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Quiz & test questions Grade 9 English Language Arts

Reading the Nettlecombe Watershed Rules: A Grade 9 ELA Quiz

A 30-point grade 9 ELA quiz pairing a fictional water board's new watershed rules with a landowner's objection, testing central idea, claim, evidence, and summary.

Objectives

  1. Students will identify the central idea and central claim of an informational notice.
  2. Students will distinguish a claim from a statement that can be verified as written.
  3. Students will summarize a disagreement between two texts without taking a side.

Vocabulary

Watershed
A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.

Also: setback, cost-share, claim, central idea, summary

Teacher overview

This 30-point quiz pairs two short fictional texts, a water board's notice announcing new rules and a farmer's letter objecting to them, and asks students to read both closely. The 12 items mix multiple choice, short answer, and one longer constructed response, moving from literal retrieval through claim analysis to a summary that must stay neutral. It suits the end of a unit on informational text and argument, and it can be graded in a single sitting. The last item is worth five points and carries the most diagnostic weight, because a summary that takes a side shows that the writer has not yet separated reporting a disagreement from joining it.

Reading the Nettlecombe Watershed Rules: A Grade 9 ELA Quiz — Grade 9 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Assessment

Read both texts, then answer the questions. Both texts are fictional.

Text 1. Notice from the Nettlecombe Water Board.

Nettlecombe draws its drinking water from Rill Pond. The land that drains into Rill Pond is called its watershed. Rain that falls anywhere in that watershed carries whatever it touches into the pond.

Beginning October 1, three rules will apply inside the watershed boundary. Manure may not be spread within 100 feet of any stream or ditch. No new septic system may be built within 200 feet of the pond or its feeder streams. Any owner who plants a permanent strip of grass or shrubs at least 35 feet wide along a stream may apply for a cost-share payment that covers most of the planting expense.

The board recognizes that these rules place a burden on a small number of landowners for a benefit the whole town receives. The cost-share program exists for that reason. Treating water is expensive, and keeping contamination out of the pond is cheaper than taking it out later.

Text 2. Letter to the board from Delia Harrow, a landowner.

I farm forty acres along Bracken Brook, and I have never put anything in that stream. The new setback takes a strip out of my best field. The payment covers grass seed, not the crop I will not be growing there. If the whole town benefits, the whole town should pay, and not only the six of us whose land happens to touch the water.

  1. In one sentence, state the central idea of the board's notice. (2 points)
  2. Which choice best states the purpose of the cost-share program? (2 points)
    • A. To pay landowners for crops lost to flooding.
    • B. To offset part of the cost the rules place on a few landowners.
    • C. To pay for treating water taken from Rill Pond.
    • D. To reward landowners who report violations of the new rules.
  3. According to the notice, how close to a stream or ditch may manure be spread? (2 points)
  4. According to the notice, what is the smallest width of a planted strip that qualifies for the cost-share payment? (2 points)
  5. The notice says that rain "carries whatever it touches into the pond." Explain what that sentence tells a reader about why a rule half a mile from the pond still matters. (2 points)
  6. Quote the sentence in which the board argues that prevention costs less than treatment. (2 points)
  7. Explain why that sentence is a claim rather than a fact a reader could verify from the notice alone. (3 points)
  8. Which choice best states Delia Harrow's central claim? (2 points)
    • A. The rules will not protect Rill Pond.
    • B. The setback distances were measured incorrectly on her farm.
    • C. The cost of protecting the pond falls on too few people.
    • D. Manure spreading has never caused pollution in Bracken Brook.
  9. Harrow does not argue that the rules fail to protect the pond. State the objection she actually makes. (3 points)
  10. In Harrow's letter, the word "setback" refers to which of the following? (2 points)
    • A. A delay in the board's schedule.
    • B. A required distance between an activity and a stream.
    • C. A payment that has been reduced.
    • D. A section of fence along a property line.
  11. The board and Harrow agree on one point. State it, using evidence from both texts. (3 points)
  12. Write one explanatory paragraph of four to six sentences summarizing the disagreement between the board and Harrow. Do not take a side. (5 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
  1. Answer: The board is setting three new rules inside the Rill Pond watershed to keep contamination out of the town's drinking water. Accept any single sentence naming both the rules and their protective purpose.
  2. Answer: B. The notice states that the rules burden a small number of landowners for a benefit the whole town receives and that the cost-share program exists for that reason. Choice C names treatment, which the notice mentions only in its argument about cost.
  3. Answer: No closer than 100 feet from any stream or ditch. Accept "at least 100 feet away."
  4. Answer: At least 35 feet wide. The strip must also be permanent and planted with grass or shrubs to qualify.
  5. Answer: Because runoff carries material from anywhere in the watershed down to the pond, an activity far from the shore can still reach the drinking water supply. Distance from the pond does not make a source harmless.
  6. Answer: "Treating water is expensive, and keeping contamination out of the pond is cheaper than taking it out later." Accept the sentence quoted accurately, with or without the surrounding punctuation.
  7. Answer: The sentence compares two costs without supplying either one, so a reader cannot check it against anything in the notice. It also predicts what will be cheaper over time, and a prediction cannot be verified at the moment it is made. Full credit requires naming the missing evidence.
  8. Answer: C. Harrow argues that the burden falls on six landowners while the benefit goes to the whole town. Choice A misstates her position, since she never claims the rules fail to protect the pond.
  9. Answer: Her objection is about who pays. She accepts that the town benefits, and she argues that the cost should be shared by the town rather than carried by the few owners whose land touches the water. She also notes that the payment covers seed but not the crop she loses.
  10. Answer: B. The surrounding sentences say the setback "takes a strip out of my best field," which fits a required distance from the stream rather than a delay, a payment, or a fence.
  11. Answer: Both agree that the rules burden a small number of landowners for a benefit shared by the whole town. The notice states it directly, and Harrow repeats it when she writes that the whole town benefits while six owners bear the cost. Also accept that both agree the cost-share payment covers the cost of planting the strip, if supported with evidence from both texts.
  12. Answer: Accept any four-to-six-sentence paragraph that represents both texts accurately and reaches no verdict. A full-credit response states the board's rules and its reason, states Harrow's objection about who pays, notes their point of agreement, and avoids language that endorses either side.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students the two texts with the board's claim sentence and Harrow's claim sentence already boxed, so items 6 and 8 begin from a located sentence. Allow item 1 to be answered in two sentences rather than one, and provide item 12 as a paragraph frame with four sentence openings.

Extension

Ask these students to add a thirteenth response of their own: a two-sentence reply the board could send Harrow that answers her objection without repealing the rules. The reply must use at least one detail from her letter.

ELL supports

Pre-teach watershed, setback, cost-share, and claim with a short definition and a simple drawing of a pond, its feeder streams, and a planted strip along one bank. Provide sentence frames for items 5, 9, and 11, such as "Harrow objects because ____," and allow the multiple-choice items to be read aloud.

Extensions

Have students locate the boundary of their own community's drinking water source area on a public map and list three activities that happen inside it. They then write one paragraph predicting which of those activities a board like Nettlecombe's would regulate first, and give the reasoning behind the prediction.