The basis on which “gains” are considered to have been made is whether or not a
student has displayed modes of thinking that were not displayed earlier in the project. For
example, a student displaying mathematical thinking on Benchmark Task 1 is deemed to
have made “substantial gains” if, on Benchmark Task 2, he/she displayed contextual
thinking, as well as mathematical thinking. A student is considered to have made
“reasonable gains” if, for example, emerging contextual thinking on Benchmark Task 1 had
developed into established contextual thinking on Benchmark Task 2. Similar criteria
described “very substantial gains”, “no gains”, or “loss”.