The OSSLT short answer: how it is coded, with a sample answer at every code

What the OSSLT short answer is

Most of the OSSLT is selected response. Of its 37 scored questions, only two are written answers: the opinion essay and one short answer about a reading selection. EQAO's framework calls the short answer an open-response reading question, and on the current test it goes with the news report.

The news report section has five selected-response questions and the short answer, and together they are worth 10 of the test's 78 raw score points. The two written answers are worth 23 points between them, 20 of which belong to the opinion essay.

The question asks you to explain something about the report, such as what a quote suggests or why a person acted the way they did, and to support your answer with details from the text. You type your answer in a text box. Trained educators score it with EQAO's open-response reading rubric, and like all writing on the OSSLT it is scored as a first draft.

The rubric, code by code

The reading rubric has five codes. It describes how well you understood the selection and how well you use it, so the difference between codes is about the ideas and details you choose, not about length.

• Blank: nothing is typed in the box.

• I: the answer only comments on or restates the question, misunderstands the reading selection or the question, is off topic, or is illegible.

• 10: minimal reading comprehension, with minimal or irrelevant ideas and information from the selection.

• 20: some reading comprehension, with vague ideas and information from the selection.

• 30: considerable reading comprehension, with accurate, specific and relevant ideas and information from the selection.

The step that matters most is the one from 20 to 30. A 20 usually has the right idea. What it lacks is the specific details that prove it. The full rubric, with the essay rubrics beside it, is in the OSSLT marking guide.

A practice news report

Read the report, then the question. The report, the question and the sample answers below are original practice written by Litguide. They are not EQAO material, and the codes are Litguide's reading of EQAO's published rubric.

Bus Route Book Swap Turns Ride into Reading Time

CEDAR BAY: Students who ride Bus 7 to Cedar Bay Secondary School now spend the 40-minute trip with a book. Since September, driver Lena Moretti has kept a plastic crate of paperbacks behind her seat. Riders can take one home and bring another back.

Moretti started the swap with 30 books from her own shelves. By October, students had added more than 60 of their own, and the school library donated a box of graphic novels.

"At first it was just the younger kids," said Grade 11 student Jonah Pierce, who gets on at the last stop of the route. "Now people trade recommendations at the bus stop."

Teachers say they have noticed the change. Several students on the route have asked the library to hold the next book in a series.

Moretti says the quiet on the bus is a bonus, but not the point. "Some of these kids get on at 7:05 in the morning," she said. "I want them to arrive with their heads already somewhere good."

Question: What does Lena Moretti's last comment suggest about why she started the book swap? Use specific details from the news report to support your answer.

Four answers, four codes

Code I

"Lena Moretti started the book swap so the bus would be quiet and the kids would stop being loud."

This answer misunderstands the selection. Moretti says the quiet is "a bonus, but not the point", so the reason given is the one the report rules out. A misreading earns an I, however confident it sounds.

Code 10

"She likes books and wants kids to read more because reading is good for you."

There is an idea here, but almost nothing in it comes from the report. "Reading is good for you" is general knowledge, and the answer does not use her last comment at all. That is minimal comprehension with minimal ideas from the selection.

Code 20

"It suggests that she cares about the students. She wants them to have a good day, so she gives them books to read on the bus."

This answer has understood the comment, and it is on the right track. But the support is vague: "cares about the students" and "a good day" could describe almost any driver. It never mentions the early start, the long ride or the words of her comment, so the reader has to take it on trust.

Code 30

"Her comment suggests that she started the swap to give students a better start to their day, not to keep the bus quiet. She points out that some riders get on at 7:05 in the morning, so the 40-minute ride takes up a big part of their morning. When she says she wants them to arrive 'with their heads already somewhere good,' she means a book can put them in a good frame of mind before school starts. She even calls the quiet 'a bonus, but not the point,' which shows her real reason is the students themselves."

This answer states a clear idea in its first sentence, then proves it with accurate, specific and relevant details: the 7:05 pickup, the length of the ride, and two quotes, each followed by what it shows. It also answers the whole question, which asks why she started the swap and not just what she said.

How to write an answer that earns a 30

A short plan works for almost any OSSLT short answer question.

• Answer the question in your first sentence, using the question's own words, so the marker knows your idea before anything else.

• Give two specific details from the selection that support it. Quote a few words or name a fact, a time or a number from the text.

• After each detail, explain how it supports your idea. This is the sentence most answers leave out.

• Stop when you have answered the question. EQAO sets no word count, and a short paragraph of three to five sentences is usually enough room for an idea, two details and the links between them.

Two habits help on test day. Read the question before the report, so you know what to look for. Then note the lines you plan to use as you read, so your details are accurate and in the text, not remembered from somewhere else.

Why answers stop at 20

Most short answers that miss a 30 do it in one of four ways.

• The details are true but general. "She is kind" is an opinion about the person; "she brought 30 books from her own shelves" is a detail from the text.

• The answer retells the report instead of answering the question. A summary shows you read it, not that you understood what the question asked.

• The support comes from outside the text. The framework says the information needed to make an inference has to be in the reading selection, so personal stories and general knowledge do not count as evidence here.

• Only half the question is answered. If the question asks what a comment suggests and why, both parts need an answer.

Practise the short answer

Write one short answer a week in the four to five months before the test, on a news article, and check it against the four codes above. The OSSLT reading questions guide has another news report with selected-response questions and a sample written answer.

For a full practice run, the online OSSLT practice test includes a news report with a short answer question, and it codes your answer on the same I to 30 scale when you finish, along with the rest of the test. Teachers can give it to a whole class with a class link; how to run a full OSSLT practice test with your class explains how.