Quiz & test questions Grade 9 English Language Arts
The Brenmere Lead Line Op-Ed: A Grade 9 ELA Quiz
A thirty-point grade 9 quiz on claim, counterclaim, concession, and evidence, built from a fictional op-ed and a letter to the editor about lead service lines.
Objectives
- Students will state the central claim of an argument in one accurate sentence.
- Students will identify a concession and explain what the writer gives up by making it.
- Students will judge which of two arguments is stronger and name a specific weakness in the other.
Vocabulary
- Service line
- A service line is the small pipe that connects the water main under the street to the plumbing inside one home or building. It is the last leg of the trip water makes to your tap.
Also: claim, counterclaim, concession, subsidy
Teacher overview
This thirty-point quiz pairs a fictional op-ed with a fictional letter answering it, both about who should pay to replace the private half of a lead service line. The twelve items mix multiple choice, short answer, and one constructed response, and they move from stating a central claim through concession and counterclaim to a judgment about which argument is stronger. The misconception the quiz is built to catch appears at item 7: students often treat an anticipated counterclaim as a weakness in the writer's case, when the op-ed raises the ownership objection precisely because conceding the law lets it argue on other ground. The final item carries four points and shows most clearly whether a student can judge an argument without simply agreeing with it.
Assessment
Read both texts, then answer the questions. Brenmere, both writers, and both texts are fictional and were written for this quiz. The federal figures quoted inside them are real.
Text 1. Op-ed in the Brenmere Chronicle, by council member Ada Ferris.
Brenmere treats its water well, and the water leaves the plant clean. The problem is the last stretch of pipe. In the older parts of town, the service line that runs from the main in the street to the house is lead. The city owns the half under the street. The homeowner owns the half under the yard.
The federal rules are tightening. The action level for lead falls to ten parts per billion in 2027, and water systems must replace nearly all lead service lines within ten years. About four million lead service lines are still in use across the country.
Replacing only the city half can be worse than waiting, because cutting a lead pipe shakes loose the scale inside it and can raise lead at the tap for weeks afterward. If we replace half a pipe, we hand the risk to the family and call it progress.
Some will say the yard pipe belongs to the homeowner, so the homeowner should pay for it. In law that is correct. It is also correct that the households with lead lines are, on average, the households least able to write a check for one. A city that replaces both halves finishes the job once, and one crew doing one job costs less per house than two crews doing two.
Text 2. Letter to the editor, by Marcus Ivey.
I own my house, my furnace, and the pipe under my yard. When my furnace failed in February, no one on the council offered to buy me a new one.
Ms. Ferris is right that cutting into a lead line can raise lead at the tap for a time. I would support a rule that the city not touch the street half unless the owner replaces the yard half in the same week.
What she calls finishing the job is a subsidy. It moves money from every ratepayer in Brenmere, including renters who own no pipe at all, to the owners of one particular set of houses. If the council wants to help households that cannot pay, it should say so plainly and test who qualifies, rather than write a check to every owner of an old house.
- In one sentence, state the central claim of Text 1. (2 points)
- Which choice best states the reason Text 1 gives for the city paying for both halves? (2 points)
- A. The water leaves the treatment plant with lead already in it.
- B. Replacing only the city half can raise lead at the tap and leaves the risk with the household.
- C. Federal law requires cities to pay for work on private property.
- D. Lead pipes are cheaper to replace when only one half is dug up.
- Quote one sentence from Text 1 that states something a reader could check. (2 points)
- Text 1 uses the federal deadline as part of its case. Explain how that deadline supports the claim. (3 points)
- Which choice best states the central claim of Text 2? (2 points)
- A. Lead in drinking water is not a serious health concern.
- B. The city should not buy private property, and any help should be limited to households that need it.
- C. The council should replace the street half of every line immediately.
- D. Renters should pay a higher water rate than owners.
- Text 2 concedes one point to Text 1. Quote the concession and explain what Mr. Ivey gives up by making it. (3 points)
- Text 1 anticipates an objection about ownership. State the objection and explain how the op-ed answers it. (3 points)
- Text 2 calls the proposal a "subsidy." Explain what that word choice does that "program" would not do. (2 points)
- One piece of evidence in Text 1 is a national figure rather than a Brenmere figure. Name it and explain why the difference matters to a Brenmere reader. (2 points)
- Which addition would most strengthen Text 2? (2 points)
- A. A statement that lead is harmful to young children.
- B. A count of Brenmere households that would qualify for limited help, with the cost of that program.
- C. A longer quotation from Ms. Ferris.
- D. A national figure for the number of lead service lines still in use.
- The two writers agree on one point about the pipes themselves. State it and support your answer with evidence from both texts. (3 points)
- In four to six sentences, state which text makes the stronger argument and why. Name one specific weakness in the text you did not choose. (4 points)
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Answer Key
- Answer: Brenmere should pay to replace both halves of every lead service line rather than only the half it owns. Accept any one-sentence version that names both halves and the city as the payer.
- Answer: B. Text 1 argues that cutting a lead pipe shakes loose scale and can raise lead at the tap, so replacing half leaves the household holding the risk. Choice C misreads the deadline, which requires replacement but does not say who pays.
- Answer: Any checkable sentence earns full credit, such as "The action level for lead falls to ten parts per billion in 2027" or "The city owns the half under the street." Sentences of judgment, such as the one about calling half a replacement progress, earn no credit.
- Answer: The deadline shows the replacement is coming regardless of what Brenmere decides, so the choice is not whether to replace the lines but how. That turns the argument toward doing the work once rather than twice. Credit any answer that connects the required timeline to the cost or risk of a two-stage job.
- Answer: B. Mr. Ivey objects to public money buying private property and asks that help be limited to households that need it, which is what testing who qualifies means.
- Answer: He concedes that "cutting into a lead line can raise lead at the tap for a time." By granting it, he gives up the easiest objection to Ms. Ferris's central worry and has to argue on cost and fairness instead. Accept the quotation with any accurate account of what the concession costs him.
- Answer: The objection is that the yard pipe is the homeowner's property, so the homeowner should pay for it. The op-ed grants that the law is on that side, then argues that the households with lead lines are least able to pay and that one crew doing one job costs less per house.
- Answer: "Subsidy" frames the spending as a transfer from many people to a favored few, which invites the reader to ask who is paying. "Program" would name the same spending without carrying that charge.
- Answer: The figure of about four million lead service lines still in use is a national count. It tells a Brenmere reader nothing about how many lines are in Brenmere or what replacing them there would cost.
- Answer: B. Mr. Ivey proposes limited help but gives no sense of its size or cost, so a local count and price would turn his alternative from an idea into a proposal. The other choices add nothing he needs.
- Answer: Both agree that cutting into a lead line can raise lead at the tap for a period afterward. Text 1 states that replacing half can be worse than waiting because the cut shakes loose scale, and Text 2 states that Ms. Ferris is right about that risk. Full credit requires evidence from both texts.
- Answer: Accept either choice when the reasoning is specific. A strong answer for Text 1 notes that it addresses the ownership objection directly and gives a cost reason for combining the work, while Text 2 never says how many households its limited help would reach. A strong answer for Text 2 notes that it concedes the health risk and still offers a workable alternative, while Text 1 leans on a national figure that says nothing about Brenmere. No credit for a paragraph that states a preference without naming a weakness.
Differentiation
Support
Give these students the two texts with the claim sentence of each already underlined, so items 1 and 5 become confirming rather than searching. Provide a short definition card for concession and counterclaim with one example each. Allow item 12 to be answered in three sentences using a frame that names the choice, the reason, and the weakness.
Extension
Ask these students to write the reply Ms. Ferris would send to Mr. Ivey's letter, in one paragraph that concedes his fairness point and still holds her claim. They may also rewrite item 10's correct answer as the paragraph Mr. Ivey should have written, using invented but clearly labeled local numbers.
ELL supports
Pre-teach claim, counterclaim, concession, service line, and subsidy with one short definition and one example each before the reading begins. Provide a labeled diagram showing the main under the street, the city half of the service line, the property line, and the homeowner's half. Allow short-answer items to be completed in phrases, and give extra time for item 12.
Extensions
Ask students to find the section of their own city or county website that explains who owns each part of a water service line, and to bring one sentence from it to class. A short comparison of those sentences shows how differently ownership is described from place to place, and why an argument like this one has to start by settling where the property line falls.