Which statement best describes a benefit of standards-based grading for high-achieving students?

• A. Instruction can be easily adjusted to provide new, more complex learning targets.
• B. It is easy to keep high-achieving students motivated with high scores on most assignments.
• C. High-achieving students can be identified easily by comparing student scores.
• D. It is easy to create special assignments and extra credit opportunities for high-achieving students.

Answer: (A)

Standards-based grading emphasizes mastery of defined targets and uses those results to guide next steps in instruction. For high-achieving students, a key benefit is that once they demonstrate mastery, you can raise the learning targets and provide more complex, higher-level tasks. This keeps instruction appropriately challenging and aligned with their advancing abilities, moving them beyond routine work to deeper understanding. The other options don’t capture this progression: standards-based grading isn’t about maintaining high scores on most assignments, identifying high achievers by scores, or creating extra credit—each of those would undermine a focused, mastery-driven approach.