English Language Arts: Text Analysis (TEKS.ELA.9-12.6.B) Practice Test

Excerpt 1 (Academic Study): Drawing on a multi-jurisdiction dataset of pretrial decisions, this study evaluates algorithmic risk assessment via three fairness criteria: calibration parity (estimated risk matches observed outcomes across groups), error-rate parity (equal false positive/negative rates), and balance for the positive class (equal precision among those who reoffend). Constrained models were trained to satisfy each criterion in turn. Findings indicate that satisfying calibration parity raises cross-group gaps in false positives when base rates differ, whereas imposing error-rate parity distorts probability estimates and degrades ranking fidelity. Cost-sensitive simulations show that policy goals—minimizing incapacitation days, limiting disparate detention, or preserving rank order—map onto different fairness constraints. The paper argues that measurement clarity can reveal conflicts among desiderata but cannot adjudicate the normative priority of incompatible constraints. Excerpt 2 (Philosophical Reflection): To be translated into a score is to stand before an unseen tribunal that speaks in numbers. Even if its arithmetic is sound, a person might justly ask whether procedures that sort lives by proxy truly honor the dignity they claim to serve. The essay probes two tensions: between outcome equity and the right to be judged as an individual; and between institutional efficiency and the moral intelligibility of reasons offered to those constrained by them. Drawing on deontological and phenomenological frames, it maintains that the ethical heart of the matter is not whether estimates are well-calibrated, but whether the terms of being estimated are acceptable. Metrics, on this view, can clarify trade-offs but cannot supply the warrant for whom—and to what ends—we make trade-offs at all.

Excerpt 1 (Historical Analysis): Texas's distinctive grid governance emerged from mid-twentieth-century struggles over federal jurisdiction. By consolidating intrastate interconnections to avoid interstate transmission, Texas operators minimized federal oversight while entrenching a market ethos that later shaped ERCOT's design. Archival minutes from utility commissions show a persistent preference for price-mediated coordination over capacity mandates, a pattern that outlived episodic weather shocks in 1989 and 2011. This path dependence, reinforced by legal insulation from broader regional reliability compacts, privileged instantaneous price signals as the principal disciplining mechanism. The analysis situates recent crises within that longue durée: institutional memory trained stakeholders to treat scarcity as a price problem, not an engineering margin. Excerpt 2 (Contemporary Commentary): After the winter storm and amid record heat, resilience cannot be outsourced to scarcity pricing. We need redundant capacity, weatherization verified by independent audits, and distributed assets—rooftop solar, storage, community microgrids—that reduce single-point failures. Market incentives matter, but resilience is a social good: failures cascade across hospitals and households, not just balance sheets. The commentary argues for hybrid governance: market clearing for efficiency, complemented by mandated reliability floors and public investment in critical nodes. It reframes the debate from "cheap electrons" to "assured service," emphasizing equity, transparency, and stress-tested contingency planning.