Examius
🇺🇸 Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) · flashcards
Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) English Language Arts / Literacy: Writing Flashcards
50 question-and-answer cards covering English Language Arts / Literacy: Writing as it is examined in Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC). 24 of them are printed below, taken from across the deck — no signup, no paywall on the preview.
24 sample cards from the English Language Arts / Literacy: Writing deck
Sampled from the end of the deck, so these are different cards from the ones shown on the syllabus page.
What does it mean to evaluate a source for 'credibility'?
Judging whether a source is trustworthy by checking the author's authority/expertise, accuracy, publisher, bias, and currency (date).
What is the difference between a primary and a secondary source?
A primary source is original/firsthand (e.g., a diary, interview, original data); a secondary source analyzes or interprets primary sources (e.g., a textbook or review article).
What is 'plagiarism' and how is it avoided?
Using someone's words or ideas without credit; avoided by quoting, paraphrasing properly, and citing all sources.
What does it mean to 'integrate evidence responsibly'?
Smoothly incorporating quotations, paraphrases, and data with proper attribution and citation, and explaining how the evidence supports the point.
What is a 'signal phrase' when integrating quotations?
A phrase that introduces a source's words (e.g., 'According to Smith...') to attribute the quote and blend it into the writer's sentence.
What does it mean to 'synthesize' multiple sources?
Combining information and ideas from several sources to form a unified, coherent understanding or argument rather than summarizing each separately.
How is synthesizing sources different from summarizing one source?
Synthesis weaves together and shows relationships among multiple sources; summary restates the main points of a single source.
What is the difference between paraphrasing and quoting?
Quoting copies a source's exact words in quotation marks; paraphrasing restates the source's idea in your own words—both require citation.
What does 'grammar and usage' refer to in editing?
Following the conventions of standard English—correct verb tense, subject-verb agreement, pronoun use, and word choice.
What is subject-verb agreement?
The rule that a verb must match its subject in number—singular subjects take singular verbs, plural subjects take plural verbs (e.g., 'She runs'; 'They run').
What is a pronoun-antecedent agreement error?
When a pronoun does not match its antecedent in number, gender, or person (e.g., 'Each student forgot their book' where 'student' is singular).
What is a complete sentence required to have?
A subject, a predicate (verb), and a complete thought (independent clause).
What is a sentence fragment?
An incomplete sentence that is missing a subject, a verb, or a complete thought and cannot stand alone.
What is a run-on sentence (and a comma splice)?
A run-on joins two independent clauses with no proper punctuation/conjunction; a comma splice joins them with only a comma.
Name the four sentence structures by clause type.
Simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex.
What is the difference between a compound and a complex sentence?
A compound sentence joins two independent clauses; a complex sentence joins an independent clause with at least one dependent (subordinate) clause.
List the seven coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS).
For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So.
When are words capitalized in standard English?
The first word of a sentence, the pronoun 'I', and proper nouns/adjectives (names of specific people, places, days, months, titles).
What is the main use of a semicolon?
To join two closely related independent clauses without a conjunction, or to separate items in a list that already contains commas.
What is the difference between its and it's?
'Its' is the possessive form (belonging to it); 'it's' is the contraction of 'it is' or 'it has'.
How is an apostrophe used to show possession?
Add 's to singular nouns (the dog's bone) and to plural nouns not ending in s; add only an apostrophe to plural nouns ending in s (the dogs' bones).
What is the difference between revising and editing?
Revising improves content, organization, clarity, and ideas (big-picture changes); editing corrects surface errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
What does 'editing for clarity' involve?
Removing wordiness, fixing ambiguous or awkward sentences, choosing precise words, and ensuring each sentence clearly conveys its intended meaning.
What is the typical order of the writing process steps?
Prewriting (planning), drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.
What this deck covers
The English Language Arts / Literacy: Writing deck follows the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) English Language Arts / Literacy: Writing syllabus — 5 chapters and 19 topics — so questions land on material that is genuinely examinable rather than trivia around it. That works out to roughly 10.0 cards per chapter.
Answers are written to be recallable, not just readable — averaging about 123 characters, which is long enough to carry the reasoning and short enough to say out loud.
A deck like this earns its keep on the second and third pass. Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then use the cards to find the specific facts that have not stuck.
English Language Arts / Literacy: Writing flashcards FAQ
How many English Language Arts / Literacy: Writing flashcards are in this Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) deck?
50 cards. This page previews 24 of them, sampled evenly across the deck so you can judge the difficulty before installing anything.
Are these Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) flashcards free?
Yes. The preview here is free to read with no signup, and the full 50-card deck is free inside the Examius app.
What do the English Language Arts / Literacy: Writing cards cover?
They follow the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) English Language Arts / Literacy: Writing syllabus — 5 chapters and 19 topics — so the questions track what is actually examinable.
How should I use these flashcards?
Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then drill the deck. Examius schedules each card with spaced repetition, so cards you keep missing come back sooner and ones you know drift further apart.