Sample Assessment Items
This is not meant to be printed off and given as a test…this document is to give you ideas of how this standard might be assessed. Please use these as an example when you are developing your own formative assessments. Remember formative assessment is to be given throughout the teaching of a standard to help you guide your instruction based on students needs. A good formative assessment should have a mix of multiple choice as well as open ended.
SS4E1 The student will use the basic economic concepts of trade, opportunity cost, specialization, voluntary exchange, productivity, and price incentives to illustrate historical events.
c. Describe how specialization improves standards of living (such as how trade between the colonies and England improved their economics).
Multiple Choice:
What is specialization?
a. working for no wages
b. studying or working in one particular area
c. being in a higher social class than others
d. working for wages based on the time worked
Answer: b
The Southern Colonies specialized primarily in cash crops. What are some examples of these types of cash crops?
a. fish, corn, flour
b. fish, fur, technology
c. rice, tobacco, indigo
d. meat, vegetables, livestock
Answer: c
The fact that planters in the Southern colonies chose to produce certain crops such as tobacco or cotton illustrates which of these economic principles?
a. specialization
b. barter system
c. supply and demand
d. voluntary exchange
Answer: a
In economics, specialization has a relationship to which of these?
a. demand
b. profit
c. productivity
d. scarcity
Answer: c
In the Southern colonies, which of these is the BEST example of specialization?
a. small farms
b. shipbuilding
c. cotton plantations
d. fishing and trapping
Answer: c
In economics, what is the correct term to describe the decision by an individual or a business to produce only one part of an item?
a. barter
b. trade-off
c. productivity
d. specialization
Answer: d
Open ended:
How did the colonists provide for their needs?
How were the economies alike and different in each of the colonial regions?