Two Responses to an Arena Editorial
Grade 9 students are judging two written responses to a short editorial. The editorial argues that a town should replace its 60-year-old arena instead of repairing it. It cites a repair estimate of $4.2 million against $7.8 million for new construction, and notes that youth hockey registration has fallen 30% in five years. It never mentions operating costs or any other group that uses the ice.
Response A: "The arena is falling apart. Anyone who has sat in those leaky stands knows repairs are pointless. Spending $7.8 million is obviously the only sensible choice."
Response B: "The $4.2 million repair figure and the 30% drop in youth hockey are both real. But the editorial never states the annual operating cost of a new building, and a 30% drop in youth hockey does not by itself mean the town needs less ice - adult leagues and public skating use the same surface."
The outcome being assessed is "evaluate the usefulness of evidence in a text."
1. Which response better demonstrates the outcome "evaluate the usefulness of evidence"? Justify your choice using specific words from both responses.
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Response B.
- B separates the evidence from the claim built on it: it grants that the $4.2 million and the 30% are "real," then asks what they actually prove. That is evaluation.
- B names a specific gap - "never states the annual operating cost" - so its criticism is about sufficiency of evidence, not about whether the evidence is true.
- B identifies an unstated assumption in the editorial's logic: falling youth registration is treated as falling total demand, but "adult leagues and public skating use the same surface" shows the inference does not follow.
Response A does none of this. "Leaky stands" is an observation about a building, not evidence about cost, and "obviously the only sensible choice" asserts a conclusion rather than weighing one. A evaluates the arena, not the evidence.
2. Response B begins by conceding that the figures are "real." Explain what that concession accomplishes, and what would be lost if the sentence were deleted.
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The concession does three jobs:
- It builds credibility. A reader who supports the editorial keeps reading, because B is not claiming the numbers are false.
- It locates the disagreement precisely. The dispute is not about the numbers but about what they support, which is exactly the skill being assessed.
- It sets up the pivot. "But" now marks the real evaluative move instead of a flat contradiction.
If the sentence were deleted, B would open with "the editorial never states the annual operating cost," which reads as an attack on the editorial's honesty rather than an analysis of its argument. The critique would become less precise and easier to dismiss.
3. Suppose the editorial added one sentence: "Adult recreation league registration has risen 12% over the same five years." How would a strong evaluation of the evidence change?
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The new figure weakens the editorial's own inference. The 30% youth decline now sits beside a 12% adult gain, so the total demand for ice may be roughly stable while the users have changed. The 30% figure would then support a claim about shifting programming, not about needing less ice.
A strong evaluation would still push further:
- Percentages without base numbers prove little. 12% of a small league may be far fewer skaters than were lost in youth hockey; the evaluator should ask for absolute registration counts.
- The central economic claim is untouched. Repair versus replacement still rests on a single capital-cost comparison with no operating costs, so the new sentence makes the evidence more balanced but not sufficient.
A weak answer would simply say the editorial "is now more convincing." A strong answer says which inference the new evidence repairs and which it leaves unresolved.