Multiple-choice items will have four answer choices. There will be no questions that ask students to choose either "all of the above "or "none of the above "as an answer. Also, students will not be asked to choose the "BEST " answer..

Open-ended items are designed to give students the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge or to relate knowledge to a specific situation. An open-ended item may be answered in sentence form or with diagrams, drawings or symbols, or with a combination of both. The open-ended items will be scored with a zero-to-three-point rubric that consistently awards points according to the students ' understanding of what is required by the task..

Performance assessment tasks will be administered by the local school although the tasks to be administered and their specific scoring rubrics will be provided by the state. Students' responses to these tasks should explain, analyze, draw, and/or in some way present a well-considered response. The responses will be scored with a zero-to-three-point rubric.

The zero-to-three-point generic rubric used to score both the open-ended items and the performance assessment tasks appears on the following page.  A unique zero-to-three-point rubric will be developed for each open-ended item and for each performance assessment task based on this generic rubric.

During the two-year "due-notice "period for the HSPA, sample items will be released periodically.