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Quiz & test questions Grade 10 English Language Arts

The Elvaston Recycled Water Agreement: An Argument Quiz

A grade 10 quiz on claim, reason, concession, and rebuttal, built on two fictional documents arguing over recycled water for orchard irrigation.

Objectives

  1. Students will state the claim of each of two opposing documents in one sentence.
  2. Students will identify a concession and explain what it does for the argument that makes it.
  3. Students will name the unstated assumption a stated reason depends on.
  4. Students will write a position paragraph that answers one objection from the opposing side.

Vocabulary

Key words: claim, reason, concession, counterclaim, rebuttal, assumption, appeal to loyalty

Teacher overview

This 45-minute quiz is worth 33 points and covers claim, reason, concession, assumption, and rebuttal across two documents that argue opposite sides of the same proposal. It mixes one multiple-choice item, ten short-answer items, and one extended paragraph. Tenth graders are expected to handle the concession and rebuttal move rather than a two-sided list, so several items turn on what a writer gives up and what that costs. The misconception worth naming in advance is that a writer who admits a drawback has weakened the case; students routinely mark the conceding sentence as the strongest point against the document that wrote it.

The Elvaston Recycled Water Agreement: An Argument Quiz — Grade 10 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Assessment

The city of Elvaston, its irrigation district, its growers association, and both documents below are fictional. Read them, then answer questions 1 through 12.

Text 1. Elvaston Irrigation District, staff recommendation to the board, excerpt

Staff recommend that the board sign a twenty-year agreement to receive recycled water from the city of Elvaston for orchard irrigation on the district's east side. River deliveries to the district were cut in three of the last five years, and the cuts arrived in June and July, when orchards need water most. Recycled supply from the city runs at a steady rate through the summer because it does not depend on snowmelt. A two-season trial on forty acres of pear orchard produced no measurable change in yield. Staff acknowledge that recycled water carries more dissolved salt than river water, so east-side growers would need one additional winter irrigation each year to move salts below the root zone. The pipeline would be paid for through a per-acre charge on east-side land only.

Text 2. Elvaston Growers Association, letter to the board, excerpt

The board should not sign this agreement. Salt accumulates in orchard soil over decades, and a two-season trial cannot show what thirty years of the same water will do to a pear block. The per-acre charge would fall on every east-side grower, including the forty families whose blocks sit beyond the proposed line and who would wait at least eight years for a delivery point. The trial the district cites was run on the district's own demonstration block, which is level, tiled, and managed by district staff, and not on a commercial orchard. Our families have farmed this valley for a hundred years. No one at the city has ever picked a pear in August.

Questions

  1. (2 points) State the claim of Text 1 in one sentence.
  2. (2 points) State the claim of Text 2 in one sentence.
  3. (3 points) List the three reasons Text 1 gives in support of its claim.
  4. (2 points) Which of the reasons you listed in item 3 is supported by a result reported in the text rather than by a general statement?
  5. (2 points) Quote the sentence in Text 1 that concedes a drawback.
  6. (3 points) Explain what that concession does for Text 1's argument.
  7. (2 points) Which sentence in Text 2 appeals to the reader's loyalty rather than to evidence?
    • A) "Salt accumulates in orchard soil over decades."
    • B) "The per-acre charge would fall on every east-side grower."
    • C) "The trial the district cites was run on the district's own demonstration block."
    • D) "No one at the city has ever picked a pear in August."
  8. (3 points) Text 2 objects that the trial ran only two seasons. Explain why the length of the trial matters for the particular drawback that Text 1 conceded.
  9. (2 points) Name the objection in Text 2 that Text 1 raises first, before Text 2 makes it.
  10. (3 points) Text 1 argues that river deliveries were cut in three of the last five years. State the assumption that must hold for this reason to support signing a twenty-year agreement.
  11. (3 points) Write the strongest one-sentence rebuttal Text 1 could offer to Text 2's objection about who pays, using only information given in the two texts.
  12. (6 points) Write a paragraph of six to eight sentences giving your own position on the agreement. Use at least one piece of evidence from each text, and answer one objection from the side you did not take.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: The district should sign a twenty-year agreement to take recycled water from the city for east-side orchard irrigation. Accept any sentence that names both the action recommended and the party that should take it.
  2. Answer: The board should not sign the recycled water agreement. Accept any sentence that states the position rather than only listing an objection.
  3. Answer: River deliveries were cut in three of the last five years, and the cuts came in June and July; recycled supply runs at a steady summer rate because it does not depend on snowmelt; and a two-season trial on forty acres produced no measurable change in yield. All three are required for full credit.
  4. Answer: The trial result. It reports an outcome from a stated test on a stated acreage over a stated period, while the other two reasons describe a pattern of deliveries and a property of the supply without reporting a measurement.
  5. Answer: "Staff acknowledge that recycled water carries more dissolved salt than river water, so east-side growers would need one additional winter irrigation each year to move salts below the root zone." Accept this sentence only.
  6. Answer: The concession answers the strongest objection before an opponent can raise it, and it does so with a specific remedy rather than a denial, which makes the rest of the document easier to trust. It also narrows the dispute, since the board no longer has to decide whether salt is a problem, only whether an extra winter irrigation is an acceptable cost.
  7. Answer: D) "No one at the city has ever picked a pear in August." The sentence asks the reader to side with the growers on the basis of who belongs to the valley, and it offers nothing about salt, cost, or supply.
  8. Answer: Text 1 conceded that recycled water carries more dissolved salt, and salt effects build up as salts are added year after year. A two-season trial measures yield before enough accumulation could occur, so a result showing no change in two seasons cannot tell the board what happens in year twenty of a twenty-year agreement.
  9. Answer: The salt objection. Text 1 states the salt drawback and the extra winter irrigation in its own recommendation, so Text 2's salt argument extends a point Text 1 already made rather than introducing a new one.
  10. Answer: The assumption is that the pattern of the last five years will continue, so river cuts remain likely across the next twenty. Accept any statement of that assumption, including the version that says past cuts predict future cuts. Students who answer only "the river will be short" should be pushed to say why past years predict future ones.
  11. Answer: Accept any one-sentence rebuttal drawn from the texts, such as: "The charge applies only to east-side land, which is the land the pipeline is built to serve, and the growers beyond the line will receive deliveries from the same system rather than paying for a benefit they never get." Do not credit rebuttals that introduce facts absent from both texts, such as a promised construction schedule.
  12. Answer: Accept either position when the paragraph states it plainly, uses evidence from both texts, and answers one objection. A proficient argument for signing cites the June and July cuts from Text 1 and concedes the demonstration-block objection from Text 2, then answers it by proposing a trial on a commercial block before the line is built. A proficient argument against signing cites the thirty-year salt horizon from Text 2 and the conceded extra winter irrigation from Text 1, then answers the supply objection by noting that the cuts named in Text 1 fell in three years, not five. Do not credit paragraphs that summarize both texts without taking a position.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a marked copy in which the claim sentence of each text is boxed, so items 1 and 2 begin with restatement rather than location. Provide a three-column chart headed Reason, Kind of support, and What it assumes for items 3, 4, and 10, and supply the frame "Text 1 admits ___, which helps its argument because ___" for item 6.

Extension

Ask these students to write the paragraph the district would add to Text 1 if the board asked for a response to the demonstration-block objection. The paragraph must concede what is fair in the objection, state what a commercial-block trial would need to measure, and avoid repeating the loyalty appeal that closes Text 2.

ELL supports

Pre-teach concede, accumulate, per-acre, deliveries, and root zone with a paired example sentence for each, and provide a bilingual glossary. Allow items 3, 4, and 9 to be answered as short phrases before being written as sentences, and give item 12 as a five-part outline with one line for the position, one for each piece of evidence, one for the objection, and one for the answer to it.

Extensions

Have students locate a staff report and a public comment letter from their own city or county on any subject and mark the concession in each. Ask them to write one paragraph on which document handled its concession better and what the weaker document could have done instead.