a correct answer to a constructed-response item using an alternate method.

The grade 10 English Language Arts (ELA) legacy composition rubrics for the retests are located here: Scoring Guides for ELA Legacy Composition. No items or student work samples are released from the retests.

For access to all released MCAS test questions, visit the Released Test Questions and Practice Tests page.

For more information, see Using This Online Tool.

Question Directory for Student Work

Grade 3

Grade 4

Grade 5

Grade 6

Grade 7

Grade 8

Grade 10

High School

In order to support future test development, no test questions or student work samples were released in 2021 for the high school STE tests (Biology, Chemistry, Introductory Physics, Technology/Engineering).

Last Updated: August 24, 2021

 
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