The five components

Based on this scenario, test takers would be presented with a series of tasks organized around the five components, as summarized in the chart on the following page.

Access Using a search engine, locate sites that have articles about holes in the heart, or atrial septal defects.
Manage Evaluate the sites and identify three that you would expect to provide reliable medical information.
Integrate Identify the treatment information in each article.
Evaluate Compare and contrast the treatment options suggested in the articles.
Create Devlop a Word document with treatments listed (citing sources) to share with physician.

As each task was completed it would be automatically scored. If a test taker did not complete a task correctly, related cognitive and technical tasks would be presented to try and determine if one or both of those areas were contributing to the individual's difficulty.

An example of how the Access task might be broken down follows.

Access task

Task Description: Use the search engine provided to find three sites with information about your mother's medical condition as described in the opening scenario.