Topic Quiz: Extended Response (Essay)

Text 1 — Let the Sun Help Pay Our Bills (memo from Priya Raman, fictional chair of the Carlow Energy Committee)

(1) Carlow spends about 210,000 dollars a year on electricity for its town hall, library, fire station and public works garage. Installing solar panels on these roofs would cut that bill sharply.

(2) Last year, the committee hired an independent engineering firm to study the four roofs. The firm estimated that panels would supply about 45 percent of the buildings' electricity, saving roughly 95,000 dollars a year. After a federal tax credit for public entities, the system would cost about 760,000 dollars, so it would pay for itself in about eight years. Panels typically last 25 years or more.

(3) Solar would also protect the town from rising rates. Our utility has raised commercial electricity rates three times in the past six years.

(4) Finally, solar panels would show residents that town leaders take the future seriously. Every forward-thinking community is going solar, and Carlow should not be left behind.

Text 2 — Look Before We Leap onto the Roof (letter from Walt Kessler, fictional member of the Carlow Finance Board)

(5) Solar power is a fine idea in general, but this plan has holes.

(6) First, the library and town hall roofs are 24 years old. Our own building inspector's report from March says both will need replacement within five years. Installing panels now means paying to remove and reinstall them when the roofs are replaced, a cost the engineering study does not include.

(7) Second, savings can fall short. Nearby Dunmore installed panels in 2018, and its town manager told our board that the system has produced about 20 percent less power than predicted, partly because of shade from trees that grew taller.

(8) Third, 760,000 dollars is a large amount for a town our size. That money could repair the public works garage, which the inspector also flagged.

(9) I am not against solar. I am asking the town to fix the roofs first, then install panels on a sound foundation.

Text 1 — A Ban Would Hurt Working People (op-ed by Tom Brannigan, owner of a fictional Oak Hollow landscaping company)

(1) The town council wants to ban gas-powered leaf blowers starting next year. As someone who has run a landscaping business here for 22 years, I can tell you this ban would be a disaster.

(2) My crew of six depends on gas blowers. Battery blowers are weak toys. I tried one at a trade show, and it barely moved a pile of wet leaves. If the ban passes, we will have two choices: buy equipment that does not work or go back to rakes and triple our prices.

(3) A friend who runs a lawn service in another state told me that half the landscapers in his town went out of business after a similar ban. Is that what the council wants for Oak Hollow?

(4) The people pushing this ban are mostly retirees who have nothing better to do than complain about noise. Hardworking families should not lose their jobs so that a few people can enjoy a quiet morning.

Text 2 — Quieter, Cleaner Yards Are Within Reach (op-ed by Grace Okafor, a fictional public health nurse in Oak Hollow)

(5) Gas-powered leaf blowers create two serious problems: noise and air pollution. A phased ban, with help for local businesses, would solve both.

(6) Last fall, the town's environmental office measured blower noise at 50 feet. Gas models registered 70 to 75 decibels; battery models registered 58 to 65. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, a 10-decibel drop sounds roughly half as loud to the human ear.

(7) Small gas engines also pollute heavily. The state air-quality board reports that running a commercial gas blower for one hour releases about as much smog-forming pollution as driving a typical car for several hundred miles. Workers who stand next to these engines all day breathe the most exhaust.

(8) Battery equipment has improved. Two Oak Hollow schools switched their grounds crews to battery blowers last year, and the crew supervisor reported that the work took about the same amount of time. Neighboring Ridgeway passed a similar ban in 2021; its business license records show that the number of landscaping companies there grew from 14 to 16 since then.

(9) The proposal gives businesses two years to switch and offers rebates of up to 40 percent on new battery equipment. That is a fair way to protect both workers' health and their livelihoods.

A student wrote this first draft in response to the two texts about ending overdue fines at the Millbrook Public Library. The draft needs revision.

(1) Should libraries charge fines for late books? This question has caused debate in Millbrook. The library director, Rosa Delgado, wants to end fines, but council member Gary Ott wants to keep them. In this essay I will talk about both texts.

(2) Delgado gives specific numbers to back up her claim. She reports that about 6,200 residents have blocked cards, mostly in the two lowest-income neighborhoods. She also points out that fines brought in about 38,000 dollars, less than 1 percent of the library's budget. My cousin once had her library card blocked, and she was really annoyed. These figures show that fines shut out thousands of people while raising very little money.

(3) After Lakeport dropped fines in 2019, 95 percent of items were still returned within a month of the due date. More than 2,000 residents with blocked cards came back to the library. This answers the worry that people will stop returning books. Delgado adds that the library would still bill patrons for books that are never returned.

(4) Lakeport's results suggest the opposite. Ott's argument is weaker. He says fines teach responsibility, but his only support is a memory of paying a quarter as a boy. For example, he claims that without fines "the library will become a free-for-all," yet he offers no evidence for this prediction.

(5) To be fair, Ott makes one reasonable point. The city budget is tight. Therefore, the fine money is small compared with the staff time that fines require, as Delgado explains. Ott's amnesty day would help a little, but it would leave thousands of cards blocked for the rest of the year.

(6) Libraries are important. Everyone should read more books.

A student wrote this first draft in response to the two texts about requiring a personal finance course. The draft needs revision.

(1) Most adults agree that young people should learn to manage money, but they disagree about how schools should teach it. Senator Laura Kim wants every high school student in the state to pass a personal finance course. Superintendent Marcus Hill agrees that students need money skills but argues that a new required course is the wrong way to teach them. Hill's argument is better supported because he uses specific district data and the results of a local program, while Kim relies on one family story and a misleading statistic.

(2) Her main example is her nephew, who owed more than 15,000 dollars on credit cards by age 23. One person's experience cannot show what is true for every student in the state. My aunt also has a lot of credit card debt. Kim's claim that "every adult I know" wishes they had learned about money is also too vague to prove anything. Credit cards first became common in the 1950s.

(3) Kim's numbers are no better. She points to the national debt of more than 30 trillion dollars and uses it to claim that Americans do not know how to manage money. That figure is money owed by the federal government, not by individual families.

(4) Hill, by contrast, grounds each point in evidence. He reports that most seniors have only two elective slots left and that the district has nine open math and business positions. He adds that a required course would need about six more full-time teachers. Most importantly, he describes a program in which students who took a six-week money unit averaged 18 points higher on a financial knowledge test.

(5) In conclusion, that is why personal finance is important. Everyone should learn to save money.

A student wrote this first draft in response to two texts about banning cell phones at Westbrook High School. The draft has several errors in grammar, usage and style.

(1) Phones in school is a big deal these days. Principal Janelle Price argues that schools should lock up phones during the day, while parent Marcus Lee believes students should be allowed to keep them. Price's argument is more better supported because she uses results from her own school and a international report.

(2) Price gives alot of evidence. Discipline referrals fell by 28 percent and online bullying dropped by half. Which shows that the pouches made a real difference. In addition, 34 of 38 teachers said students was more focused. These numbers come from the very school that is being debated.

(3) Lee's letter has some good stuff in it, but it mostly relies on feelings. He says phones are learning tools, his daughter uses a calculator and a dictionary app. However, he never explains why these tools must be on a phone, so it don't prove that phones are necessary.

(4) Lee's strongest point is about safety. I totally get why parents want to reach their kids. Price responds to this worry directly, she explains that families can reach students through the office and that phones can make it harder for staff to give instructions in an emergency. Rushing to answer calls, instructions from teachers might be missed by students.

(5) In conclusion, Price's argument is better supported because it is based on real results. Lee raises fair concerns, but his evidence is mostly personal. His idea of teaching responsible use is worth discussing, yet he offers no proof that it works. The school day should be for learning, and Price shows how to protect it.

A student wrote this first draft in response to two texts about banning cell phones at Westbrook High School. The draft has several errors in grammar, usage and style.

(1) Phones in school is a big deal these days. Principal Janelle Price argues that schools should lock up phones during the day, while parent Marcus Lee believes students should be allowed to keep them. Price's argument is more better supported because she uses results from her own school and a international report.

(2) Price gives alot of evidence. Discipline referrals fell by 28 percent and online bullying dropped by half. Which shows that the pouches made a real difference. In addition, 34 of 38 teachers said students was more focused. These numbers come from the very school that is being debated.

(3) Lee's letter has some good stuff in it, but it mostly relies on feelings. He says phones are learning tools, his daughter uses a calculator and a dictionary app. However, he never explains why these tools must be on a phone, so it don't prove that phones are necessary.

(4) Lee's strongest point is about safety. I totally get why parents want to reach their kids. Price responds to this worry directly, she explains that families can reach students through the office and that phones can make it harder for staff to give instructions in an emergency. Rushing to answer calls, instructions from teachers might be missed by students.

(5) In conclusion, Price's argument is better supported because it is based on real results. Lee raises fair concerns, but his evidence is mostly personal. His idea of teaching responsible use is worth discussing, yet he offers no proof that it works. The school day should be for learning, and Price shows how to protect it.

Text 1 — Every Graduate Needs Money Skills (speech excerpt by Laura Kim, a fictional state senator)

(1) Our state should require every high school student to pass a one-semester personal finance course before graduating.

(2) My own nephew left high school without knowing what interest was. By age 23, he owed more than 15,000 dollars on three credit cards. His story is not unusual. Every adult I know wishes someone had taught them about money when they were young.

(3) Look at the numbers. Our nation's debt is more than 30 trillion dollars. Clearly, Americans do not know how to manage money, and that problem starts in our schools.

(4) Some school leaders say they do not have room in the schedule. But what could be more important than learning to manage a paycheck? It is common sense: if we want responsible adults, we must teach responsibility.

(5) Anyone who opposes this requirement is saying that our children's financial futures do not matter.

Text 2 — Teach Money Skills Without a New Mandate (op-ed by Dr. Marcus Hill, fictional superintendent of the Pine Valley School District)

(6) Financial skills matter, and I agree that students need them. The question is how to teach them best.

(7) Our schedules are already full. Students in Pine Valley need 24 credits to graduate, and most seniors have only two elective slots left. A required semester course would push out other electives, such as welding, music or a second year of a world language.

(8) We also lack teachers. Pine Valley has nine open math and business teaching positions this year, the most in a decade. A new required course would need about six more full-time teachers across our district.

(9) There is a better approach. Last year, four Pine Valley high schools added a six-week money unit to their required economics and math classes. On a 100-point financial knowledge test, those students averaged 18 points higher than students at schools without the unit.

(10) Before passing a mandate, the state should fund programs like this one, which build money skills without crowding out other learning.

A student wrote this first draft in response to the two texts about a teen curfew in Easton. The draft has errors in style, grammar and sentence structure.

(1) Easton's police chief wants a curfew for teens under 17, but the director of the town's youth center thinks a curfew would target the wrong hours. Both writers want young people to be safe, yet they disagree about how to protect them. Reyes's argument is way more convincing than Donnelly's.

(2) Donnelly's main statistic is a 30 percent rise in juvenile arrests. Which sounds serious. However, the actual numbers were only 20 and 26. Reyes points out that six extra arrests in a town of 18,000 people could just be a normal change, this weakens Donnelly's whole case.

(3) The data on timing are even more important. According to police records, 57 percent of juvenile incidents happens between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on school days. Only 9 percent happened during curfew hours. When Reyes compared these numbers with Donnelly's plan, she showed that it would miss most of the problem. In other words, the curfew would cover the hours when the fewest problems occur.

(4) Donnelly also leans on stuff like a mayor's comment that the streets "felt calmer". Feelings are not evidence. Reyes, in contrast, relies on research. Looking at a dozen studies, no consistent drop in juvenile crime was found.

(5) Each of the parents at Donnelly's meeting have a real concern, and I get it. But a curfew isn't the answer. Reyes reports that a spring pilot program at her center drew an average of 65 teens each afternoon. Keeping the youth center open later are a more practical solution.

Text 1 — Let the Sun Help Pay Our Bills (memo from Priya Raman, fictional chair of the Carlow Energy Committee)

(1) Carlow spends about 210,000 dollars a year on electricity for its town hall, library, fire station and public works garage. Installing solar panels on these roofs would cut that bill sharply.

(2) Last year, the committee hired an independent engineering firm to study the four roofs. The firm estimated that panels would supply about 45 percent of the buildings' electricity, saving roughly 95,000 dollars a year. After a federal tax credit for public entities, the system would cost about 760,000 dollars, so it would pay for itself in about eight years. Panels typically last 25 years or more.

(3) Solar would also protect the town from rising rates. Our utility has raised commercial electricity rates three times in the past six years.

(4) Finally, solar panels would show residents that town leaders take the future seriously. Every forward-thinking community is going solar, and Carlow should not be left behind.

Text 2 — Look Before We Leap onto the Roof (letter from Walt Kessler, fictional member of the Carlow Finance Board)

(5) Solar power is a fine idea in general, but this plan has holes.

(6) First, the library and town hall roofs are 24 years old. Our own building inspector's report from March says both will need replacement within five years. Installing panels now means paying to remove and reinstall them when the roofs are replaced, a cost the engineering study does not include.

(7) Second, savings can fall short. Nearby Dunmore installed panels in 2018, and its town manager told our board that the system has produced about 20 percent less power than predicted, partly because of shade from trees that grew taller.

(8) Third, 760,000 dollars is a large amount for a town our size. That money could repair the public works garage, which the inspector also flagged.

(9) I am not against solar. I am asking the town to fix the roofs first, then install panels on a sound foundation.