2026 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System MCAS Sample Student Work and Scoring Guides

Grade 3 English Language Arts

The sample responses provided here are selections of actual student work from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System MCAS tests administered in 2026. In order to protect the privacy of individual students, all names and references of a personal nature have been altered or removed. Aside from these changes, the responses appear as the students wrote them.
The annotations that accompany each sample response are specific to that response. The annotations are based on the description for each score point and identify those elements of the response that were instrumental in determining the score it received.