A well-formed written response.

• Using his or her own words, the candidate accurately conveys the writer's main ideas and maintains focus and unity.


• The candidate's response is concise, but provides enough statements of appropriate depth and specificity to convey the writer's main points.


• The response exhibits control and organization.


• The candidate uses correct and effective sentence structure.


• The candidate's usage and choice of words are careful and precise.


• The candidate shows mastery of mechanical conventions (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization).

An adequately formed written response.

• Generally using his or her own words, the candidate accurately conveys most of the writer's main ideas and generally maintains focus and unity


• The candidate's response may be too long or too short, but generally provides enough statements of appropriate depth and specificity to convey most of the writer's main points


• The candidate's organization of ideas may be ambiguous, incomplete, or partially ineffective


• The candidate uses adequate sentence structure, but minor errors may be present


• The candidate's usage and choice of words display minor errors


• The candidate makes some errors in the use of mechanical conventions (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization).

A partially formed written response.

• The candidate conveys only some of the writer's main ideas and/or does not sustain the focus and unity of the discussion. The candidate relies heavily on the writer's words.


• The candidate's response is too long or too short and/or includes few statements that contribute effectively to the development of the response


• The candidate may make an effort to organize and sequence ideas, but organization is largely unclear


• Sentence structure is poor, with noticeable and distracting errors


• Imprecision in usage and word choice is distracting


• The candidate makes frequent errors in the use of mechanical conventions (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization).

An inadequately formed written response.

• The writer's main ideas are not identified


• The candidate fails to include statements that would contribute to the effective development of the response


• Any organization that is present fails to present an effective sequence of ideas


• Sentence structure is ineffective, and few sentences are free of errors


• Imprecision in usage and word choice interferes with meaning


• The candidate makes serious and numerous errors in the use of mechanical conventions (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and capitalization).

The response is unrelated to the assigned topic, illegible, primarily in a language other than English, not of sufficient length to score, or merely a repetition of the assignment.