{ "input": { "test_number": 1 }, "steps": { "input": { "test_number": 1 }, "build-batches": { "revAItems": [ { "testNumber": 1 } ], "revBItems": [ { "testNumber": 1, "topic": "everyday science topic relevant to teens (e.g., screen-time, sleep, plants, exercise)" } ], "readItems": [ { "passageNum": 1, "count": 8, "genre": "informational_science", "topic": "memory / cognition / neuroscience", "startQ": 10, "testNumber": 1 }, { "passageNum": 2, "count": 9, "genre": "poetry", "topic": "urban life / nature / change", "startQ": 18, "testNumber": 1 }, { "passageNum": 3, "count": 9, "genre": "narrative_nonfiction", "topic": "indigenous community / oral tradition", "startQ": 27, "testNumber": 1 }, { "passageNum": 4, "count": 8, "genre": "informational_science", "topic": "ecology / conservation / land management", "startQ": 36, "testNumber": 1 }, { "passageNum": 5, "count": 8, "genre": "prose_fiction", "topic": "family / coming-of-age", "startQ": 44, "testNumber": 1 }, { "passageNum": 6, "count": 6, "genre": "informational_science", "topic": "wildlife / biology / habitat", "startQ": 52, "testNumber": 1 } ], "mathGridItems": [ { "testNumber": 1 } ], "mathMcqItems": [ { "topic": "pre_algebra", "count": 12, "startQ": 63, "testNumber": 1 }, { "topic": "number_theory", "count": 8, "startQ": 75, "testNumber": 1 }, { "topic": "algebra", "count": 8, "startQ": 83, "testNumber": 1 }, { "topic": "geometry", "count": 9, "startQ": 91, "testNumber": 1 }, { "topic": "probability_statistics", "count": 8, "startQ": 100, "testNumber": 1 }, { "topic": "word_problems", "count": 7, "startQ": 108, "testNumber": 1 } ], "testNumber": 1 }, "gen-rev-a": { "count": 1, "costUsd": 0.084915, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0.084915, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 4 SHSAT Revising/Editing Part A standalone questions.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 1\n\nEach question is INDEPENDENT (no shared passage). Each presents 1-4 sentences in a boxed text and asks the student to identify the best edit.\n\nQUESTION TYPES (use a mix across the 4 questions):\n- punctuation_edit: which comma to add/remove (e.g., \"Insert a comma after X\" / \"Delete the comma after Y\")\n- sentence_revision_in_paragraph: a 4-sentence numbered paragraph, choices \"Sentence N: change X to Y\" — only one revision is needed\n- modifier_clarity: which version makes the modifier placement clearest (entire-sentence rewrites)\n- sentence_structure: which fix corrects a comma splice / run-on / fragment in a paragraph (the choices show the corrected fragment)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-revA-qN\" where N is 1, 2, 3, 4.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING:\n- Q1 → A, B, C, D | correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Q2 → E, F, G, H | correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n- Q3 → A, B, C, D\n- Q4 → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-revA-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"punctuation_edit\" | \"sentence_revision_in_paragraph\" | \"modifier_clarity\" | \"sentence_structure\",\n \"stimulus\": \"the boxed text (1 sentence or a 3-5 sentence numbered paragraph)\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which edit should be made in the sentence?\" or \"How should the paragraph be revised?\" or \"Which revision corrects the error?\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 4 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q1\",\"number\":1,\"type\":\"punctuation_edit\",\"stimulus\":\"After hiking for nearly six hours through the dense humid forest, the exhausted students finally reached the lookout tower at the summit.\",\"prompt\":\"Which edit should be made in the sentence?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Insert a comma after $hiking$.\",\"B\":\"Insert a comma after $dense$.\",\"C\":\"Insert a comma after $exhausted$.\",\"D\":\"Delete the comma after $hours$.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q2\",\"number\":2,\"type\":\"sentence_structure\",\"stimulus\":\"(1) Marine biologists have long been fascinated by octopuses. (2) These creatures can solve complex puzzles, they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside. (3) Some species also use coconut shells as portable shelters. (4) Such behaviors suggest a level of intelligence rarely observed in invertebrates.\",\"prompt\":\"Which revision best corrects the error in sentence 2?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"F\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles, and they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"G\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles, additionally they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"H\":\"These creatures, can solve complex puzzles, they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q3\",\"number\":3,\"type\":\"modifier_clarity\",\"stimulus\":\"Covered in thick layers of dust, the librarian discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf.\",\"prompt\":\"Which revision makes the meaning of the sentence clearest?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"On the top shelf, the librarian discovered an old manuscript covered in thick layers of dust.\",\"B\":\"The librarian discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf, covered in thick layers of dust.\",\"C\":\"Covered in thick layers of dust on the top shelf, the librarian discovered an old manuscript.\",\"D\":\"The librarian, covered in thick layers of dust, discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q4\",\"number\":4,\"type\":\"sentence_revision_in_paragraph\",\"stimulus\":\"(1) The city council approved a new plan to expand the public bike-share program. (2) Under the proposal, fifty additional stations will be built across the outer boroughs. (3) Officials hope the expansion will reduce traffic congestion and encourage healthier commuting. (4) The program, which began in 2013, have steadily grown each year since its launch.\",\"prompt\":\"How should the paragraph be revised?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Sentence 1: change $approved$ to $approves$.\",\"F\":\"Sentence 2: change $will be built$ to $will being built$.\",\"G\":\"Sentence 3: change $encourage$ to $encourages$.\",\"H\":\"Sentence 4: change $have$ to $has$.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"}]}" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0.084915, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 4 SHSAT Revising/Editing Part A standalone questions.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 1\n\nEach question is INDEPENDENT (no shared passage). Each presents 1-4 sentences in a boxed text and asks the student to identify the best edit.\n\nQUESTION TYPES (use a mix across the 4 questions):\n- punctuation_edit: which comma to add/remove (e.g., \"Insert a comma after X\" / \"Delete the comma after Y\")\n- sentence_revision_in_paragraph: a 4-sentence numbered paragraph, choices \"Sentence N: change X to Y\" — only one revision is needed\n- modifier_clarity: which version makes the modifier placement clearest (entire-sentence rewrites)\n- sentence_structure: which fix corrects a comma splice / run-on / fragment in a paragraph (the choices show the corrected fragment)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-revA-qN\" where N is 1, 2, 3, 4.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING:\n- Q1 → A, B, C, D | correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Q2 → E, F, G, H | correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n- Q3 → A, B, C, D\n- Q4 → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-revA-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"punctuation_edit\" | \"sentence_revision_in_paragraph\" | \"modifier_clarity\" | \"sentence_structure\",\n \"stimulus\": \"the boxed text (1 sentence or a 3-5 sentence numbered paragraph)\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which edit should be made in the sentence?\" or \"How should the paragraph be revised?\" or \"Which revision corrects the error?\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 4 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q1\",\"number\":1,\"type\":\"punctuation_edit\",\"stimulus\":\"After hiking for nearly six hours through the dense humid forest, the exhausted students finally reached the lookout tower at the summit.\",\"prompt\":\"Which edit should be made in the sentence?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Insert a comma after $hiking$.\",\"B\":\"Insert a comma after $dense$.\",\"C\":\"Insert a comma after $exhausted$.\",\"D\":\"Delete the comma after $hours$.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q2\",\"number\":2,\"type\":\"sentence_structure\",\"stimulus\":\"(1) Marine biologists have long been fascinated by octopuses. (2) These creatures can solve complex puzzles, they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside. (3) Some species also use coconut shells as portable shelters. (4) Such behaviors suggest a level of intelligence rarely observed in invertebrates.\",\"prompt\":\"Which revision best corrects the error in sentence 2?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"F\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles, and they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"G\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles, additionally they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"H\":\"These creatures, can solve complex puzzles, they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q3\",\"number\":3,\"type\":\"modifier_clarity\",\"stimulus\":\"Covered in thick layers of dust, the librarian discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf.\",\"prompt\":\"Which revision makes the meaning of the sentence clearest?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"On the top shelf, the librarian discovered an old manuscript covered in thick layers of dust.\",\"B\":\"The librarian discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf, covered in thick layers of dust.\",\"C\":\"Covered in thick layers of dust on the top shelf, the librarian discovered an old manuscript.\",\"D\":\"The librarian, covered in thick layers of dust, discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q4\",\"number\":4,\"type\":\"sentence_revision_in_paragraph\",\"stimulus\":\"(1) The city council approved a new plan to expand the public bike-share program. (2) Under the proposal, fifty additional stations will be built across the outer boroughs. (3) Officials hope the expansion will reduce traffic congestion and encourage healthier commuting. (4) The program, which began in 2013, have steadily grown each year since its launch.\",\"prompt\":\"How should the paragraph be revised?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Sentence 1: change $approved$ to $approves$.\",\"F\":\"Sentence 2: change $will be built$ to $will being built$.\",\"G\":\"Sentence 3: change $encourage$ to $encourages$.\",\"H\":\"Sentence 4: change $have$ to $has$.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 1 }, "gen-rev-b": { "count": 1, "costUsd": 0.907515, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0.907515, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Revising/Editing Part B passage with EXACTLY 5 questions (Q5-Q9).\nTest number: 1 | Topic: everyday science topic relevant to teens (e.g., screen-time, sleep, plants, exercise)\n\nPASSAGE:\n- 250-350 words, 3-4 paragraphs\n- Sentences NUMBERED inline as (1) (2) (3) ... up to 17-20 sentences total\n- Topic: everyday science topic relevant to teens (e.g., screen-time, sleep, plants, exercise) (informational essay)\n- Title at top\n- Has a clear central topic that the questions probe (organization, support, transitions, cohesion)\n\nQUESTION TYPES (use these 5 in order):\n- Q5: best topic-introducing sentence to follow sentence 3 (4 sentence options)\n- Q6: best transition word/phrase to add to sentence X (options: \"As a result,\" / \"Primarily,\" / \"In contrast,\" / \"Unfortunately,\")\n- Q7: best supporting sentence to follow sentence Y (4 sentence options)\n- Q8: which sentence presents irrelevant ideas and should be deleted (4 sentence-number options)\n- Q9: best concluding sentence to follow the final sentence (4 sentence options)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-revB-qN\" where N is 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING:\n- Q5 → A, B, C, D\n- Q6 → E, F, G, H\n- Q7 → A, B, C, D\n- Q8 → E, F, G, H\n- Q9 → A, B, C, D\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-revB-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"introduction\"|\"transition\"|\"supporting_evidence\"|\"deletion\"|\"conclusion\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-revB-passage\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-revB-passage\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"text\": \"(1) ... (2) ... (3) ... ...\"\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 5 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"title\":\"Why Teens Can't Just Go to Bed Earlier\",\"text\":\"(1) Most teenagers have heard the familiar advice to get more sleep, yet few realize how dramatically their biology resists early bedtimes. (2) During adolescence, the brain shifts its internal clock, releasing the sleep hormone melatonin roughly two hours later than it does in younger children. (3) This biological change explains why a thirteen-year-old who once drifted off at nine now finds herself wide awake at eleven. (4) Researchers at the American Academy of Pediatrics report that teens sleeping fewer than seven hours per night perform measurably worse on tests of memory and attention. (5) Chronic sleep loss has also been linked to higher rates of anxiety, weakened immune response, and an increased risk of car accidents among new drivers. (6) Even athletic performance suffers, since muscles repair themselves primarily during the deepest stages of slumber. (7) Coaches have noticed that well-rested players sprint faster, react more quickly, and recover from injuries in less time. (8) _______ many American middle and high schools still begin classes before eight in the morning, forcing students out of bed long before their bodies are biologically prepared. (9) A handful of districts, however, have experimented with later start times and reported encouraging results. (10) The earliest public high school in the United States opened in Boston in 1821. (11) Even shifting the morning bell by thirty minutes has produced measurable gains in attendance and grades. (12) Of course, school schedules are only part of the picture; teens themselves can take steps to protect their rest. (13) Experts recommend dimming screens at least an hour before bedtime, since the blue light emitted by phones and laptops can suppress melatonin production. (14) Keeping a consistent sleep schedule on weekends, rather than sleeping until noon on Saturday, also helps stabilize the body's natural rhythms. (15) Caffeine, too, lingers in the bloodstream far longer than most teens realize—an afternoon iced coffee can still be active at midnight. (16) Some students even swear by short naps after school, though experts caution that naps longer than thirty minutes can interfere with nighttime sleep. (17) Even simply keeping the bedroom cool and dark can shave precious minutes off the time it takes to fall asleep.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q5\",\"number\":5,\"type\":\"introduction\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 3 to introduce the focus of the next paragraph. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"These shifted rhythms might seem like a minor inconvenience, but the consequences of chronic sleep loss reach into nearly every part of a teenager's life.\",\"B\":\"Teenagers also enjoy a wide range of hobbies, from competitive gaming to varsity sports, that fill their busy afternoons.\",\"C\":\"Scientists have studied many fascinating aspects of human biology over the past century.\",\"D\":\"Going to bed earlier is something every adolescent should simply try harder to do.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q6\",\"number\":6,\"type\":\"transition\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"Which transition would best fit in the blank at the beginning of sentence 8?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"As a result,\",\"F\":\"Primarily,\",\"G\":\"In contrast,\",\"H\":\"Unfortunately,\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q7\",\"number\":7,\"type\":\"supporting_evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 9 to provide concrete support for the claim about districts that adopted later start times. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Some parents, however, remain unconvinced that adjusting the school day is worth the trouble.\",\"B\":\"Schools serve many different roles in the lives of American teenagers and their families.\",\"C\":\"Researchers at the University of Minnesota tracked thousands of students before and after their schools delayed bell schedules and documented significant gains in standardized test scores.\",\"D\":\"Districts often debate budgets, calendars, and curriculum requirements during their spring planning meetings.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q8\",\"number\":8,\"type\":\"deletion\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"Which sentence presents an irrelevant idea and should be deleted from the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"sentence 7\",\"F\":\"sentence 10\",\"G\":\"sentence 14\",\"H\":\"sentence 16\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q9\",\"number\":9,\"type\":\"conclusion\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a concluding sentence to follow sentence 17. Which choice most effectively wraps up the central argument of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"In conclusion, melatonin is an interesting hormone that scientists are still working hard to understand.\",\"B\":\"Therefore, teenagers should always avoid coffee and energy drinks at any cost.\",\"C\":\"Schools must change their schedules immediately if they want any of their students to succeed.\",\"D\":\"Sleep, then, is not simply a matter of willpower; it is a partnership between biology, school schedules, and the daily choices teenagers make.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"D\"}]}" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0.907515, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Revising/Editing Part B passage with EXACTLY 5 questions (Q5-Q9).\nTest number: 1 | Topic: everyday science topic relevant to teens (e.g., screen-time, sleep, plants, exercise)\n\nPASSAGE:\n- 250-350 words, 3-4 paragraphs\n- Sentences NUMBERED inline as (1) (2) (3) ... up to 17-20 sentences total\n- Topic: everyday science topic relevant to teens (e.g., screen-time, sleep, plants, exercise) (informational essay)\n- Title at top\n- Has a clear central topic that the questions probe (organization, support, transitions, cohesion)\n\nQUESTION TYPES (use these 5 in order):\n- Q5: best topic-introducing sentence to follow sentence 3 (4 sentence options)\n- Q6: best transition word/phrase to add to sentence X (options: \"As a result,\" / \"Primarily,\" / \"In contrast,\" / \"Unfortunately,\")\n- Q7: best supporting sentence to follow sentence Y (4 sentence options)\n- Q8: which sentence presents irrelevant ideas and should be deleted (4 sentence-number options)\n- Q9: best concluding sentence to follow the final sentence (4 sentence options)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-revB-qN\" where N is 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING:\n- Q5 → A, B, C, D\n- Q6 → E, F, G, H\n- Q7 → A, B, C, D\n- Q8 → E, F, G, H\n- Q9 → A, B, C, D\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-revB-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"introduction\"|\"transition\"|\"supporting_evidence\"|\"deletion\"|\"conclusion\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-revB-passage\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-revB-passage\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"text\": \"(1) ... (2) ... (3) ... ...\"\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 5 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"title\":\"Why Teens Can't Just Go to Bed Earlier\",\"text\":\"(1) Most teenagers have heard the familiar advice to get more sleep, yet few realize how dramatically their biology resists early bedtimes. (2) During adolescence, the brain shifts its internal clock, releasing the sleep hormone melatonin roughly two hours later than it does in younger children. (3) This biological change explains why a thirteen-year-old who once drifted off at nine now finds herself wide awake at eleven. (4) Researchers at the American Academy of Pediatrics report that teens sleeping fewer than seven hours per night perform measurably worse on tests of memory and attention. (5) Chronic sleep loss has also been linked to higher rates of anxiety, weakened immune response, and an increased risk of car accidents among new drivers. (6) Even athletic performance suffers, since muscles repair themselves primarily during the deepest stages of slumber. (7) Coaches have noticed that well-rested players sprint faster, react more quickly, and recover from injuries in less time. (8) _______ many American middle and high schools still begin classes before eight in the morning, forcing students out of bed long before their bodies are biologically prepared. (9) A handful of districts, however, have experimented with later start times and reported encouraging results. (10) The earliest public high school in the United States opened in Boston in 1821. (11) Even shifting the morning bell by thirty minutes has produced measurable gains in attendance and grades. (12) Of course, school schedules are only part of the picture; teens themselves can take steps to protect their rest. (13) Experts recommend dimming screens at least an hour before bedtime, since the blue light emitted by phones and laptops can suppress melatonin production. (14) Keeping a consistent sleep schedule on weekends, rather than sleeping until noon on Saturday, also helps stabilize the body's natural rhythms. (15) Caffeine, too, lingers in the bloodstream far longer than most teens realize—an afternoon iced coffee can still be active at midnight. (16) Some students even swear by short naps after school, though experts caution that naps longer than thirty minutes can interfere with nighttime sleep. (17) Even simply keeping the bedroom cool and dark can shave precious minutes off the time it takes to fall asleep.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q5\",\"number\":5,\"type\":\"introduction\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 3 to introduce the focus of the next paragraph. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"These shifted rhythms might seem like a minor inconvenience, but the consequences of chronic sleep loss reach into nearly every part of a teenager's life.\",\"B\":\"Teenagers also enjoy a wide range of hobbies, from competitive gaming to varsity sports, that fill their busy afternoons.\",\"C\":\"Scientists have studied many fascinating aspects of human biology over the past century.\",\"D\":\"Going to bed earlier is something every adolescent should simply try harder to do.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q6\",\"number\":6,\"type\":\"transition\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"Which transition would best fit in the blank at the beginning of sentence 8?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"As a result,\",\"F\":\"Primarily,\",\"G\":\"In contrast,\",\"H\":\"Unfortunately,\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q7\",\"number\":7,\"type\":\"supporting_evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 9 to provide concrete support for the claim about districts that adopted later start times. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Some parents, however, remain unconvinced that adjusting the school day is worth the trouble.\",\"B\":\"Schools serve many different roles in the lives of American teenagers and their families.\",\"C\":\"Researchers at the University of Minnesota tracked thousands of students before and after their schools delayed bell schedules and documented significant gains in standardized test scores.\",\"D\":\"Districts often debate budgets, calendars, and curriculum requirements during their spring planning meetings.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q8\",\"number\":8,\"type\":\"deletion\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"Which sentence presents an irrelevant idea and should be deleted from the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"sentence 7\",\"F\":\"sentence 10\",\"G\":\"sentence 14\",\"H\":\"sentence 16\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q9\",\"number\":9,\"type\":\"conclusion\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a concluding sentence to follow sentence 17. Which choice most effectively wraps up the central argument of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"In conclusion, melatonin is an interesting hormone that scientists are still working hard to understand.\",\"B\":\"Therefore, teenagers should always avoid coffee and energy drinks at any cost.\",\"C\":\"Schools must change their schedules immediately if they want any of their students to succeed.\",\"D\":\"Sleep, then, is not simply a matter of willpower; it is a partnership between biology, school schedules, and the daily choices teenagers make.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"D\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 1 }, "gen-read": { "count": 6, "costUsd": 1.9728899999999998, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0.28089, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 1 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 10 | Topic: memory / cognition / neuroscience\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-qN\" where N starts at 10.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\n\"passage\": {\n\"id\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n\"title\": \"The Sleeping Architect: How the Brain Rebuilds Memory at Night\",\n\"text\": \"1 For most of the twentieth century, scientists treated sleep as a kind of biological pause button—a period when the body repaired tissues and the brain, presumably, idled. The memories a person carried to bed were assumed to be the same memories waiting in the morning. Beginning in the 1990s, however, a growing body of evidence began to overturn this assumption. Researchers now describe sleep not as a passive intermission but as an active rehearsal in which the brain edits, strengthens, and sometimes even rewrites the experiences of the day.\\n\\n2 The clearest demonstration of this rehearsal came from rats, not humans. In 1994, neuroscientists Matthew Wilson and Bruce McNaughton recorded the electrical activity of neurons in the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped region buried deep in the brain that is essential for forming new memories. As the rats explored a small maze, particular cells, called place cells, fired in a distinctive sequence that mapped the animals' route. When the rats later fell asleep, the same cells fired again, in the same order—only faster, sometimes at twenty times the original speed. The brain, in other words, was replaying the maze in miniature, long after the maze had been put away.\\n\\n3 This phenomenon, now called memory replay, has since been observed in birds, primates, and, with the help of indirect imaging, in human beings. The replays appear to occur most often during slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of non-dreaming rest, when long, lazy waves of electrical activity wash across the cortex. According to a model proposed by researcher Jan Born of the University of Tübingen, these waves act as a kind of conductor: they invite the hippocampus to broadcast recent memories to the cortex, where they can be filed into more permanent storage. Without this nightly conversation, Born argues, the cortex would never learn what the hippocampus had been collecting.\\n\\n4 The consequences for learning are striking. In one widely cited 2004 experiment, Harvard researcher Robert Stickgold trained volunteers on a finger-tapping task, asking them to type a short sequence as quickly and accurately as they could. Subjects who slept for a full night before being tested again improved by roughly twenty percent, while those who stayed awake the same number of hours showed almost no improvement at all. The motor circuits that controlled their fingers, it seemed, had practiced the sequence overnight without their knowledge.\\n\\n5 Sleep does more than polish skills, however. It also appears to discard them, or at least to weaken connections that the brain has decided are unimportant. The neuroscientist Giulio Tononi has championed a theory called synaptic homeostasis, which holds that during waking hours synapses—the junctions between neurons—grow stronger and more numerous as we absorb new information. By the end of the day, the brain is overloaded, like a notebook crammed with marginal scribbles. Slow-wave sleep, Tononi proposes, prunes the weakest of these connections, freeing room for tomorrow's learning. The memories that survive the pruning, paradoxically, become easier to retrieve precisely because their neighbors have faded.\\n\\n6 Dreams, long the most mysterious feature of sleep, may participate in this editing process as well. Studies of REM sleep, the stage in which most vivid dreams occur, have shown that volunteers who solve a creative puzzle—such as finding a hidden pattern in a string of numbers—are far more likely to discover the trick after a nap that includes REM than after one that does not. The dreaming brain, freed from the constraints of literal experience, seems able to combine memories in unexpected ways, occasionally stumbling onto a useful connection.\\n\\n7 Not all of the brain's nighttime activity is benign. Traumatic memories, researchers have found, can also be replayed during sleep, sometimes intensifying rather than fading. A 2017 study at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that REM sleep ordinarily strips emotional memories of their distress, leaving the facts intact while softening the feelings. When this stripping fails, as it appears to in some cases of post-traumatic stress, the same memory may return, night after night, with its original force undimmed.\\n\\n8 These findings have begun to change the advice that doctors and educators give. A student who pulls an all-nighter, the new science suggests, is not merely tired; she has skipped the very process by which the day's lessons become her own. Sleep, far from being a passive shutdown, may be the hidden classroom in which the brain decides what is worth remembering—and what is best left behind.\"\n},\n\"questions\": [\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q10\",\n\"number\": 10,\n\"type\": \"main_idea\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"Sleep researchers have proven that humans can learn entirely new skills while they sleep, without any prior practice.\",\n\"F\": \"Although sleep was once viewed as a passive state, research now shows it is a period of active memory processing that strengthens, prunes, and reorganizes what the brain has learned.\",\n\"G\": \"The hippocampus is the most important region of the brain for storing memories permanently, and it works only during slow-wave sleep.\",\n\"H\": \"Dreams produced during REM sleep are responsible for nearly all of the creative breakthroughs that scientists, artists, and inventors experience.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q11\",\n\"number\": 11,\n\"type\": \"detail\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"According to paragraph 2, what was unusual about the firing of place cells in the sleeping rats?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"The cells fired in a different order than they had during the maze, suggesting a new memory was forming.\",\n\"B\": \"The cells fired only when the rats were dreaming, never during deeper stages of sleep.\",\n\"C\": \"The cells repeated the original sequence, but did so far more rapidly than during the actual exploration.\",\n\"D\": \"The cells failed to fire at all unless the rats were placed back in the maze the following day.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q12\",\n\"number\": 12,\n\"type\": \"vocabulary_in_context\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"As used in paragraph 3, the word \\\"broadcast\\\" most nearly means\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"to scatter seeds across a wide area.\",\n\"F\": \"to announce loudly to a public audience.\",\n\"G\": \"to transmit information to another location.\",\n\"H\": \"to interrupt with sudden noise.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q13\",\n\"number\": 13,\n\"type\": \"author_purpose\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Why does the author most likely include the description of Stickgold's finger-tapping experiment in paragraph 4?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"To suggest that motor skills cannot be improved without specialized coaching.\",\n\"B\": \"To provide concrete evidence that sleep itself, rather than mere rest, produces measurable gains in learning.\",\n\"C\": \"To argue that Harvard researchers have done more important work on memory than researchers elsewhere.\",\n\"D\": \"To question whether the rat studies described earlier in the passage apply to human beings.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q14\",\n\"number\": 14,\n\"type\": \"inference\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Based on paragraph 5, which conclusion about Tononi's theory of synaptic homeostasis is best supported?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"Forgetting unimportant details may be necessary for important memories to remain easy to recall.\",\n\"F\": \"The brain's synapses are completely rebuilt from scratch during each night of slow-wave sleep.\",\n\"G\": \"People who sleep longer than eight hours form stronger memories than people who sleep less.\",\n\"H\": \"The hippocampus is the only region of the brain that participates in synaptic pruning.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q15\",\n\"number\": 15,\n\"type\": \"structure\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"How does paragraph 7 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"It introduces a competing theory that disproves the claims made in earlier paragraphs.\",\n\"B\": \"It returns the discussion to the rat studies that opened the passage and offers a final example.\",\n\"C\": \"It complicates the picture of sleep as helpful by showing that the same replay process can sometimes worsen distress.\",\n\"D\": \"It shifts the focus from memory to dreaming and argues that dreams are more important than slow-wave sleep.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q16\",\n\"number\": 16,\n\"type\": \"evidence\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Which quotation best supports the idea that scientists' understanding of sleep has changed dramatically over time?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"\\\"For most of the twentieth century, scientists treated sleep as a kind of biological pause button.\\\"\",\n\"F\": \"\\\"In 1994, neuroscientists Matthew Wilson and Bruce McNaughton recorded the electrical activity of neurons in the hippocampus.\\\"\",\n\"G\": \"\\\"The replays appear to occur most often during slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of non-dreaming rest.\\\"\",\n\"H\": \"\\\"Studies of REM sleep . . . have shown that volunteers who solve a creative puzzle . . . are far more likely to discover the trick after a nap that includes REM.\\\"\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q17\",\n\"number\": 17,\n\"type\": \"tone\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"The author's use of phrases such as \\\"hidden classroom\\\" and \\\"sleeping architect\\\" most strongly suggests an attitude that is\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"skeptical of the scientific findings being described.\",\n\"B\": \"appreciative of the brain's quiet but purposeful work during sleep.\",\n\"C\": \"alarmed by the dangers that sleep may pose to memory.\",\n\"D\": \"indifferent to the practical implications of the research.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n}\n]\n}" }, { "costUsd": 0.208815, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 9 questions.\nPassage number: 2 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: poetry | First Q: 18 | Topic: urban life / nature / change\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p2-qN\" where N starts at 18.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p2-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p2\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p2\",\n \"genre\": \"poetry\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"genre\":\"poetry\",\"title\":\"Lot 47, Bedford Avenue\",\"author\":\"Mariana Olwen\",\"text\":\"Line 1: They came on Tuesday with the orange tape\\nLine 2: and a clipboard heavier than the building itself,\\nLine 3: measuring what the wrecking ball already knew\\u2014\\nLine 4: that the corner store on Bedford had been leaning\\nLine 5: into the wind for forty winters, patient as a grandmother.\\n\\nLine 6: I used to count the cracks above the freezer case\\nLine 7: while Mr. Deol counted my quarters,\\nLine 8: each of us pretending the other wasn't watching.\\nLine 9: Now the bricks come down like a deck of cards\\nLine 10: shuffled by a careless hand.\\n\\nLine 11: A sycamore had crept against the back wall,\\nLine 12: roots threading the foundation like stitches\\nLine 13: holding two torn pages together.\\nLine 14: When the bulldozer pushed, the tree gave first,\\nLine 15: which surprised no one but the tree.\\n\\nLine 16: In the lot's new emptiness, light arrives early.\\nLine 17: I had forgotten the eastern sky existed here\\u2014\\nLine 18: it had been a rumor behind the awning,\\nLine 19: a postcard mailed but never opened.\\nLine 20: Pigeons wheel above the rubble, palimpsest\\u00b9\\nLine 21: of every roof they have ever circled.\\n\\nLine 22: A boy I do not know plants a sunflower seed\\nLine 23: in the cracked grout where the doorway stood.\\nLine 24: He waters it from a juice bottle, solemn as a priest.\\nLine 25: I want to tell him the developers will return in May,\\nLine 26: that this lot is already someone's spreadsheet,\\nLine 27: that nothing here belongs to him.\\n\\nLine 28: Instead I nod, the way you nod at weather,\\nLine 29: and walk home past the scaffolding, where a finch\\u00b2\\nLine 30: is teaching its small, unbothered song to the cranes.\",\"footnotes\":[{\"term\":\"palimpsest\",\"definition\":\"a surface that has been written on, erased, and written on again, so that traces of earlier writing remain\"},{\"term\":\"finch\",\"definition\":\"a small songbird often found in cities and gardens\"}]},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q18\",\"number\":18,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central theme of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Cities inevitably destroy the natural world that surrounds them.\",\"F\":\"The disappearance of familiar places creates both loss and unexpected openings.\",\"G\":\"Children are the only people who can find meaning in urban change.\",\"H\":\"Old buildings are usually safer and more beautiful than new ones.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q19\",\"number\":19,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"In line 5, the phrase \\\"patient as a grandmother\\\" suggests that the corner store\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"has endured for a long time with a quiet, familiar steadiness.\",\"B\":\"is run by an elderly woman who knows the speaker well.\",\"C\":\"has begun to deteriorate because of neglect and old age.\",\"D\":\"reminds the speaker of relatives who have recently passed away.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q20\",\"number\":20,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"How does the second stanza (lines 6-10) contribute to the development of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"It introduces a conflict between the speaker and Mr. Deol that is later resolved.\",\"F\":\"It shifts the focus from demolition to a memory that gives the lost building personal meaning.\",\"G\":\"It explains the financial reasons why the corner store was forced to close.\",\"H\":\"It contrasts the speaker's childhood with the childhood of the boy mentioned later.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q21\",\"number\":21,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Lines 14-15 (\\\"When the bulldozer pushed... but the tree\\\") most strongly suggest that\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"the sycamore had been weakened by disease before the demolition began.\",\"B\":\"living things often misjudge the forces aligned against them.\",\"C\":\"the demolition crew acted carelessly and damaged unintended property.\",\"D\":\"trees in cities tend to grow more slowly than those in the countryside.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q22\",\"number\":22,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"In lines 17-19, the speaker compares the eastern sky to \\\"a rumor\\\" and \\\"a postcard mailed but never opened\\\" primarily to emphasize that the sky\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"had been deliberately hidden by the store's owners for many years.\",\"F\":\"appeared unfamiliar and unwelcome once the building was gone.\",\"G\":\"had been present all along but unnoticed because of the building.\",\"H\":\"is more beautiful in this neighborhood than in surrounding areas.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q23\",\"number\":23,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"The footnoted word \\\"palimpsest\\\" (line 20) is used in the poem to suggest that the pigeons\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"are confused by the changing landscape and unable to find their old nests.\",\"B\":\"carry within their flight the layered memory of every place they have known.\",\"C\":\"return to the lot only because they expect food from former customers.\",\"D\":\"represent the developers who will soon overwrite the neighborhood again.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q24\",\"number\":24,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"The description of the boy in lines 22-24 is best characterized as\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"mocking and dismissive of his naive efforts.\",\"F\":\"reverent toward an act of small but earnest hope.\",\"G\":\"alarmed by his trespassing on private property.\",\"H\":\"indifferent to a stranger's unimportant gesture.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q25\",\"number\":25,\"type\":\"theme_development\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Lines 25-27 (\\\"I want to tell him... belongs to him\\\") most clearly develop the poem's theme by\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"revealing the speaker's awareness that hopeful gestures cannot stop economic forces.\",\"B\":\"showing that the speaker resents the boy for intruding on a private moment of mourning.\",\"C\":\"arguing that the city government should compensate displaced shopkeepers.\",\"D\":\"suggesting that the speaker plans to warn the developers about the new sunflower.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q26\",\"number\":26,\"type\":\"comparison\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"How does the final image of the finch (lines 29-30) relate to the rest of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"It contradicts the earlier scenes by suggesting that the neighborhood has not really changed.\",\"F\":\"It reinforces the speaker's earlier claim that nature cannot survive in the city.\",\"G\":\"It offers a quiet counterpoint to loss, showing life continuing alongside construction.\",\"H\":\"It returns to the grandmother image from the first stanza to complete a circular structure.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"}]}" }, { "costUsd": 0.26019, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 9 questions.\nPassage number: 3 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: narrative_nonfiction | First Q: 27 | Topic: indigenous community / oral tradition\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p3-qN\" where N starts at 27.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p3-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p3\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p3\",\n \"genre\": \"narrative_nonfiction\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"genre\":\"narrative_nonfiction\",\"title\":\"The Cedar Keeper of Hoonah\",\"author\":\"Marian Trask\",\"intro_line\":\"The narrator, a journalist, travels to a small village in southeast Alaska to record stories with a Tlingit elder named Naa Tláa.\",\"text\":\"(1) The float plane skipped across Icy Strait and shuddered to a halt at the wooden dock in Hoonah. I had come to record stories — or rather, I had come hoping to be allowed to record them. My editor in Seattle had given me a tidy list of questions about Tlingit oral tradition, the kind of questions that fit neatly into a magazine column. I would learn, before the week was out, that the list was useless.\\n\\n(2) Naa Tláa met me at the dock in a faded blue parka. She was perhaps seventy, perhaps ninety; the women in her family, she later told me, did not often bother with birthdays. She studied my recorder, my notebook, and my carefully ironed shirt with the same patient curiosity she might show a curious bird. Then she said, \\\"You will help me split cedar. After that, we will see what there is to talk about.\\\"\\n\\n(3) For three days I split cedar. My hands blistered, then bled, then hardened. Naa Tláa worked beside me, humming songs whose words I did not catch. She did not ask me about my list. When I tried, once, to bring it up, she looked toward the strait and said only, \\\"Stories are not groceries. You cannot put them in a basket and carry them home.\\\"\\n\\n(4) On the fourth morning, she told me about her grandfather. He had been a storyteller — a shagóon keeper, she said, one who carried the names and the deeds of the clan. As a boy, he had been forbidden to speak Lingít in the boarding school the government sent him to. The teachers, he had told her, washed his mouth with soap whenever he forgot. And yet, alone at night, under a wool blanket that smelled of other children's homesickness, he had whispered the old stories to himself so that he would not forget the shape of them. \\\"He kept them in his mouth like a smooth stone,\\\" Naa Tláa said. \\\"He did not let them fall out.\\\"\\n\\n(5) I asked, gently, if I could record her telling one of those stories. She laughed — not unkindly — and shook her head. \\\"Not yet,\\\" she said. \\\"You do not know who is in the story. You would write down the words and think you had it.\\\" She tapped my notebook with a finger callused from decades of weaving. \\\"A story is not the words. A story is the room the words make. You must learn the room first.\\\"\\n\\n(6) That afternoon she took me to the smokehouse, where her nephew Daniel was tending salmon over alder coals. Daniel was twenty-six and worked, in the off-season, as a software engineer in Juneau. He spoke Lingít haltingly, he admitted, but he had begun studying with Naa Tláa each Sunday evening over the phone. \\\"She corrects my vowels for an hour,\\\" he said, grinning. \\\"Then she tells me a story I am not allowed to write down. Then she hangs up.\\\" He turned a salmon on its rack. \\\"It is the most patient teaching I have ever received.\\\"\\n\\n(7) I began to understand, slowly, that the stories Naa Tláa carried were not artifacts to be preserved behind glass. They were living things, and like all living things they required a relationship. To tell them to a stranger with a recorder would be like handing a stranger one's child. The recorder did not care who was listening, or whether the listener had earned the listening. Naa Tláa cared a great deal.\\n\\n(8) On my last evening, she sat with me on the porch and watched a raven harry an eagle out over the water. She did not tell me a clan story. Instead, she told me about the time, in 1962, when her aunt had walked twelve miles in deep snow to bring medicine to a cousin's child. It was a small story, an everyday story, and she told it as if it were the most important thing in the world. When she finished, she looked at me and said, \\\"You can write that one down. That one is yours now, because you split cedar.\\\"\\n\\n(9) I flew out the next morning with my recorder still empty and my notebook nearly so. My editor was not pleased. But I had begun, I think, to understand the shape of the room.\",\"footnotes\":[{\"term\":\"shagóon\",\"definition\":\"In Tlingit culture, the ancestral heritage that connects a person to clan, history, and place.\"},{\"term\":\"Lingít\",\"definition\":\"The Tlingit language, indigenous to southeast Alaska.\"}]},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q27\",\"number\":27,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Recording oral traditions is the most reliable way to preserve a culture for future generations.\",\"B\":\"Tlingit elders are reluctant to share their traditions with outsiders because of past injustices.\",\"C\":\"Understanding a community's stories requires building relationships, not simply collecting words.\",\"D\":\"Modern technology has made it easier than ever for journalists to document indigenous languages.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q28\",\"number\":28,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 3, the statement \\\"Stories are not groceries\\\" most nearly means that stories\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"cannot be purchased from those who own them.\",\"F\":\"cannot be removed from their context and taken away whole.\",\"G\":\"are nourishing in ways that ordinary food is not.\",\"H\":\"are too fragile to survive long journeys.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q29\",\"number\":29,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 4, how did Naa Tláa's grandfather preserve the old stories during his time at the boarding school?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"He wrote them down in a hidden notebook beneath his bed.\",\"B\":\"He taught them quietly to the other Tlingit children at the school.\",\"C\":\"He whispered them to himself at night so he would not forget them.\",\"D\":\"He repeated them to his teachers in defiance of the school's rules.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q30\",\"number\":30,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the description of Daniel in paragraph 6 in order to\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"contrast Daniel's modern career with Naa Tláa's traditional way of life.\",\"F\":\"suggest that younger Tlingit people have largely abandoned the old traditions.\",\"G\":\"illustrate that the transmission of oral tradition continues through patient, ongoing relationships.\",\"H\":\"emphasize how difficult the Lingít language is for young people to learn.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q31\",\"number\":31,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"It can reasonably be inferred from the passage that Naa Tláa required the narrator to split cedar primarily because\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"she needed practical help preparing materials for weaving and building.\",\"B\":\"she wanted to test whether the narrator was willing to invest effort before being trusted.\",\"C\":\"physical labor is a traditional requirement before any Tlingit story can be told.\",\"D\":\"she hoped the narrator would abandon the project and return to Seattle.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q32\",\"number\":32,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"In paragraph 5, Naa Tláa's statement that \\\"a story is the room the words make\\\" emphasizes that\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"the words of a story are less memorable than its setting.\",\"F\":\"a story should always be told in a single, quiet location.\",\"G\":\"the meaning of a story depends on the relationships and context surrounding it.\",\"H\":\"stories are best understood when written down and read carefully.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q33\",\"number\":33,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"How does paragraph 7 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"It introduces a new conflict between Naa Tláa and the narrator's editor.\",\"B\":\"It articulates the realization that allows the narrator to reinterpret earlier events.\",\"C\":\"It provides historical background about the boarding-school system.\",\"D\":\"It shifts the focus away from Naa Tláa to the narrator's professional concerns.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q34\",\"number\":34,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage best supports the idea that the narrator's understanding of journalism has been changed by the visit?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"\\\"My editor in Seattle had given me a tidy list of questions about Tlingit oral tradition...\\\"\",\"F\":\"\\\"For three days I split cedar. My hands blistered, then bled, then hardened.\\\"\",\"G\":\"\\\"He turned a salmon on its rack. 'It is the most patient teaching I have ever received.'\\\"\",\"H\":\"\\\"I flew out the next morning with my recorder still empty and my notebook nearly so... But I had begun, I think, to understand the shape of the room.\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q35\",\"number\":35,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"The narrator's tone throughout the passage is best described as\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"reverent and reflective.\",\"B\":\"defensive and impatient.\",\"C\":\"detached and analytical.\",\"D\":\"sentimental and nostalgic.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"}]}" }, { "costUsd": 0.721815, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 4 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 36 | Topic: ecology / conservation / land management\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p4-qN\" where N starts at 36.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p4-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p4\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p4\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"genre\":\"informational_science\",\"title\":\"The Engineers Return\",\"text\":\"(1) For more than a century, North American beavers were trapped relentlessly for their dense, water-repellent fur, a pursuit that drove their population from an estimated 60 million in 1600 to fewer than 100,000 by 1900. Their near disappearance reshaped the continent's waterways in ways that few people noticed at the time. Without beavers to fell saplings, plug streams, and flood low meadows, thousands of wetlands quietly drained away. Streams that had once meandered through brushy floodplains became straight, narrow channels racing toward the sea. Today, ecologists are working to bring beavers back—and in doing so, they are rediscovering just how much these animals shape the land.\\n\\n(2) Beavers are sometimes called \\\"ecosystem engineers\\\" because of the elaborate dams they construct from logs, sticks, and mud. A single colony, working through a summer, can transform a trickling brook into a series of stepped ponds and saturated meadows. The water that pools behind a dam slows down, allowing sediment to settle and giving plants time to take root along the banks. Insects multiply in the still water, drawing fish, frogs, and migrating birds. Researchers at Utah State University, surveying restored beaver sites in 2018, recorded an average of seventy-five percent more bird species at active dams than at comparable stretches of open stream.\\n\\n(3) Perhaps the most striking finding has come from regions threatened by drought. Dr. Emily Fairfax, a hydrologist who studies beaver-modified landscapes, used satellite imagery to compare wetlands with and without beavers during the severe western droughts of 2018 and 2020. In one set of comparisons across California and Nevada, areas containing beaver dams remained as much as three times greener than nearby waterways during peak summer heat. The pooled water, Fairfax noted, was acting as a slow-release reservoir: rather than rushing downstream after spring snowmelt, it lingered in the soil and emerged through the dry months. When wildfires later swept through the region, beaver complexes acted as natural firebreaks, the moist vegetation refusing to ignite even as the surrounding hillsides burned.\\n\\n(4) Such findings have shifted how land managers think about beavers. For decades, the animals were treated mostly as pests: chewing through ornamental trees, plugging culverts, and flooding farm fields. Trappers and county crews often removed problem beavers without considering whether the resulting drained meadow might be more harmful than the animals themselves. In Washington State's Methow Valley, biologists with a project called the Methow Beaver Project began, in 2008, to capture beavers from areas where they were unwanted and release them into degraded creeks high in the mountains. By 2022, the program had relocated more than 400 beavers, and follow-up surveys showed expanded wetlands at a majority of the release sites.\\n\\n(5) Reintroduction is far from simple. Beavers do not always stay where biologists place them; some swim downstream within hours of release, searching for mates or familiar territory. Others build dams in spots that conflict with roads, septic systems, or irrigation ditches. To address these conflicts, engineers have designed devices known as \\\"pond levelers\\\"—pipes set through a dam that quietly drain excess water without alarming the beavers, who respond to the sound of running water by piling on more sticks. With levelers in place, a dam can stay intact while the pond behind it stops creeping into a neighbor's pasture.\\n\\n(6) Critics caution that beavers are not a universal remedy. In some heavily altered watersheds, the animals lack enough woody vegetation to sustain a colony, and translocated families starve or disperse. Steep, fast-moving streams can wash dams away before they mature. And in places where invasive plants such as reed canary grass dominate the banks, beaver activity can sometimes spread the invader rather than restore native diversity. \\\"We have to read the landscape,\\\" Fairfax has written, \\\"and ask whether it is asking for beavers, or asking for something else first.\\\"\\n\\n(7) Still, the broader trend is unmistakable. State agencies that once paid bounties on beavers now subsidize relocation programs. Schoolchildren in Oregon trace beaver-shaped maps of their watersheds. The animal that was nearly erased from the continent has become, for many ecologists, a quiet emblem of how the smallest engineers can repair what larger forces have broken.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q36\",\"number\":36,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement BEST expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Once viewed primarily as nuisances, beavers are increasingly recognized for the ways their dam-building can restore wetlands and buffer landscapes against drought and fire.\",\"F\":\"Although beaver populations have largely recovered, conflicts with human infrastructure remain the greatest obstacle to expanding North American wetlands.\",\"G\":\"Recent satellite studies have proven that wetlands without beavers cannot survive prolonged droughts in the western United States.\",\"H\":\"Reintroducing beavers to mountain creeks succeeds only when biologists first remove invasive plants such as reed canary grass.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"E\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q37\",\"number\":37,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 3, Dr. Emily Fairfax's satellite comparisons during the western droughts of 2018 and 2020 found that areas with beaver dams\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"produced roughly three times as many beaver kits as in years of normal rainfall.\",\"B\":\"were sometimes as much as three times greener than nearby waterways without beavers.\",\"C\":\"drained faster than unmodified streams once the spring snowmelt had ended.\",\"D\":\"burned hotter than the surrounding hillsides because of the thick brush along the banks.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q38\",\"number\":38,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 3, the phrase \\\"slow-release reservoir\\\" most nearly suggests that\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"beaver dams generate small amounts of electrical current as water seeps through them.\",\"F\":\"the dams release water on a strict daily schedule controlled by the beavers themselves.\",\"G\":\"minerals dissolved in the pooled water are slowly absorbed by the roots of nearby plants.\",\"H\":\"water trapped by the dams is gradually freed into the surrounding soil over an extended period.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q39\",\"number\":39,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The description of pond levelers in paragraph 5 suggests that beavers\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"instinctively reinforce a dam whenever they hear water flowing through gaps in it.\",\"B\":\"avoid building dams in any creek where humans have installed pipes or culverts.\",\"C\":\"abandon a colony as soon as the water level behind a dam begins to fall.\",\"D\":\"have learned to recognize human-made devices and dismantle them at night.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q40\",\"number\":40,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The author includes the example of the Methow Beaver Project (paragraph 4) primarily to\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"argue that beavers should be removed from valley farmland whenever they appear in fields.\",\"F\":\"illustrate a concrete program that has put the changing view of beavers into practice.\",\"G\":\"show that earlier attempts at beaver relocation in the West usually ended in failure.\",\"H\":\"compare beaver populations in Washington with those in California and Nevada.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q41\",\"number\":41,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Paragraph 6 contributes to the development of the passage by\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"summarizing the historical decline of beaver populations across North America.\",\"B\":\"introducing a new set of researchers whose findings directly contradict Dr. Fairfax's conclusions.\",\"C\":\"acknowledging limits and complications that qualify the optimistic findings discussed earlier.\",\"D\":\"proposing a step-by-step plan for restoring degraded watersheds without using any animals.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q42\",\"number\":42,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage BEST supports the claim that public attitudes toward beavers have shifted in recent years?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"\\\"Beavers are sometimes called 'ecosystem engineers' because of the elaborate dams they construct from logs, sticks, and mud.\\\"\",\"F\":\"\\\"Beavers do not always stay where biologists place them; some swim downstream within hours of release...\\\"\",\"G\":\"\\\"State agencies that once paid bounties on beavers now subsidize relocation programs.\\\"\",\"H\":\"\\\"In some heavily altered watersheds, the animals lack enough woody vegetation to sustain a colony...\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q43\",\"number\":43,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The author's overall attitude toward beaver reintroduction can BEST be described as\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"openly skeptical, doubting that such small animals can meaningfully change a landscape.\",\"B\":\"strictly neutral, presenting only data without offering any evaluation of the work.\",\"C\":\"nostalgic, focused mainly on mourning the loss of historical beaver populations.\",\"D\":\"cautiously enthusiastic, recognizing both clear benefits and genuine difficulties.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"D\"}]}" }, { "costUsd": 0.27324, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 5 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: prose_fiction | First Q: 44 | Topic: family / coming-of-age\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p5-qN\" where N starts at 44.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p5-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p5\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p5\",\n \"genre\": \"prose_fiction\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"genre\":\"prose_fiction\",\"title\":\"The Recipe Box\",\"author\":\"Maren Halvorsen\",\"intro_line\":\"Ellen, the narrator, is a fourteen-year-old spending the summer with her grandmother, who has begun to forget small things.\",\"text\":\"(1) The recipe box sat on the kitchen counter the way a small coffin might sit on a table—closed, important, and unwilling to explain itself. Grandma Ines had pulled it down from the top shelf that morning, set it between us, and then walked off to water the geraniums as though the box were a guest who could entertain itself. I waited. I had learned, over three weeks of summer, that Grandma's projects often began this way: an object placed, a silence offered, and then, eventually, a story.\\n\\n(2) She came back smelling of the porch, of warm tin and dust. \\\"Open it,\\\" she said, the way another grandmother might say, \\\"Eat your peas.\\\"\\n\\n(3) The cards inside were yellowed at the edges and written in at least four different hands. Some were typed. One, near the front, had been folded so many times the creases had eaten through the paper, leaving a small window of nothing in the middle of the directions. Grandma watched me lift them out, one by one, the way you might watch a stranger handle a newborn.\\n\\n(4) \\\"That one,\\\" she said, pointing to the folded card, \\\"was your great-grandmother's. The lefse. I haven't made it since—\\\" She stopped. Her hand floated up and then settled, like a bird that had changed its mind about landing. \\\"In a while.\\\"\\n\\n(5) I did not say what I was thinking, which was that \\\"in a while\\\" had begun to do a lot of work in Grandma's sentences lately. It carried the weight of weeks and decades equally, and you could not tell, from the outside, which it meant. Last Tuesday she had asked me three times whether the mail had come. On Thursday she had called me Margaret, which was my mother's name, and then laughed at herself so brightly that I laughed too, because that seemed like the kind thing to do.\\n\\n(6) \\\"We could make it,\\\" I said. I tried to sound as if I were suggesting a movie. \\\"The lefse. Today. If you wanted.\\\"\\n\\n(7) She looked at me for what felt like a long time. I had the strange sense she was weighing something, and that the something was me. Then she nodded once, briskly, the way she used to nod at the bank teller when I was small and she was still the tallest person in any room.\\n\\n(8) The kitchen, it turned out, did not have everything. We needed riced potatoes, which meant peeling, which meant Grandma sat at the table with the peeler and I stood at the stove, and for a while the only sound was the small wet music of skin coming off potato. She hummed something I did not know. I did not ask what it was. There are questions, I had begun to understand, that cost more than they answer.\\n\\n(9) \\\"Your mother used to stand on a chair right there,\\\" Grandma said, pointing the peeler at the spot where I was standing. \\\"She was too short, but she didn't like to be told. So I let her stand on the chair and burn her wrist on the kettle, and then she told me, very seriously, that the kettle had bitten her.\\\" Grandma laughed, and the laugh was so much like my mother's that for a second I had to look down at the pot.\\n\\n(10) \\\"Did she cry?\\\" I asked.\\n\\n(11) \\\"Margaret? Oh, no. Your mother has never cried about anything she could be angry at instead.\\\" She said it without judgment, the way you might describe the color of a door. \\\"You're more like me. You go quiet.\\\"\\n\\n(12) I had not known that about myself, or about her. I turned the burner down so I would have something to do with my hands.\\n\\n(13) When the dough was ready, Grandma rolled the first round herself, and her hands moved without consulting her. The pin went out from the center in six smooth strokes, the way a person signs their name without looking at the pen. Then she stopped, and her face did a thing I had not seen it do before—a kind of quiet surprise, as if she had walked into a room and forgotten which one.\\n\\n(14) \\\"You finish,\\\" she said. She did not move from the counter. She put her hand over mine and pressed, just once, and I understood that I was being given something, and that I was expected to keep it without being told what it was. The pin was warm where she had held it. I rolled, and she watched, and somewhere outside a screen door banged, and the kitchen smelled, faintly and forever, like flour and someone else's childhood.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q44\",\"number\":44,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"A grandmother teaches her granddaughter a difficult recipe so that the family tradition will not be lost when the grandmother moves away.\",\"F\":\"A summer visit becomes the moment a granddaughter recognizes both her grandmother's decline and her own quiet inheritance from her.\",\"G\":\"A teenager grows frustrated with her grandmother's forgetfulness and learns to be more patient through the act of cooking together.\",\"H\":\"A grandmother and granddaughter discover that they have very little in common until they begin working side by side in the kitchen.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q45\",\"number\":45,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 1, the comparison of the recipe box to \\\"a small coffin\\\" most strongly suggests that the box is\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"frightening to Ellen because she does not yet know what it contains.\",\"B\":\"weighed down with a sense of seriousness and of something preserved from the past.\",\"C\":\"a sign that someone in the family has recently died.\",\"D\":\"too fragile for Ellen and her grandmother to handle without care.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q46\",\"number\":46,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"In paragraph 5, Ellen's observation that the phrase \\\"in a while\\\" has \\\"begun to do a lot of work\\\" in her grandmother's sentences most strongly suggests that Ellen\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"is annoyed by her grandmother's vague way of speaking.\",\"F\":\"believes her grandmother is deliberately hiding details about the past.\",\"G\":\"has quietly noticed that her grandmother's memory is slipping, even though she has not said so aloud.\",\"H\":\"thinks her grandmother uses old-fashioned expressions that are difficult to understand.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q47\",\"number\":47,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"How does paragraph 9 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"It introduces a memory that allows Grandma Ines to compare Ellen's mother as a child to Ellen, deepening the sense of family layers within the kitchen.\",\"B\":\"It provides background information that explains why Ellen's mother is not present during the summer visit.\",\"C\":\"It establishes a conflict between Ellen and her grandmother about who is allowed to use the stove.\",\"D\":\"It shows that Grandma Ines has begun to confuse Ellen with her mother because of her failing memory.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q48\",\"number\":48,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 11, Grandma Ines describes Ellen's mother as someone who\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"cries easily when she is hurt or surprised.\",\"F\":\"resembles Grandma Ines more than Ellen does.\",\"G\":\"prefers anger to sadness when something upsets her.\",\"H\":\"refuses to talk about painful experiences from her childhood.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q49\",\"number\":49,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the simile that Grandma's hand \\\"floated up and then settled, like a bird that had changed its mind about landing\\\" (paragraph 4) in order to\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"emphasize how physically frail Grandma Ines has become over the summer.\",\"B\":\"convey the small, hesitant moment in which Grandma loses her place in her own sentence.\",\"C\":\"suggest that Grandma is gesturing toward something outside the window.\",\"D\":\"show that Grandma is annoyed at being interrupted by her own thoughts.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q50\",\"number\":50,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"The narrator's tone throughout the passage is best described as\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"nostalgic and openly grieving.\",\"F\":\"observant and gently restrained.\",\"G\":\"impatient and faintly resentful.\",\"H\":\"playful and lightly teasing.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q51\",\"number\":51,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best describes what Ellen comes to understand by the end of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"That she has been entrusted with something her grandmother can no longer fully carry herself.\",\"B\":\"That she will need to teach her own mother how to make the family's lefse one day.\",\"C\":\"That her grandmother regrets not having spent more time with her in earlier summers.\",\"D\":\"That cooking is a skill she is unlikely to enjoy as much as her grandmother does.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"}]}" }, { "costUsd": 0.22794, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 6 questions.\nPassage number: 6 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 52 | Topic: wildlife / biology / habitat\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p6-qN\" where N starts at 52.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p6-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p6\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p6\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 6 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"genre\":\"informational_science\",\"title\":\"The Hidden Highways of the Pronghorn\",\"text\":\"1 Across the sagebrush basins of the American West, an animal that most travelers will never see is performing one of the longest land migrations on the continent. The pronghorn, often miscalled an antelope, is in fact the sole surviving member of an ancient family native to North America. Each autumn, herds in western Wyoming abandon their summer ranges in the high meadows of Grand Teton National Park and travel more than 150 miles south to wintering grounds in the Upper Green River Basin. In spring, they reverse the journey. Biologists have learned that pronghorn do not improvise these routes. They follow narrow corridors that have been used, by some estimates, for at least six thousand years.\\n\\n2 The discovery of these corridors owes a great deal to the work of Joel Berger, a wildlife ecologist who began tracking pronghorn with GPS collars in the early 2000s. Before his study, scientists understood that the animals moved seasonally, but the precise paths were a matter of guesswork. Berger's collars recorded a position every few hours, producing thousands of data points per animal. When he and his colleagues plotted the locations on a map, an unexpected pattern emerged. Rather than dispersing across the open landscape, individual pronghorn from many different herds funneled through the same handful of bottlenecks—some no wider than a few hundred yards—year after year.\\n\\n3 One bottleneck, known as Trapper's Point, lies near the town of Pinedale, Wyoming. Here the migration corridor narrows to less than half a mile as it threads between two rivers. Archaeological evidence suggests that human hunters camped at this very spot more than six thousand years ago, presumably because they too recognized the predictability of the herd's passage. The fact that the pronghorn still use the same pinch point is, in Berger's words, \\\"a kind of living memory written into the landscape.\\\" Why the animals are so faithful to these routes is not entirely settled. Pronghorn lambs travel with their mothers on their first migration, and researchers suspect that the path is learned rather than inherited. A herd that loses its corridor, in other words, may not easily invent a new one.\\n\\n4 This faithfulness has become a serious conservation problem. Unlike six thousand years ago, the corridors today are crossed by highways, fences, and natural-gas drilling pads. A standard livestock fence, with its lowest wire strung tight against the ground, is a particular hazard: pronghorn evolved on open plains and almost never jump obstacles, preferring instead to crawl beneath them. When the bottom wire is too low, a fast-moving herd can pile up against it. Highways present a different danger. A 2019 study by researchers at the Wyoming Migration Initiative found that vehicle collisions along a single 30-mile stretch of U.S. Route 191 killed an average of 85 pronghorn per year, a figure the authors called \\\"unsustainable for a population already pressed at its margins.\\\"\\n\\n5 The conservation response has been unusually creative. In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service designated the 6,000-year-old route as the \\\"Path of the Pronghorn,\\\" the first federally protected migration corridor in American history. More recently, transportation engineers have built a series of overpasses and underpasses across Route 191 near Trapper's Point. The structures are landscaped with native sagebrush and funneled by tall fencing that nudges animals toward the safe crossings. Camera-trap data from the first five years of operation showed that pronghorn use of the overpasses rose from near zero in the opening months to more than 80 percent of attempted crossings by year three. Mule deer, which were not the project's intended beneficiary, took to the structures almost immediately.\\n\\n6 Some biologists caution that engineering solutions, however successful, treat the symptoms rather than the cause. As natural-gas development continues to fragment winter range in the Upper Green River Basin, even the most carefully protected corridor leads to a destination that is shrinking each year. Berger himself has argued that conservation of long-distance migration must be considered at the scale of the entire route, from summer pasture to winter shelter, including everything in between. \\\"You cannot save half a migration,\\\" he has written. \\\"The animal does not recognize the boundary on the map.\\\"\\n\\n7 For the pronghorn of western Wyoming, the question is no longer whether the ancient highways exist. The collars and the cameras have settled that. The question is whether a modern landscape, sliced by roads and pipelines and property lines, can still make room for an animal whose habits were set down before any of those things existed.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q52\",\"number\":52,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"GPS collar technology has revolutionized the way wildlife biologists track animals across the American West.\",\"F\":\"The pronghorn's reliance on ancient, narrow migration corridors makes the species both remarkable and vulnerable in a developed landscape.\",\"G\":\"Conservation efforts at Trapper's Point demonstrate that wildlife overpasses are the most effective solution to highway mortality.\",\"H\":\"Joel Berger's research has overturned earlier scientific beliefs about how pronghorn navigate over long distances.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q53\",\"number\":53,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 4, why are standard livestock fences especially dangerous for pronghorn?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"The wire is often electrified along migration corridors.\",\"B\":\"Pronghorn tend to crawl under obstacles rather than jump them, and the lowest wire is set too close to the ground.\",\"C\":\"Fences fragment the herd, separating lambs from their mothers during migration.\",\"D\":\"The fences are typically built across the narrowest points of the migration corridor.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q54\",\"number\":54,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 2, the word \\\"funneled\\\" most nearly means\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"poured liquid through a narrow opening.\",\"F\":\"converged into a constrained passage.\",\"G\":\"hurried away from a perceived danger.\",\"H\":\"scattered widely across an open area.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q55\",\"number\":55,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the detail about human hunters camping at Trapper's Point six thousand years ago in order to\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"establish that pronghorn populations were once much larger than they are today.\",\"B\":\"emphasize the remarkable consistency of the migration route across vast spans of time.\",\"C\":\"suggest that hunting pressure has historically shaped the pronghorn's chosen corridors.\",\"D\":\"contrast modern conservation methods with ancient methods of wildlife management.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q56\",\"number\":56,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"The passage suggests that if a pronghorn herd were permanently cut off from its traditional corridor, the herd would most likely\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"adapt quickly by selecting a new route through trial and error.\",\"F\":\"begin to jump fences rather than crawl beneath them.\",\"G\":\"struggle to establish an alternative path because the route is learned from older animals.\",\"H\":\"merge with neighboring herds that still have access to a corridor.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q57\",\"number\":57,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage best supports the idea that engineering fixes alone cannot guarantee the long-term survival of pronghorn migration?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"\\\"Berger's collars recorded a position every few hours, producing thousands of data points per animal.\\\"\",\"B\":\"\\\"Camera-trap data from the first five years of operation showed that pronghorn use of the overpasses rose from near zero in the opening months to more than 80 percent of attempted crossings by year three.\\\"\",\"C\":\"\\\"As natural-gas development continues to fragment winter range in the Upper Green River Basin, even the most carefully protected corridor leads to a destination that is shrinking each year.\\\"\",\"D\":\"\\\"In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service designated the 6,000-year-old route as the 'Path of the Pronghorn,' the first federally protected migration corridor in American history.\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"}]}" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0.28089, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 1 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 10 | Topic: memory / cognition / neuroscience\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-qN\" where N starts at 10.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\n\"passage\": {\n\"id\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n\"title\": \"The Sleeping Architect: How the Brain Rebuilds Memory at Night\",\n\"text\": \"1 For most of the twentieth century, scientists treated sleep as a kind of biological pause button—a period when the body repaired tissues and the brain, presumably, idled. The memories a person carried to bed were assumed to be the same memories waiting in the morning. Beginning in the 1990s, however, a growing body of evidence began to overturn this assumption. Researchers now describe sleep not as a passive intermission but as an active rehearsal in which the brain edits, strengthens, and sometimes even rewrites the experiences of the day.\\n\\n2 The clearest demonstration of this rehearsal came from rats, not humans. In 1994, neuroscientists Matthew Wilson and Bruce McNaughton recorded the electrical activity of neurons in the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped region buried deep in the brain that is essential for forming new memories. As the rats explored a small maze, particular cells, called place cells, fired in a distinctive sequence that mapped the animals' route. When the rats later fell asleep, the same cells fired again, in the same order—only faster, sometimes at twenty times the original speed. The brain, in other words, was replaying the maze in miniature, long after the maze had been put away.\\n\\n3 This phenomenon, now called memory replay, has since been observed in birds, primates, and, with the help of indirect imaging, in human beings. The replays appear to occur most often during slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of non-dreaming rest, when long, lazy waves of electrical activity wash across the cortex. According to a model proposed by researcher Jan Born of the University of Tübingen, these waves act as a kind of conductor: they invite the hippocampus to broadcast recent memories to the cortex, where they can be filed into more permanent storage. Without this nightly conversation, Born argues, the cortex would never learn what the hippocampus had been collecting.\\n\\n4 The consequences for learning are striking. In one widely cited 2004 experiment, Harvard researcher Robert Stickgold trained volunteers on a finger-tapping task, asking them to type a short sequence as quickly and accurately as they could. Subjects who slept for a full night before being tested again improved by roughly twenty percent, while those who stayed awake the same number of hours showed almost no improvement at all. The motor circuits that controlled their fingers, it seemed, had practiced the sequence overnight without their knowledge.\\n\\n5 Sleep does more than polish skills, however. It also appears to discard them, or at least to weaken connections that the brain has decided are unimportant. The neuroscientist Giulio Tononi has championed a theory called synaptic homeostasis, which holds that during waking hours synapses—the junctions between neurons—grow stronger and more numerous as we absorb new information. By the end of the day, the brain is overloaded, like a notebook crammed with marginal scribbles. Slow-wave sleep, Tononi proposes, prunes the weakest of these connections, freeing room for tomorrow's learning. The memories that survive the pruning, paradoxically, become easier to retrieve precisely because their neighbors have faded.\\n\\n6 Dreams, long the most mysterious feature of sleep, may participate in this editing process as well. Studies of REM sleep, the stage in which most vivid dreams occur, have shown that volunteers who solve a creative puzzle—such as finding a hidden pattern in a string of numbers—are far more likely to discover the trick after a nap that includes REM than after one that does not. The dreaming brain, freed from the constraints of literal experience, seems able to combine memories in unexpected ways, occasionally stumbling onto a useful connection.\\n\\n7 Not all of the brain's nighttime activity is benign. Traumatic memories, researchers have found, can also be replayed during sleep, sometimes intensifying rather than fading. A 2017 study at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that REM sleep ordinarily strips emotional memories of their distress, leaving the facts intact while softening the feelings. When this stripping fails, as it appears to in some cases of post-traumatic stress, the same memory may return, night after night, with its original force undimmed.\\n\\n8 These findings have begun to change the advice that doctors and educators give. A student who pulls an all-nighter, the new science suggests, is not merely tired; she has skipped the very process by which the day's lessons become her own. Sleep, far from being a passive shutdown, may be the hidden classroom in which the brain decides what is worth remembering—and what is best left behind.\"\n},\n\"questions\": [\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q10\",\n\"number\": 10,\n\"type\": \"main_idea\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"Sleep researchers have proven that humans can learn entirely new skills while they sleep, without any prior practice.\",\n\"F\": \"Although sleep was once viewed as a passive state, research now shows it is a period of active memory processing that strengthens, prunes, and reorganizes what the brain has learned.\",\n\"G\": \"The hippocampus is the most important region of the brain for storing memories permanently, and it works only during slow-wave sleep.\",\n\"H\": \"Dreams produced during REM sleep are responsible for nearly all of the creative breakthroughs that scientists, artists, and inventors experience.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q11\",\n\"number\": 11,\n\"type\": \"detail\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"According to paragraph 2, what was unusual about the firing of place cells in the sleeping rats?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"The cells fired in a different order than they had during the maze, suggesting a new memory was forming.\",\n\"B\": \"The cells fired only when the rats were dreaming, never during deeper stages of sleep.\",\n\"C\": \"The cells repeated the original sequence, but did so far more rapidly than during the actual exploration.\",\n\"D\": \"The cells failed to fire at all unless the rats were placed back in the maze the following day.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q12\",\n\"number\": 12,\n\"type\": \"vocabulary_in_context\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"As used in paragraph 3, the word \\\"broadcast\\\" most nearly means\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"to scatter seeds across a wide area.\",\n\"F\": \"to announce loudly to a public audience.\",\n\"G\": \"to transmit information to another location.\",\n\"H\": \"to interrupt with sudden noise.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q13\",\n\"number\": 13,\n\"type\": \"author_purpose\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Why does the author most likely include the description of Stickgold's finger-tapping experiment in paragraph 4?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"To suggest that motor skills cannot be improved without specialized coaching.\",\n\"B\": \"To provide concrete evidence that sleep itself, rather than mere rest, produces measurable gains in learning.\",\n\"C\": \"To argue that Harvard researchers have done more important work on memory than researchers elsewhere.\",\n\"D\": \"To question whether the rat studies described earlier in the passage apply to human beings.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q14\",\n\"number\": 14,\n\"type\": \"inference\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Based on paragraph 5, which conclusion about Tononi's theory of synaptic homeostasis is best supported?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"Forgetting unimportant details may be necessary for important memories to remain easy to recall.\",\n\"F\": \"The brain's synapses are completely rebuilt from scratch during each night of slow-wave sleep.\",\n\"G\": \"People who sleep longer than eight hours form stronger memories than people who sleep less.\",\n\"H\": \"The hippocampus is the only region of the brain that participates in synaptic pruning.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q15\",\n\"number\": 15,\n\"type\": \"structure\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"How does paragraph 7 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"It introduces a competing theory that disproves the claims made in earlier paragraphs.\",\n\"B\": \"It returns the discussion to the rat studies that opened the passage and offers a final example.\",\n\"C\": \"It complicates the picture of sleep as helpful by showing that the same replay process can sometimes worsen distress.\",\n\"D\": \"It shifts the focus from memory to dreaming and argues that dreams are more important than slow-wave sleep.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q16\",\n\"number\": 16,\n\"type\": \"evidence\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Which quotation best supports the idea that scientists' understanding of sleep has changed dramatically over time?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"\\\"For most of the twentieth century, scientists treated sleep as a kind of biological pause button.\\\"\",\n\"F\": \"\\\"In 1994, neuroscientists Matthew Wilson and Bruce McNaughton recorded the electrical activity of neurons in the hippocampus.\\\"\",\n\"G\": \"\\\"The replays appear to occur most often during slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of non-dreaming rest.\\\"\",\n\"H\": \"\\\"Studies of REM sleep . . . have shown that volunteers who solve a creative puzzle . . . are far more likely to discover the trick after a nap that includes REM.\\\"\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q17\",\n\"number\": 17,\n\"type\": \"tone\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"The author's use of phrases such as \\\"hidden classroom\\\" and \\\"sleeping architect\\\" most strongly suggests an attitude that is\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"skeptical of the scientific findings being described.\",\n\"B\": \"appreciative of the brain's quiet but purposeful work during sleep.\",\n\"C\": \"alarmed by the dangers that sleep may pose to memory.\",\n\"D\": \"indifferent to the practical implications of the research.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n}\n]\n}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 1, "output": { "costUsd": 0.208815, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 9 questions.\nPassage number: 2 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: poetry | First Q: 18 | Topic: urban life / nature / change\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p2-qN\" where N starts at 18.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p2-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p2\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p2\",\n \"genre\": \"poetry\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"genre\":\"poetry\",\"title\":\"Lot 47, Bedford Avenue\",\"author\":\"Mariana Olwen\",\"text\":\"Line 1: They came on Tuesday with the orange tape\\nLine 2: and a clipboard heavier than the building itself,\\nLine 3: measuring what the wrecking ball already knew\\u2014\\nLine 4: that the corner store on Bedford had been leaning\\nLine 5: into the wind for forty winters, patient as a grandmother.\\n\\nLine 6: I used to count the cracks above the freezer case\\nLine 7: while Mr. Deol counted my quarters,\\nLine 8: each of us pretending the other wasn't watching.\\nLine 9: Now the bricks come down like a deck of cards\\nLine 10: shuffled by a careless hand.\\n\\nLine 11: A sycamore had crept against the back wall,\\nLine 12: roots threading the foundation like stitches\\nLine 13: holding two torn pages together.\\nLine 14: When the bulldozer pushed, the tree gave first,\\nLine 15: which surprised no one but the tree.\\n\\nLine 16: In the lot's new emptiness, light arrives early.\\nLine 17: I had forgotten the eastern sky existed here\\u2014\\nLine 18: it had been a rumor behind the awning,\\nLine 19: a postcard mailed but never opened.\\nLine 20: Pigeons wheel above the rubble, palimpsest\\u00b9\\nLine 21: of every roof they have ever circled.\\n\\nLine 22: A boy I do not know plants a sunflower seed\\nLine 23: in the cracked grout where the doorway stood.\\nLine 24: He waters it from a juice bottle, solemn as a priest.\\nLine 25: I want to tell him the developers will return in May,\\nLine 26: that this lot is already someone's spreadsheet,\\nLine 27: that nothing here belongs to him.\\n\\nLine 28: Instead I nod, the way you nod at weather,\\nLine 29: and walk home past the scaffolding, where a finch\\u00b2\\nLine 30: is teaching its small, unbothered song to the cranes.\",\"footnotes\":[{\"term\":\"palimpsest\",\"definition\":\"a surface that has been written on, erased, and written on again, so that traces of earlier writing remain\"},{\"term\":\"finch\",\"definition\":\"a small songbird often found in cities and gardens\"}]},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q18\",\"number\":18,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central theme of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Cities inevitably destroy the natural world that surrounds them.\",\"F\":\"The disappearance of familiar places creates both loss and unexpected openings.\",\"G\":\"Children are the only people who can find meaning in urban change.\",\"H\":\"Old buildings are usually safer and more beautiful than new ones.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q19\",\"number\":19,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"In line 5, the phrase \\\"patient as a grandmother\\\" suggests that the corner store\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"has endured for a long time with a quiet, familiar steadiness.\",\"B\":\"is run by an elderly woman who knows the speaker well.\",\"C\":\"has begun to deteriorate because of neglect and old age.\",\"D\":\"reminds the speaker of relatives who have recently passed away.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q20\",\"number\":20,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"How does the second stanza (lines 6-10) contribute to the development of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"It introduces a conflict between the speaker and Mr. Deol that is later resolved.\",\"F\":\"It shifts the focus from demolition to a memory that gives the lost building personal meaning.\",\"G\":\"It explains the financial reasons why the corner store was forced to close.\",\"H\":\"It contrasts the speaker's childhood with the childhood of the boy mentioned later.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q21\",\"number\":21,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Lines 14-15 (\\\"When the bulldozer pushed... but the tree\\\") most strongly suggest that\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"the sycamore had been weakened by disease before the demolition began.\",\"B\":\"living things often misjudge the forces aligned against them.\",\"C\":\"the demolition crew acted carelessly and damaged unintended property.\",\"D\":\"trees in cities tend to grow more slowly than those in the countryside.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q22\",\"number\":22,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"In lines 17-19, the speaker compares the eastern sky to \\\"a rumor\\\" and \\\"a postcard mailed but never opened\\\" primarily to emphasize that the sky\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"had been deliberately hidden by the store's owners for many years.\",\"F\":\"appeared unfamiliar and unwelcome once the building was gone.\",\"G\":\"had been present all along but unnoticed because of the building.\",\"H\":\"is more beautiful in this neighborhood than in surrounding areas.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q23\",\"number\":23,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"The footnoted word \\\"palimpsest\\\" (line 20) is used in the poem to suggest that the pigeons\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"are confused by the changing landscape and unable to find their old nests.\",\"B\":\"carry within their flight the layered memory of every place they have known.\",\"C\":\"return to the lot only because they expect food from former customers.\",\"D\":\"represent the developers who will soon overwrite the neighborhood again.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q24\",\"number\":24,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"The description of the boy in lines 22-24 is best characterized as\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"mocking and dismissive of his naive efforts.\",\"F\":\"reverent toward an act of small but earnest hope.\",\"G\":\"alarmed by his trespassing on private property.\",\"H\":\"indifferent to a stranger's unimportant gesture.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q25\",\"number\":25,\"type\":\"theme_development\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Lines 25-27 (\\\"I want to tell him... belongs to him\\\") most clearly develop the poem's theme by\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"revealing the speaker's awareness that hopeful gestures cannot stop economic forces.\",\"B\":\"showing that the speaker resents the boy for intruding on a private moment of mourning.\",\"C\":\"arguing that the city government should compensate displaced shopkeepers.\",\"D\":\"suggesting that the speaker plans to warn the developers about the new sunflower.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q26\",\"number\":26,\"type\":\"comparison\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"How does the final image of the finch (lines 29-30) relate to the rest of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"It contradicts the earlier scenes by suggesting that the neighborhood has not really changed.\",\"F\":\"It reinforces the speaker's earlier claim that nature cannot survive in the city.\",\"G\":\"It offers a quiet counterpoint to loss, showing life continuing alongside construction.\",\"H\":\"It returns to the grandmother image from the first stanza to complete a circular structure.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 2, "output": { "costUsd": 0.26019, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 9 questions.\nPassage number: 3 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: narrative_nonfiction | First Q: 27 | Topic: indigenous community / oral tradition\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p3-qN\" where N starts at 27.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p3-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p3\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p3\",\n \"genre\": \"narrative_nonfiction\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"genre\":\"narrative_nonfiction\",\"title\":\"The Cedar Keeper of Hoonah\",\"author\":\"Marian Trask\",\"intro_line\":\"The narrator, a journalist, travels to a small village in southeast Alaska to record stories with a Tlingit elder named Naa Tláa.\",\"text\":\"(1) The float plane skipped across Icy Strait and shuddered to a halt at the wooden dock in Hoonah. I had come to record stories — or rather, I had come hoping to be allowed to record them. My editor in Seattle had given me a tidy list of questions about Tlingit oral tradition, the kind of questions that fit neatly into a magazine column. I would learn, before the week was out, that the list was useless.\\n\\n(2) Naa Tláa met me at the dock in a faded blue parka. She was perhaps seventy, perhaps ninety; the women in her family, she later told me, did not often bother with birthdays. She studied my recorder, my notebook, and my carefully ironed shirt with the same patient curiosity she might show a curious bird. Then she said, \\\"You will help me split cedar. After that, we will see what there is to talk about.\\\"\\n\\n(3) For three days I split cedar. My hands blistered, then bled, then hardened. Naa Tláa worked beside me, humming songs whose words I did not catch. She did not ask me about my list. When I tried, once, to bring it up, she looked toward the strait and said only, \\\"Stories are not groceries. You cannot put them in a basket and carry them home.\\\"\\n\\n(4) On the fourth morning, she told me about her grandfather. He had been a storyteller — a shagóon keeper, she said, one who carried the names and the deeds of the clan. As a boy, he had been forbidden to speak Lingít in the boarding school the government sent him to. The teachers, he had told her, washed his mouth with soap whenever he forgot. And yet, alone at night, under a wool blanket that smelled of other children's homesickness, he had whispered the old stories to himself so that he would not forget the shape of them. \\\"He kept them in his mouth like a smooth stone,\\\" Naa Tláa said. \\\"He did not let them fall out.\\\"\\n\\n(5) I asked, gently, if I could record her telling one of those stories. She laughed — not unkindly — and shook her head. \\\"Not yet,\\\" she said. \\\"You do not know who is in the story. You would write down the words and think you had it.\\\" She tapped my notebook with a finger callused from decades of weaving. \\\"A story is not the words. A story is the room the words make. You must learn the room first.\\\"\\n\\n(6) That afternoon she took me to the smokehouse, where her nephew Daniel was tending salmon over alder coals. Daniel was twenty-six and worked, in the off-season, as a software engineer in Juneau. He spoke Lingít haltingly, he admitted, but he had begun studying with Naa Tláa each Sunday evening over the phone. \\\"She corrects my vowels for an hour,\\\" he said, grinning. \\\"Then she tells me a story I am not allowed to write down. Then she hangs up.\\\" He turned a salmon on its rack. \\\"It is the most patient teaching I have ever received.\\\"\\n\\n(7) I began to understand, slowly, that the stories Naa Tláa carried were not artifacts to be preserved behind glass. They were living things, and like all living things they required a relationship. To tell them to a stranger with a recorder would be like handing a stranger one's child. The recorder did not care who was listening, or whether the listener had earned the listening. Naa Tláa cared a great deal.\\n\\n(8) On my last evening, she sat with me on the porch and watched a raven harry an eagle out over the water. She did not tell me a clan story. Instead, she told me about the time, in 1962, when her aunt had walked twelve miles in deep snow to bring medicine to a cousin's child. It was a small story, an everyday story, and she told it as if it were the most important thing in the world. When she finished, she looked at me and said, \\\"You can write that one down. That one is yours now, because you split cedar.\\\"\\n\\n(9) I flew out the next morning with my recorder still empty and my notebook nearly so. My editor was not pleased. But I had begun, I think, to understand the shape of the room.\",\"footnotes\":[{\"term\":\"shagóon\",\"definition\":\"In Tlingit culture, the ancestral heritage that connects a person to clan, history, and place.\"},{\"term\":\"Lingít\",\"definition\":\"The Tlingit language, indigenous to southeast Alaska.\"}]},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q27\",\"number\":27,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Recording oral traditions is the most reliable way to preserve a culture for future generations.\",\"B\":\"Tlingit elders are reluctant to share their traditions with outsiders because of past injustices.\",\"C\":\"Understanding a community's stories requires building relationships, not simply collecting words.\",\"D\":\"Modern technology has made it easier than ever for journalists to document indigenous languages.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q28\",\"number\":28,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 3, the statement \\\"Stories are not groceries\\\" most nearly means that stories\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"cannot be purchased from those who own them.\",\"F\":\"cannot be removed from their context and taken away whole.\",\"G\":\"are nourishing in ways that ordinary food is not.\",\"H\":\"are too fragile to survive long journeys.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q29\",\"number\":29,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 4, how did Naa Tláa's grandfather preserve the old stories during his time at the boarding school?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"He wrote them down in a hidden notebook beneath his bed.\",\"B\":\"He taught them quietly to the other Tlingit children at the school.\",\"C\":\"He whispered them to himself at night so he would not forget them.\",\"D\":\"He repeated them to his teachers in defiance of the school's rules.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q30\",\"number\":30,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the description of Daniel in paragraph 6 in order to\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"contrast Daniel's modern career with Naa Tláa's traditional way of life.\",\"F\":\"suggest that younger Tlingit people have largely abandoned the old traditions.\",\"G\":\"illustrate that the transmission of oral tradition continues through patient, ongoing relationships.\",\"H\":\"emphasize how difficult the Lingít language is for young people to learn.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q31\",\"number\":31,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"It can reasonably be inferred from the passage that Naa Tláa required the narrator to split cedar primarily because\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"she needed practical help preparing materials for weaving and building.\",\"B\":\"she wanted to test whether the narrator was willing to invest effort before being trusted.\",\"C\":\"physical labor is a traditional requirement before any Tlingit story can be told.\",\"D\":\"she hoped the narrator would abandon the project and return to Seattle.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q32\",\"number\":32,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"In paragraph 5, Naa Tláa's statement that \\\"a story is the room the words make\\\" emphasizes that\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"the words of a story are less memorable than its setting.\",\"F\":\"a story should always be told in a single, quiet location.\",\"G\":\"the meaning of a story depends on the relationships and context surrounding it.\",\"H\":\"stories are best understood when written down and read carefully.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q33\",\"number\":33,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"How does paragraph 7 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"It introduces a new conflict between Naa Tláa and the narrator's editor.\",\"B\":\"It articulates the realization that allows the narrator to reinterpret earlier events.\",\"C\":\"It provides historical background about the boarding-school system.\",\"D\":\"It shifts the focus away from Naa Tláa to the narrator's professional concerns.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q34\",\"number\":34,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage best supports the idea that the narrator's understanding of journalism has been changed by the visit?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"\\\"My editor in Seattle had given me a tidy list of questions about Tlingit oral tradition...\\\"\",\"F\":\"\\\"For three days I split cedar. My hands blistered, then bled, then hardened.\\\"\",\"G\":\"\\\"He turned a salmon on its rack. 'It is the most patient teaching I have ever received.'\\\"\",\"H\":\"\\\"I flew out the next morning with my recorder still empty and my notebook nearly so... But I had begun, I think, to understand the shape of the room.\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q35\",\"number\":35,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"The narrator's tone throughout the passage is best described as\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"reverent and reflective.\",\"B\":\"defensive and impatient.\",\"C\":\"detached and analytical.\",\"D\":\"sentimental and nostalgic.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 3, "output": { "costUsd": 0.721815, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 4 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 36 | Topic: ecology / conservation / land management\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p4-qN\" where N starts at 36.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p4-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p4\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p4\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"genre\":\"informational_science\",\"title\":\"The Engineers Return\",\"text\":\"(1) For more than a century, North American beavers were trapped relentlessly for their dense, water-repellent fur, a pursuit that drove their population from an estimated 60 million in 1600 to fewer than 100,000 by 1900. Their near disappearance reshaped the continent's waterways in ways that few people noticed at the time. Without beavers to fell saplings, plug streams, and flood low meadows, thousands of wetlands quietly drained away. Streams that had once meandered through brushy floodplains became straight, narrow channels racing toward the sea. Today, ecologists are working to bring beavers back—and in doing so, they are rediscovering just how much these animals shape the land.\\n\\n(2) Beavers are sometimes called \\\"ecosystem engineers\\\" because of the elaborate dams they construct from logs, sticks, and mud. A single colony, working through a summer, can transform a trickling brook into a series of stepped ponds and saturated meadows. The water that pools behind a dam slows down, allowing sediment to settle and giving plants time to take root along the banks. Insects multiply in the still water, drawing fish, frogs, and migrating birds. Researchers at Utah State University, surveying restored beaver sites in 2018, recorded an average of seventy-five percent more bird species at active dams than at comparable stretches of open stream.\\n\\n(3) Perhaps the most striking finding has come from regions threatened by drought. Dr. Emily Fairfax, a hydrologist who studies beaver-modified landscapes, used satellite imagery to compare wetlands with and without beavers during the severe western droughts of 2018 and 2020. In one set of comparisons across California and Nevada, areas containing beaver dams remained as much as three times greener than nearby waterways during peak summer heat. The pooled water, Fairfax noted, was acting as a slow-release reservoir: rather than rushing downstream after spring snowmelt, it lingered in the soil and emerged through the dry months. When wildfires later swept through the region, beaver complexes acted as natural firebreaks, the moist vegetation refusing to ignite even as the surrounding hillsides burned.\\n\\n(4) Such findings have shifted how land managers think about beavers. For decades, the animals were treated mostly as pests: chewing through ornamental trees, plugging culverts, and flooding farm fields. Trappers and county crews often removed problem beavers without considering whether the resulting drained meadow might be more harmful than the animals themselves. In Washington State's Methow Valley, biologists with a project called the Methow Beaver Project began, in 2008, to capture beavers from areas where they were unwanted and release them into degraded creeks high in the mountains. By 2022, the program had relocated more than 400 beavers, and follow-up surveys showed expanded wetlands at a majority of the release sites.\\n\\n(5) Reintroduction is far from simple. Beavers do not always stay where biologists place them; some swim downstream within hours of release, searching for mates or familiar territory. Others build dams in spots that conflict with roads, septic systems, or irrigation ditches. To address these conflicts, engineers have designed devices known as \\\"pond levelers\\\"—pipes set through a dam that quietly drain excess water without alarming the beavers, who respond to the sound of running water by piling on more sticks. With levelers in place, a dam can stay intact while the pond behind it stops creeping into a neighbor's pasture.\\n\\n(6) Critics caution that beavers are not a universal remedy. In some heavily altered watersheds, the animals lack enough woody vegetation to sustain a colony, and translocated families starve or disperse. Steep, fast-moving streams can wash dams away before they mature. And in places where invasive plants such as reed canary grass dominate the banks, beaver activity can sometimes spread the invader rather than restore native diversity. \\\"We have to read the landscape,\\\" Fairfax has written, \\\"and ask whether it is asking for beavers, or asking for something else first.\\\"\\n\\n(7) Still, the broader trend is unmistakable. State agencies that once paid bounties on beavers now subsidize relocation programs. Schoolchildren in Oregon trace beaver-shaped maps of their watersheds. The animal that was nearly erased from the continent has become, for many ecologists, a quiet emblem of how the smallest engineers can repair what larger forces have broken.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q36\",\"number\":36,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement BEST expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Once viewed primarily as nuisances, beavers are increasingly recognized for the ways their dam-building can restore wetlands and buffer landscapes against drought and fire.\",\"F\":\"Although beaver populations have largely recovered, conflicts with human infrastructure remain the greatest obstacle to expanding North American wetlands.\",\"G\":\"Recent satellite studies have proven that wetlands without beavers cannot survive prolonged droughts in the western United States.\",\"H\":\"Reintroducing beavers to mountain creeks succeeds only when biologists first remove invasive plants such as reed canary grass.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"E\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q37\",\"number\":37,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 3, Dr. Emily Fairfax's satellite comparisons during the western droughts of 2018 and 2020 found that areas with beaver dams\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"produced roughly three times as many beaver kits as in years of normal rainfall.\",\"B\":\"were sometimes as much as three times greener than nearby waterways without beavers.\",\"C\":\"drained faster than unmodified streams once the spring snowmelt had ended.\",\"D\":\"burned hotter than the surrounding hillsides because of the thick brush along the banks.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q38\",\"number\":38,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 3, the phrase \\\"slow-release reservoir\\\" most nearly suggests that\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"beaver dams generate small amounts of electrical current as water seeps through them.\",\"F\":\"the dams release water on a strict daily schedule controlled by the beavers themselves.\",\"G\":\"minerals dissolved in the pooled water are slowly absorbed by the roots of nearby plants.\",\"H\":\"water trapped by the dams is gradually freed into the surrounding soil over an extended period.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q39\",\"number\":39,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The description of pond levelers in paragraph 5 suggests that beavers\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"instinctively reinforce a dam whenever they hear water flowing through gaps in it.\",\"B\":\"avoid building dams in any creek where humans have installed pipes or culverts.\",\"C\":\"abandon a colony as soon as the water level behind a dam begins to fall.\",\"D\":\"have learned to recognize human-made devices and dismantle them at night.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q40\",\"number\":40,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The author includes the example of the Methow Beaver Project (paragraph 4) primarily to\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"argue that beavers should be removed from valley farmland whenever they appear in fields.\",\"F\":\"illustrate a concrete program that has put the changing view of beavers into practice.\",\"G\":\"show that earlier attempts at beaver relocation in the West usually ended in failure.\",\"H\":\"compare beaver populations in Washington with those in California and Nevada.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q41\",\"number\":41,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Paragraph 6 contributes to the development of the passage by\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"summarizing the historical decline of beaver populations across North America.\",\"B\":\"introducing a new set of researchers whose findings directly contradict Dr. Fairfax's conclusions.\",\"C\":\"acknowledging limits and complications that qualify the optimistic findings discussed earlier.\",\"D\":\"proposing a step-by-step plan for restoring degraded watersheds without using any animals.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q42\",\"number\":42,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage BEST supports the claim that public attitudes toward beavers have shifted in recent years?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"\\\"Beavers are sometimes called 'ecosystem engineers' because of the elaborate dams they construct from logs, sticks, and mud.\\\"\",\"F\":\"\\\"Beavers do not always stay where biologists place them; some swim downstream within hours of release...\\\"\",\"G\":\"\\\"State agencies that once paid bounties on beavers now subsidize relocation programs.\\\"\",\"H\":\"\\\"In some heavily altered watersheds, the animals lack enough woody vegetation to sustain a colony...\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q43\",\"number\":43,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The author's overall attitude toward beaver reintroduction can BEST be described as\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"openly skeptical, doubting that such small animals can meaningfully change a landscape.\",\"B\":\"strictly neutral, presenting only data without offering any evaluation of the work.\",\"C\":\"nostalgic, focused mainly on mourning the loss of historical beaver populations.\",\"D\":\"cautiously enthusiastic, recognizing both clear benefits and genuine difficulties.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"D\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 4, "output": { "costUsd": 0.27324, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 5 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: prose_fiction | First Q: 44 | Topic: family / coming-of-age\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p5-qN\" where N starts at 44.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p5-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p5\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p5\",\n \"genre\": \"prose_fiction\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"genre\":\"prose_fiction\",\"title\":\"The Recipe Box\",\"author\":\"Maren Halvorsen\",\"intro_line\":\"Ellen, the narrator, is a fourteen-year-old spending the summer with her grandmother, who has begun to forget small things.\",\"text\":\"(1) The recipe box sat on the kitchen counter the way a small coffin might sit on a table—closed, important, and unwilling to explain itself. Grandma Ines had pulled it down from the top shelf that morning, set it between us, and then walked off to water the geraniums as though the box were a guest who could entertain itself. I waited. I had learned, over three weeks of summer, that Grandma's projects often began this way: an object placed, a silence offered, and then, eventually, a story.\\n\\n(2) She came back smelling of the porch, of warm tin and dust. \\\"Open it,\\\" she said, the way another grandmother might say, \\\"Eat your peas.\\\"\\n\\n(3) The cards inside were yellowed at the edges and written in at least four different hands. Some were typed. One, near the front, had been folded so many times the creases had eaten through the paper, leaving a small window of nothing in the middle of the directions. Grandma watched me lift them out, one by one, the way you might watch a stranger handle a newborn.\\n\\n(4) \\\"That one,\\\" she said, pointing to the folded card, \\\"was your great-grandmother's. The lefse. I haven't made it since—\\\" She stopped. Her hand floated up and then settled, like a bird that had changed its mind about landing. \\\"In a while.\\\"\\n\\n(5) I did not say what I was thinking, which was that \\\"in a while\\\" had begun to do a lot of work in Grandma's sentences lately. It carried the weight of weeks and decades equally, and you could not tell, from the outside, which it meant. Last Tuesday she had asked me three times whether the mail had come. On Thursday she had called me Margaret, which was my mother's name, and then laughed at herself so brightly that I laughed too, because that seemed like the kind thing to do.\\n\\n(6) \\\"We could make it,\\\" I said. I tried to sound as if I were suggesting a movie. \\\"The lefse. Today. If you wanted.\\\"\\n\\n(7) She looked at me for what felt like a long time. I had the strange sense she was weighing something, and that the something was me. Then she nodded once, briskly, the way she used to nod at the bank teller when I was small and she was still the tallest person in any room.\\n\\n(8) The kitchen, it turned out, did not have everything. We needed riced potatoes, which meant peeling, which meant Grandma sat at the table with the peeler and I stood at the stove, and for a while the only sound was the small wet music of skin coming off potato. She hummed something I did not know. I did not ask what it was. There are questions, I had begun to understand, that cost more than they answer.\\n\\n(9) \\\"Your mother used to stand on a chair right there,\\\" Grandma said, pointing the peeler at the spot where I was standing. \\\"She was too short, but she didn't like to be told. So I let her stand on the chair and burn her wrist on the kettle, and then she told me, very seriously, that the kettle had bitten her.\\\" Grandma laughed, and the laugh was so much like my mother's that for a second I had to look down at the pot.\\n\\n(10) \\\"Did she cry?\\\" I asked.\\n\\n(11) \\\"Margaret? Oh, no. Your mother has never cried about anything she could be angry at instead.\\\" She said it without judgment, the way you might describe the color of a door. \\\"You're more like me. You go quiet.\\\"\\n\\n(12) I had not known that about myself, or about her. I turned the burner down so I would have something to do with my hands.\\n\\n(13) When the dough was ready, Grandma rolled the first round herself, and her hands moved without consulting her. The pin went out from the center in six smooth strokes, the way a person signs their name without looking at the pen. Then she stopped, and her face did a thing I had not seen it do before—a kind of quiet surprise, as if she had walked into a room and forgotten which one.\\n\\n(14) \\\"You finish,\\\" she said. She did not move from the counter. She put her hand over mine and pressed, just once, and I understood that I was being given something, and that I was expected to keep it without being told what it was. The pin was warm where she had held it. I rolled, and she watched, and somewhere outside a screen door banged, and the kitchen smelled, faintly and forever, like flour and someone else's childhood.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q44\",\"number\":44,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"A grandmother teaches her granddaughter a difficult recipe so that the family tradition will not be lost when the grandmother moves away.\",\"F\":\"A summer visit becomes the moment a granddaughter recognizes both her grandmother's decline and her own quiet inheritance from her.\",\"G\":\"A teenager grows frustrated with her grandmother's forgetfulness and learns to be more patient through the act of cooking together.\",\"H\":\"A grandmother and granddaughter discover that they have very little in common until they begin working side by side in the kitchen.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q45\",\"number\":45,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 1, the comparison of the recipe box to \\\"a small coffin\\\" most strongly suggests that the box is\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"frightening to Ellen because she does not yet know what it contains.\",\"B\":\"weighed down with a sense of seriousness and of something preserved from the past.\",\"C\":\"a sign that someone in the family has recently died.\",\"D\":\"too fragile for Ellen and her grandmother to handle without care.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q46\",\"number\":46,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"In paragraph 5, Ellen's observation that the phrase \\\"in a while\\\" has \\\"begun to do a lot of work\\\" in her grandmother's sentences most strongly suggests that Ellen\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"is annoyed by her grandmother's vague way of speaking.\",\"F\":\"believes her grandmother is deliberately hiding details about the past.\",\"G\":\"has quietly noticed that her grandmother's memory is slipping, even though she has not said so aloud.\",\"H\":\"thinks her grandmother uses old-fashioned expressions that are difficult to understand.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q47\",\"number\":47,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"How does paragraph 9 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"It introduces a memory that allows Grandma Ines to compare Ellen's mother as a child to Ellen, deepening the sense of family layers within the kitchen.\",\"B\":\"It provides background information that explains why Ellen's mother is not present during the summer visit.\",\"C\":\"It establishes a conflict between Ellen and her grandmother about who is allowed to use the stove.\",\"D\":\"It shows that Grandma Ines has begun to confuse Ellen with her mother because of her failing memory.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q48\",\"number\":48,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 11, Grandma Ines describes Ellen's mother as someone who\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"cries easily when she is hurt or surprised.\",\"F\":\"resembles Grandma Ines more than Ellen does.\",\"G\":\"prefers anger to sadness when something upsets her.\",\"H\":\"refuses to talk about painful experiences from her childhood.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q49\",\"number\":49,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the simile that Grandma's hand \\\"floated up and then settled, like a bird that had changed its mind about landing\\\" (paragraph 4) in order to\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"emphasize how physically frail Grandma Ines has become over the summer.\",\"B\":\"convey the small, hesitant moment in which Grandma loses her place in her own sentence.\",\"C\":\"suggest that Grandma is gesturing toward something outside the window.\",\"D\":\"show that Grandma is annoyed at being interrupted by her own thoughts.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q50\",\"number\":50,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"The narrator's tone throughout the passage is best described as\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"nostalgic and openly grieving.\",\"F\":\"observant and gently restrained.\",\"G\":\"impatient and faintly resentful.\",\"H\":\"playful and lightly teasing.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q51\",\"number\":51,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best describes what Ellen comes to understand by the end of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"That she has been entrusted with something her grandmother can no longer fully carry herself.\",\"B\":\"That she will need to teach her own mother how to make the family's lefse one day.\",\"C\":\"That her grandmother regrets not having spent more time with her in earlier summers.\",\"D\":\"That cooking is a skill she is unlikely to enjoy as much as her grandmother does.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 5, "output": { "costUsd": 0.22794, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 6 questions.\nPassage number: 6 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 52 | Topic: wildlife / biology / habitat\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p6-qN\" where N starts at 52.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p6-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p6\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p6\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 6 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"genre\":\"informational_science\",\"title\":\"The Hidden Highways of the Pronghorn\",\"text\":\"1 Across the sagebrush basins of the American West, an animal that most travelers will never see is performing one of the longest land migrations on the continent. The pronghorn, often miscalled an antelope, is in fact the sole surviving member of an ancient family native to North America. Each autumn, herds in western Wyoming abandon their summer ranges in the high meadows of Grand Teton National Park and travel more than 150 miles south to wintering grounds in the Upper Green River Basin. In spring, they reverse the journey. Biologists have learned that pronghorn do not improvise these routes. They follow narrow corridors that have been used, by some estimates, for at least six thousand years.\\n\\n2 The discovery of these corridors owes a great deal to the work of Joel Berger, a wildlife ecologist who began tracking pronghorn with GPS collars in the early 2000s. Before his study, scientists understood that the animals moved seasonally, but the precise paths were a matter of guesswork. Berger's collars recorded a position every few hours, producing thousands of data points per animal. When he and his colleagues plotted the locations on a map, an unexpected pattern emerged. Rather than dispersing across the open landscape, individual pronghorn from many different herds funneled through the same handful of bottlenecks—some no wider than a few hundred yards—year after year.\\n\\n3 One bottleneck, known as Trapper's Point, lies near the town of Pinedale, Wyoming. Here the migration corridor narrows to less than half a mile as it threads between two rivers. Archaeological evidence suggests that human hunters camped at this very spot more than six thousand years ago, presumably because they too recognized the predictability of the herd's passage. The fact that the pronghorn still use the same pinch point is, in Berger's words, \\\"a kind of living memory written into the landscape.\\\" Why the animals are so faithful to these routes is not entirely settled. Pronghorn lambs travel with their mothers on their first migration, and researchers suspect that the path is learned rather than inherited. A herd that loses its corridor, in other words, may not easily invent a new one.\\n\\n4 This faithfulness has become a serious conservation problem. Unlike six thousand years ago, the corridors today are crossed by highways, fences, and natural-gas drilling pads. A standard livestock fence, with its lowest wire strung tight against the ground, is a particular hazard: pronghorn evolved on open plains and almost never jump obstacles, preferring instead to crawl beneath them. When the bottom wire is too low, a fast-moving herd can pile up against it. Highways present a different danger. A 2019 study by researchers at the Wyoming Migration Initiative found that vehicle collisions along a single 30-mile stretch of U.S. Route 191 killed an average of 85 pronghorn per year, a figure the authors called \\\"unsustainable for a population already pressed at its margins.\\\"\\n\\n5 The conservation response has been unusually creative. In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service designated the 6,000-year-old route as the \\\"Path of the Pronghorn,\\\" the first federally protected migration corridor in American history. More recently, transportation engineers have built a series of overpasses and underpasses across Route 191 near Trapper's Point. The structures are landscaped with native sagebrush and funneled by tall fencing that nudges animals toward the safe crossings. Camera-trap data from the first five years of operation showed that pronghorn use of the overpasses rose from near zero in the opening months to more than 80 percent of attempted crossings by year three. Mule deer, which were not the project's intended beneficiary, took to the structures almost immediately.\\n\\n6 Some biologists caution that engineering solutions, however successful, treat the symptoms rather than the cause. As natural-gas development continues to fragment winter range in the Upper Green River Basin, even the most carefully protected corridor leads to a destination that is shrinking each year. Berger himself has argued that conservation of long-distance migration must be considered at the scale of the entire route, from summer pasture to winter shelter, including everything in between. \\\"You cannot save half a migration,\\\" he has written. \\\"The animal does not recognize the boundary on the map.\\\"\\n\\n7 For the pronghorn of western Wyoming, the question is no longer whether the ancient highways exist. The collars and the cameras have settled that. The question is whether a modern landscape, sliced by roads and pipelines and property lines, can still make room for an animal whose habits were set down before any of those things existed.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q52\",\"number\":52,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"GPS collar technology has revolutionized the way wildlife biologists track animals across the American West.\",\"F\":\"The pronghorn's reliance on ancient, narrow migration corridors makes the species both remarkable and vulnerable in a developed landscape.\",\"G\":\"Conservation efforts at Trapper's Point demonstrate that wildlife overpasses are the most effective solution to highway mortality.\",\"H\":\"Joel Berger's research has overturned earlier scientific beliefs about how pronghorn navigate over long distances.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q53\",\"number\":53,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 4, why are standard livestock fences especially dangerous for pronghorn?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"The wire is often electrified along migration corridors.\",\"B\":\"Pronghorn tend to crawl under obstacles rather than jump them, and the lowest wire is set too close to the ground.\",\"C\":\"Fences fragment the herd, separating lambs from their mothers during migration.\",\"D\":\"The fences are typically built across the narrowest points of the migration corridor.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q54\",\"number\":54,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 2, the word \\\"funneled\\\" most nearly means\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"poured liquid through a narrow opening.\",\"F\":\"converged into a constrained passage.\",\"G\":\"hurried away from a perceived danger.\",\"H\":\"scattered widely across an open area.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q55\",\"number\":55,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the detail about human hunters camping at Trapper's Point six thousand years ago in order to\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"establish that pronghorn populations were once much larger than they are today.\",\"B\":\"emphasize the remarkable consistency of the migration route across vast spans of time.\",\"C\":\"suggest that hunting pressure has historically shaped the pronghorn's chosen corridors.\",\"D\":\"contrast modern conservation methods with ancient methods of wildlife management.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q56\",\"number\":56,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"The passage suggests that if a pronghorn herd were permanently cut off from its traditional corridor, the herd would most likely\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"adapt quickly by selecting a new route through trial and error.\",\"F\":\"begin to jump fences rather than crawl beneath them.\",\"G\":\"struggle to establish an alternative path because the route is learned from older animals.\",\"H\":\"merge with neighboring herds that still have access to a corridor.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q57\",\"number\":57,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage best supports the idea that engineering fixes alone cannot guarantee the long-term survival of pronghorn migration?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"\\\"Berger's collars recorded a position every few hours, producing thousands of data points per animal.\\\"\",\"B\":\"\\\"Camera-trap data from the first five years of operation showed that pronghorn use of the overpasses rose from near zero in the opening months to more than 80 percent of attempted crossings by year three.\\\"\",\"C\":\"\\\"As natural-gas development continues to fragment winter range in the Upper Green River Basin, even the most carefully protected corridor leads to a destination that is shrinking each year.\\\"\",\"D\":\"\\\"In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service designated the 6,000-year-old route as the 'Path of the Pronghorn,' the first federally protected migration corridor in American history.\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 6 }, "gen-math-grid": { "count": 1, "costUsd": 0, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 5 SHSAT Math grid-in questions (Q58 through Q62).\nTest number: 1\n\nGrid-in answers must be:\n- Integer or simple decimal (max 4 digits incl. decimal point)\n- May be negative (grid has a \"-\" bubble)\n- No fractions in answer (use decimal: 1/2 → 0.5)\n- Reduce all answers to simplest form\n\nTYPE COVERAGE — one each (in this order):\n- Q58: word problem with simple percentages, rates, or basic algebra setup\n- Q59: order of operations expression with absolute value, exponent, fractions\n- Q60: solve a linear equation for x\n- Q61: geometry — find an unknown angle (parallel lines, perpendicular, supplementary)\n- Q62: statistics — mean of set after add/remove, or related stats computation\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-q{N}\" where N = 58, 59, 60, 61, 62.\n\nGRID-IN SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"word_problem\" | \"order_of_operations\" | \"linear_equation\" | \"geometry_angle\" | \"statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"\"\n}\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER by solving step-by-step.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 5 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q58\",\n \"number\": 58,\n \"type\": \"word_problem\",\n \"prompt\": \"A television is on sale for 30% off its original price. If the sale price of the television is $245, what was its original price in dollars?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"350\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q59\",\n \"number\": 59,\n \"type\": \"order_of_operations\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $20 - 3 \\times [ (2-5)^3 + |-15| ]$ ?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"56\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q60\",\n \"number\": 60,\n \"type\": \"linear_equation\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $\\\\frac{3}{5}(x + 10) = x - 2$, what is the value of $x$?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"20\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q61\",\n \"number\": 61,\n \"type\": \"geometry_angle\",\n \"prompt\": \"In the figure described, horizontal line $L$ is parallel to horizontal line $M$. A path connects point $P$ on line $L$ to point $Q$ on line $M$ via a point $R$ located between the lines. The angle formed at point $P$ by line $L$ and segment $PR$ measures $42^{\\\\circ}$. The angle formed at point $Q$ by line $M$ and segment $QR$ measures $35^{\\\\circ}$. The angles at $P$ and $Q$ are alternate interior angles relative to the parallel lines. What is the measure of angle $PRQ$ in degrees?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"77\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q62\",\n \"number\": 62,\n \"type\": \"statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"The average (arithmetic mean) of a set of 8 numbers is 15. When a 9th number is added to the set, the new average is 16. What is the value of the 9th number?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"24\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 5 SHSAT Math grid-in questions (Q58 through Q62).\nTest number: 1\n\nGrid-in answers must be:\n- Integer or simple decimal (max 4 digits incl. decimal point)\n- May be negative (grid has a \"-\" bubble)\n- No fractions in answer (use decimal: 1/2 → 0.5)\n- Reduce all answers to simplest form\n\nTYPE COVERAGE — one each (in this order):\n- Q58: word problem with simple percentages, rates, or basic algebra setup\n- Q59: order of operations expression with absolute value, exponent, fractions\n- Q60: solve a linear equation for x\n- Q61: geometry — find an unknown angle (parallel lines, perpendicular, supplementary)\n- Q62: statistics — mean of set after add/remove, or related stats computation\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-q{N}\" where N = 58, 59, 60, 61, 62.\n\nGRID-IN SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"word_problem\" | \"order_of_operations\" | \"linear_equation\" | \"geometry_angle\" | \"statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"\"\n}\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER by solving step-by-step.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 5 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q58\",\n \"number\": 58,\n \"type\": \"word_problem\",\n \"prompt\": \"A television is on sale for 30% off its original price. If the sale price of the television is $245, what was its original price in dollars?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"350\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q59\",\n \"number\": 59,\n \"type\": \"order_of_operations\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $20 - 3 \\times [ (2-5)^3 + |-15| ]$ ?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"56\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q60\",\n \"number\": 60,\n \"type\": \"linear_equation\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $\\\\frac{3}{5}(x + 10) = x - 2$, what is the value of $x$?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"20\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q61\",\n \"number\": 61,\n \"type\": \"geometry_angle\",\n \"prompt\": \"In the figure described, horizontal line $L$ is parallel to horizontal line $M$. A path connects point $P$ on line $L$ to point $Q$ on line $M$ via a point $R$ located between the lines. The angle formed at point $P$ by line $L$ and segment $PR$ measures $42^{\\\\circ}$. The angle formed at point $Q$ by line $M$ and segment $QR$ measures $35^{\\\\circ}$. The angles at $P$ and $Q$ are alternate interior angles relative to the parallel lines. What is the measure of angle $PRQ$ in degrees?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"77\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q62\",\n \"number\": 62,\n \"type\": \"statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"The average (arithmetic mean) of a set of 8 numbers is 15. When a 9th number is added to the set, the new average is 16. What is the value of the 9th number?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"24\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 1 }, "gen-math-mcq": { "count": 6, "costUsd": 0, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 12 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic pre_algebra.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 63\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 63.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = pre_algebra:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 12 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q63\",\n \"number\": 63,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A winter coat that originally costs $80.00 is on sale for 20% off. If an 8% sales tax is applied to the sale price, what is the final cost of the coat?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$68.48\",\n \"B\": \"$69.12\",\n \"C\": \"$64.00\",\n \"D\": \"$70.40\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q64\",\n \"number\": 64,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $(\\\\frac{3}{4} - \\\\frac{1}{3}) \\\\div \\\\frac{5}{6}$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{25}{72}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{7}{12}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q65\",\n \"number\": 65,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"In a school band with 45 members, the ratio of students who play brass instruments to students who play woodwind instruments is 2:3. How many students play woodwind instruments?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"9\",\n \"B\": \"18\",\n \"C\": \"27\",\n \"D\": \"30\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q66\",\n \"number\": 66,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A container holds 2 liters of liquid. If 750 milliliters are poured out, how many milliliters of liquid remain in the container? ($1$ liter = $1000$ milliliters)\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"250\",\n \"F\": \"748\",\n \"G\": \"1250\",\n \"H\": \"1750\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q67\",\n \"number\": 67,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following values is the greatest?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{8}$\",\n \"B\": \"62%\",\n \"C\": \"0.62\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{5}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q68\",\n \"number\": 68,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A baker has $10\\\\frac{1}{2}$ pounds of flour. A recipe for one batch of cookies requires $1\\\\frac{3}{4}$ pounds of flour. What is the maximum number of full batches of cookies the baker can make?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"5\",\n \"F\": \"6\",\n \"G\": \"7\",\n \"H\": \"8\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q69\",\n \"number\": 69,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Of the 240 students in the eighth grade, 35% are enrolled in an art class. How many eighth-grade students are enrolled in art?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"70\",\n \"B\": \"84\",\n \"C\": \"96\",\n \"D\": \"156\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q70\",\n \"number\": 70,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"If a train travels at a constant speed of 75 miles per hour, how many miles does it travel in 12 minutes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"9\",\n \"F\": \"12.5\",\n \"G\": \"15\",\n \"H\": \"18\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q71\",\n \"number\": 71,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Calculate: $5\\\\frac{1}{4} - 3\\\\frac{2}{3}$\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$1\\\\frac{1}{12}$\",\n \"B\": \"$1\\\\frac{5}{12}$\",\n \"C\": \"$1\\\\frac{7}{12}$\",\n \"D\": \"$2\\\\frac{5}{12}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q72\",\n \"number\": 72,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"On a scale drawing of an apartment, 1 centimeter represents $2.5$ meters. If a room is 4.2 centimeters long on the drawing, what is its actual length?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1.68 meters\",\n \"F\": \"8.4 meters\",\n \"G\": \"10.5 meters\",\n \"H\": \"12.25 meters\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q73\",\n \"number\": 73,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following is equivalent to the decimal $0.375$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{8}$\",\n \"B\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{8}$\",\n \"C\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{16}$\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{7}{20}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q74\",\n \"number\": 74,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Last year, a city's population was 120,000. This year, its population is 125,400. What is the percent increase in the population?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"4.3%\",\n \"F\": \"4.5%\",\n \"G\": \"5.4%\",\n \"H\": \"54%\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic number_theory.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 75\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 75.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = number_theory:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q75\",\n \"number\": 75,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"How many distinct prime factors does the number 360 have?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"3\",\n \"B\": \"4\",\n \"C\": \"5\",\n \"D\": \"6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q76\",\n \"number\": 76,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two runners are on a circular track. Runner A completes a lap in 8 minutes. Runner B completes a lap in 6 minutes. If they start at the same time from the same point, after how many minutes will they first be at the starting point together again?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"12 minutes\",\n \"F\": \"24 minutes\",\n \"G\": \"48 minutes\",\n \"H\": \"2 minutes\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q77\",\n \"number\": 77,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $x$ is an integer and $20 < 4x < 35$, which of the following statements must be true?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$x$ is even.\",\n \"B\": \"$x > 6$.\",\n \"C\": \"$x$ is prime.\",\n \"D\": \"$x > 5$.\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q78\",\n \"number\": 78,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"The number $3N8$ is a three-digit number divisible by 9, where $N$ represents a single digit. What is the value of $N$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"6\",\n \"G\": \"7\",\n \"H\": \"9\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q79\",\n \"number\": 79,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $m$ is an odd integer and $n$ is an even integer, which of the following expressions MUST result in an odd integer?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$m + n + 1$\",\n \"B\": \"$mn$\",\n \"C\": \"$m - n$\",\n \"D\": \"$2m + n$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q80\",\n \"number\": 80,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"When a positive integer $k$ is divided by 7, the remainder is 4. What is the remainder when $2k+5$ is divided by 7?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"2\",\n \"G\": \"4\",\n \"H\": \"6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q81\",\n \"number\": 81,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"The sum of three different prime numbers is 16. What is the largest of these three primes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"7\",\n \"B\": \"11\",\n \"C\": \"13\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q82\",\n \"number\": 82,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"A teacher has a bag of fewer than 100 marbles. When the marbles are divided equally among 3, 4, or 5 students, there is always 1 marble left over. How many marbles are in the bag?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"31\",\n \"F\": \"41\",\n \"G\": \"61\",\n \"H\": \"60\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic algebra.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 83\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 83.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = algebra:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q83\",\n \"number\": 83,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $5x - 8 = 2x + 7$, what is the value of $x$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"5\",\n \"B\": \"-5\",\n \"C\": \"1\",\n \"D\": \"15/7\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q84\",\n \"number\": 84,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $3a^2 - 2(b-c)$ when $a=3$, $b=5$, and $c=-1$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"6\",\n \"F\": \"15\",\n \"G\": \"19\",\n \"H\": \"39\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q85\",\n \"number\": 85,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Maria has a collection of 42 comic books. This is 6 less than twice the number of comic books, $n$, that her friend Ben has. Which equation represents this situation?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"2n + 6 = 42\",\n \"B\": \"6 - 2n = 42\",\n \"C\": \"2n - 6 = 42\",\n \"D\": \"n = 2(42) - 6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q86\",\n \"number\": 86,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following values of $y$ is a solution to the inequality $15 - 3y > 6$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"5\",\n \"F\": \"4\",\n \"G\": \"3\",\n \"H\": \"2\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q87\",\n \"number\": 87,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following expressions is equivalent to $3(x + 2y) - (2x - y)$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"x + 5y\",\n \"B\": \"x + 7y\",\n \"C\": \"-x + 3y\",\n \"D\": \"5x + y\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q88\",\n \"number\": 88,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A rectangle has a length of $4x^5$ units and a width of $3x^2$ units. What is the area of the rectangle in square units?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"7x^7\",\n \"F\": \"12x^{10}\",\n \"G\": \"12x^7\",\n \"H\": \"7x^{10}\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q89\",\n \"number\": 89,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A taxi service charges a flat fee of $3.50 plus $2.25 per mile. If a passenger's total fare was $37.25, how many miles, $m$, was the ride?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"10\",\n \"B\": \"12\",\n \"C\": \"18\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q90\",\n \"number\": 90,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"The formula for the perimeter of a rectangle is $P = 2l + 2w$. Which of the following equations is correctly solved for the width, $w$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"w = (P - 2l) / 2\",\n \"F\": \"w = P/2 - 2l\",\n \"G\": \"w = P - 2l\",\n \"H\": \"w = P - l\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 9 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic geometry.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 91\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 91.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = geometry:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q91\",\n \"number\": 91,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"The measure of a single interior angle of a regular polygon is $150^\\\\circ$. How many sides does the polygon have?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"8\",\n \"B\": \"10\",\n \"C\": \"12\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q92\",\n \"number\": 92,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A rectangular park is 40 meters long and 30 meters wide. A straight path is built from one corner of the park to the diagonally opposite corner. What is the length of the path in meters?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"50\",\n \"F\": \"60\",\n \"G\": \"70\",\n \"H\": \"1200\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q93\",\n \"number\": 93,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A circle is inscribed inside a square with a perimeter of 48 inches. What is the area of the circle in square inches?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"12π\",\n \"B\": \"36π\",\n \"C\": \"48π\",\n \"D\": \"144π\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q94\",\n \"number\": 94,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"Triangle PQR is similar to triangle XYZ. The length of side PQ is 6 cm, and the length of the corresponding side XY is 10 cm. If the area of triangle PQR is 27 square cm, what is the area of triangle XYZ in square cm?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"45\",\n \"F\": \"54\",\n \"G\": \"75\",\n \"H\": \"135\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q95\",\n \"number\": 95,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A cylindrical can has a diameter of 4 inches and a height of 10 inches. What is the volume of the can in cubic inches?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"40π\",\n \"B\": \"80π\",\n \"C\": \"160π\",\n \"D\": \"400π\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q96\",\n \"number\": 96,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A square has a perimeter of 36 feet. What is its area in square feet?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"36\",\n \"F\": \"81\",\n \"G\": \"144\",\n \"H\": \"324\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q97\",\n \"number\": 97,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two parallel lines are intersected by a transversal line. The measure of an acute interior angle is $(2x + 10)^\\\\circ$, and the measure of an obtuse interior angle on the same side of the transversal is $(3x + 40)^\\\\circ$. What is the value of $x$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"26\",\n \"B\": \"24\",\n \"C\": \"46\",\n \"D\": \"50\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q98\",\n \"number\": 98,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"In rhombus JKLM, the length of diagonal JL is 36 and the length of diagonal KM is 48. What is the perimeter of the rhombus?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"60\",\n \"F\": \"84\",\n \"G\": \"100\",\n \"H\": \"120\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q99\",\n \"number\": 99,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"The base of a right prism is a triangle with side lengths of 8 cm, 15 cm, and 17 cm. The height of the prism is 10 cm. What is the volume of the prism in cubic centimeters?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"400\",\n \"B\": \"520\",\n \"C\": \"1200\",\n \"D\": \"600\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic probability_statistics.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 100\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 100.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = probability_statistics:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q100\",\n \"number\": 100,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A student's scores on five quizzes were 88, 92, 84, 95, and 88. What is the student's average (arithmetic mean) score for the five quizzes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"88\",\n \"F\": \"89.4\",\n \"G\": \"90\",\n \"H\": \"11\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q101\",\n \"number\": 101,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A bag contains 5 red marbles, 3 blue marbles, and 2 green marbles. If one marble is drawn at random, its color is noted, and then it is put back in the bag before a second marble is drawn, what is the probability that both marbles drawn are red?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{5}$\",\n \"B\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{4}$\",\n \"C\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{2}{9}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q102\",\n \"number\": 102,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"For the set of numbers {15, 8, 22, 15, 30, 5}, what is the sum of the median and the range?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"30\",\n \"F\": \"40\",\n \"G\": \"40.5\",\n \"H\": \"55\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q103\",\n \"number\": 103,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A sandwich shop offers 4 types of bread, 3 types of cheese, and 5 types of meat. How many different sandwiches, each consisting of one type of bread, one type of cheese, and one type of meat, can be made?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"12\",\n \"B\": \"47\",\n \"C\": \"60\",\n \"D\": \"120\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q104\",\n \"number\": 104,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A spinner is divided into 8 equal sections, numbered 1 through 8. What is the probability that the spinner will NOT land on a prime number?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{4}$\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{8}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{8}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q105\",\n \"number\": 105,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A data set consists of the following 9 values: 12, 47, 25, 18, 20, 31, 40, 15, 29. What is the interquartile range (IQR) of this data?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"16\",\n \"B\": \"19\",\n \"C\": \"25\",\n \"D\": \"35\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q106\",\n \"number\": 106,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"From a standard 52-card deck, two cards are drawn at random without replacement. What is the probability that both cards are aces?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{169}$\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{221}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{2}{221}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{4}{663}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q107\",\n \"number\": 107,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"In a certain class, there are 10 boys and 20 girls. The average score on a test for the boys was 80, and the average score for the girls was 95. What was the average test score for the entire class?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"87.5\",\n \"B\": \"88\",\n \"C\": \"90\",\n \"D\": \"92.5\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 7 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic word_problems.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 108\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 108.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = word_problems:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 7 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q108\",\n \"number\": 108,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two printers, A and B, work together to print a 600-page document. Printer A, working alone, can print the document in 30 minutes. Printer B, working alone, can print the document in 60 minutes. If they start at the same time, how many minutes will it take for them to print the 600-page document together?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"15\",\n \"F\": \"45\",\n \"G\": \"20\",\n \"H\": \"90\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q109\",\n \"number\": 109,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A tablet is on sale for 20% off its original price. The sale price is then reduced by an additional 10% for a holiday special. If the final price after both discounts is $360, what was the original price of the tablet?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$475.20\",\n \"B\": \"$500\",\n \"C\": \"$468\",\n \"D\": \"$514.29\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q110\",\n \"number\": 110,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"Maya and Liam are running on a straight path. They start at the same point and at the same time, but run in opposite directions. Maya runs at a constant speed of 5 miles per hour. Liam runs at a constant speed of 7 miles per hour. How long will it take, in hours, for them to be 30 miles apart?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"2.5\",\n \"F\": \"3.0\",\n \"G\": \"6.0\",\n \"H\": \"15.0\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q111\",\n \"number\": 111,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A chemist has 40 milliliters of a solution that is 25% acid. How many milliliters of pure acid must be added to create a new solution that is 40% acid?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"8\",\n \"B\": \"15\",\n \"C\": \"12\",\n \"D\": \"10\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q112\",\n \"number\": 112,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"At a school event, the ratio of teachers to students is 2 to 15. If a total of 340 teachers and students are at the event, how many students are there?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"40\",\n \"F\": \"225\",\n \"G\": \"323\",\n \"H\": \"300\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q113\",\n \"number\": 113,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A charity sold tickets for a raffle. The ticket numbers were consecutive integers starting from 101. If the total revenue from the tickets was $450 and each ticket cost $3, what was the highest ticket number sold?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"250\",\n \"B\": \"251\",\n \"C\": \"150\",\n \"D\": \"249\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q114\",\n \"number\": 114,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A town's population was 10,000 at the beginning of 2022. It increased by 10% during 2022. Then, it decreased by 10% during 2023. What was the town's population at the end of 2023?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"10,000\",\n \"F\": \"9,900\",\n \"G\": \"9,000\",\n \"H\": \"10,100\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 12 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic pre_algebra.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 63\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 63.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = pre_algebra:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 12 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q63\",\n \"number\": 63,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A winter coat that originally costs $80.00 is on sale for 20% off. If an 8% sales tax is applied to the sale price, what is the final cost of the coat?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$68.48\",\n \"B\": \"$69.12\",\n \"C\": \"$64.00\",\n \"D\": \"$70.40\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q64\",\n \"number\": 64,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $(\\\\frac{3}{4} - \\\\frac{1}{3}) \\\\div \\\\frac{5}{6}$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{25}{72}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{7}{12}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q65\",\n \"number\": 65,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"In a school band with 45 members, the ratio of students who play brass instruments to students who play woodwind instruments is 2:3. How many students play woodwind instruments?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"9\",\n \"B\": \"18\",\n \"C\": \"27\",\n \"D\": \"30\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q66\",\n \"number\": 66,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A container holds 2 liters of liquid. If 750 milliliters are poured out, how many milliliters of liquid remain in the container? ($1$ liter = $1000$ milliliters)\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"250\",\n \"F\": \"748\",\n \"G\": \"1250\",\n \"H\": \"1750\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q67\",\n \"number\": 67,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following values is the greatest?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{8}$\",\n \"B\": \"62%\",\n \"C\": \"0.62\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{5}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q68\",\n \"number\": 68,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A baker has $10\\\\frac{1}{2}$ pounds of flour. A recipe for one batch of cookies requires $1\\\\frac{3}{4}$ pounds of flour. What is the maximum number of full batches of cookies the baker can make?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"5\",\n \"F\": \"6\",\n \"G\": \"7\",\n \"H\": \"8\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q69\",\n \"number\": 69,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Of the 240 students in the eighth grade, 35% are enrolled in an art class. How many eighth-grade students are enrolled in art?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"70\",\n \"B\": \"84\",\n \"C\": \"96\",\n \"D\": \"156\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q70\",\n \"number\": 70,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"If a train travels at a constant speed of 75 miles per hour, how many miles does it travel in 12 minutes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"9\",\n \"F\": \"12.5\",\n \"G\": \"15\",\n \"H\": \"18\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q71\",\n \"number\": 71,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Calculate: $5\\\\frac{1}{4} - 3\\\\frac{2}{3}$\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$1\\\\frac{1}{12}$\",\n \"B\": \"$1\\\\frac{5}{12}$\",\n \"C\": \"$1\\\\frac{7}{12}$\",\n \"D\": \"$2\\\\frac{5}{12}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q72\",\n \"number\": 72,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"On a scale drawing of an apartment, 1 centimeter represents $2.5$ meters. If a room is 4.2 centimeters long on the drawing, what is its actual length?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1.68 meters\",\n \"F\": \"8.4 meters\",\n \"G\": \"10.5 meters\",\n \"H\": \"12.25 meters\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q73\",\n \"number\": 73,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following is equivalent to the decimal $0.375$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{8}$\",\n \"B\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{8}$\",\n \"C\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{16}$\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{7}{20}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q74\",\n \"number\": 74,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Last year, a city's population was 120,000. This year, its population is 125,400. What is the percent increase in the population?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"4.3%\",\n \"F\": \"4.5%\",\n \"G\": \"5.4%\",\n \"H\": \"54%\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 1, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic number_theory.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 75\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 75.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = number_theory:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q75\",\n \"number\": 75,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"How many distinct prime factors does the number 360 have?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"3\",\n \"B\": \"4\",\n \"C\": \"5\",\n \"D\": \"6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q76\",\n \"number\": 76,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two runners are on a circular track. Runner A completes a lap in 8 minutes. Runner B completes a lap in 6 minutes. If they start at the same time from the same point, after how many minutes will they first be at the starting point together again?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"12 minutes\",\n \"F\": \"24 minutes\",\n \"G\": \"48 minutes\",\n \"H\": \"2 minutes\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q77\",\n \"number\": 77,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $x$ is an integer and $20 < 4x < 35$, which of the following statements must be true?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$x$ is even.\",\n \"B\": \"$x > 6$.\",\n \"C\": \"$x$ is prime.\",\n \"D\": \"$x > 5$.\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q78\",\n \"number\": 78,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"The number $3N8$ is a three-digit number divisible by 9, where $N$ represents a single digit. What is the value of $N$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"6\",\n \"G\": \"7\",\n \"H\": \"9\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q79\",\n \"number\": 79,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $m$ is an odd integer and $n$ is an even integer, which of the following expressions MUST result in an odd integer?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$m + n + 1$\",\n \"B\": \"$mn$\",\n \"C\": \"$m - n$\",\n \"D\": \"$2m + n$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q80\",\n \"number\": 80,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"When a positive integer $k$ is divided by 7, the remainder is 4. What is the remainder when $2k+5$ is divided by 7?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"2\",\n \"G\": \"4\",\n \"H\": \"6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q81\",\n \"number\": 81,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"The sum of three different prime numbers is 16. What is the largest of these three primes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"7\",\n \"B\": \"11\",\n \"C\": \"13\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q82\",\n \"number\": 82,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"A teacher has a bag of fewer than 100 marbles. When the marbles are divided equally among 3, 4, or 5 students, there is always 1 marble left over. How many marbles are in the bag?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"31\",\n \"F\": \"41\",\n \"G\": \"61\",\n \"H\": \"60\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 2, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic algebra.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 83\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 83.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = algebra:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q83\",\n \"number\": 83,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $5x - 8 = 2x + 7$, what is the value of $x$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"5\",\n \"B\": \"-5\",\n \"C\": \"1\",\n \"D\": \"15/7\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q84\",\n \"number\": 84,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $3a^2 - 2(b-c)$ when $a=3$, $b=5$, and $c=-1$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"6\",\n \"F\": \"15\",\n \"G\": \"19\",\n \"H\": \"39\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q85\",\n \"number\": 85,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Maria has a collection of 42 comic books. This is 6 less than twice the number of comic books, $n$, that her friend Ben has. Which equation represents this situation?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"2n + 6 = 42\",\n \"B\": \"6 - 2n = 42\",\n \"C\": \"2n - 6 = 42\",\n \"D\": \"n = 2(42) - 6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q86\",\n \"number\": 86,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following values of $y$ is a solution to the inequality $15 - 3y > 6$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"5\",\n \"F\": \"4\",\n \"G\": \"3\",\n \"H\": \"2\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q87\",\n \"number\": 87,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following expressions is equivalent to $3(x + 2y) - (2x - y)$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"x + 5y\",\n \"B\": \"x + 7y\",\n \"C\": \"-x + 3y\",\n \"D\": \"5x + y\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q88\",\n \"number\": 88,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A rectangle has a length of $4x^5$ units and a width of $3x^2$ units. What is the area of the rectangle in square units?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"7x^7\",\n \"F\": \"12x^{10}\",\n \"G\": \"12x^7\",\n \"H\": \"7x^{10}\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q89\",\n \"number\": 89,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A taxi service charges a flat fee of $3.50 plus $2.25 per mile. If a passenger's total fare was $37.25, how many miles, $m$, was the ride?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"10\",\n \"B\": \"12\",\n \"C\": \"18\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q90\",\n \"number\": 90,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"The formula for the perimeter of a rectangle is $P = 2l + 2w$. Which of the following equations is correctly solved for the width, $w$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"w = (P - 2l) / 2\",\n \"F\": \"w = P/2 - 2l\",\n \"G\": \"w = P - 2l\",\n \"H\": \"w = P - l\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 3, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 9 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic geometry.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 91\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 91.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = geometry:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q91\",\n \"number\": 91,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"The measure of a single interior angle of a regular polygon is $150^\\\\circ$. How many sides does the polygon have?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"8\",\n \"B\": \"10\",\n \"C\": \"12\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q92\",\n \"number\": 92,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A rectangular park is 40 meters long and 30 meters wide. A straight path is built from one corner of the park to the diagonally opposite corner. What is the length of the path in meters?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"50\",\n \"F\": \"60\",\n \"G\": \"70\",\n \"H\": \"1200\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q93\",\n \"number\": 93,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A circle is inscribed inside a square with a perimeter of 48 inches. What is the area of the circle in square inches?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"12π\",\n \"B\": \"36π\",\n \"C\": \"48π\",\n \"D\": \"144π\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q94\",\n \"number\": 94,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"Triangle PQR is similar to triangle XYZ. The length of side PQ is 6 cm, and the length of the corresponding side XY is 10 cm. If the area of triangle PQR is 27 square cm, what is the area of triangle XYZ in square cm?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"45\",\n \"F\": \"54\",\n \"G\": \"75\",\n \"H\": \"135\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q95\",\n \"number\": 95,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A cylindrical can has a diameter of 4 inches and a height of 10 inches. What is the volume of the can in cubic inches?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"40π\",\n \"B\": \"80π\",\n \"C\": \"160π\",\n \"D\": \"400π\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q96\",\n \"number\": 96,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A square has a perimeter of 36 feet. What is its area in square feet?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"36\",\n \"F\": \"81\",\n \"G\": \"144\",\n \"H\": \"324\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q97\",\n \"number\": 97,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two parallel lines are intersected by a transversal line. The measure of an acute interior angle is $(2x + 10)^\\\\circ$, and the measure of an obtuse interior angle on the same side of the transversal is $(3x + 40)^\\\\circ$. What is the value of $x$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"26\",\n \"B\": \"24\",\n \"C\": \"46\",\n \"D\": \"50\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q98\",\n \"number\": 98,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"In rhombus JKLM, the length of diagonal JL is 36 and the length of diagonal KM is 48. What is the perimeter of the rhombus?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"60\",\n \"F\": \"84\",\n \"G\": \"100\",\n \"H\": \"120\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q99\",\n \"number\": 99,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"The base of a right prism is a triangle with side lengths of 8 cm, 15 cm, and 17 cm. The height of the prism is 10 cm. What is the volume of the prism in cubic centimeters?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"400\",\n \"B\": \"520\",\n \"C\": \"1200\",\n \"D\": \"600\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 4, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic probability_statistics.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 100\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 100.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = probability_statistics:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q100\",\n \"number\": 100,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A student's scores on five quizzes were 88, 92, 84, 95, and 88. What is the student's average (arithmetic mean) score for the five quizzes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"88\",\n \"F\": \"89.4\",\n \"G\": \"90\",\n \"H\": \"11\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q101\",\n \"number\": 101,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A bag contains 5 red marbles, 3 blue marbles, and 2 green marbles. If one marble is drawn at random, its color is noted, and then it is put back in the bag before a second marble is drawn, what is the probability that both marbles drawn are red?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{5}$\",\n \"B\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{4}$\",\n \"C\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{2}{9}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q102\",\n \"number\": 102,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"For the set of numbers {15, 8, 22, 15, 30, 5}, what is the sum of the median and the range?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"30\",\n \"F\": \"40\",\n \"G\": \"40.5\",\n \"H\": \"55\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q103\",\n \"number\": 103,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A sandwich shop offers 4 types of bread, 3 types of cheese, and 5 types of meat. How many different sandwiches, each consisting of one type of bread, one type of cheese, and one type of meat, can be made?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"12\",\n \"B\": \"47\",\n \"C\": \"60\",\n \"D\": \"120\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q104\",\n \"number\": 104,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A spinner is divided into 8 equal sections, numbered 1 through 8. What is the probability that the spinner will NOT land on a prime number?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{4}$\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{8}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{8}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q105\",\n \"number\": 105,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A data set consists of the following 9 values: 12, 47, 25, 18, 20, 31, 40, 15, 29. What is the interquartile range (IQR) of this data?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"16\",\n \"B\": \"19\",\n \"C\": \"25\",\n \"D\": \"35\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q106\",\n \"number\": 106,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"From a standard 52-card deck, two cards are drawn at random without replacement. What is the probability that both cards are aces?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{169}$\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{221}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{2}{221}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{4}{663}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q107\",\n \"number\": 107,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"In a certain class, there are 10 boys and 20 girls. The average score on a test for the boys was 80, and the average score for the girls was 95. What was the average test score for the entire class?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"87.5\",\n \"B\": \"88\",\n \"C\": \"90\",\n \"D\": \"92.5\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 5, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 7 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic word_problems.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 108\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 108.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = word_problems:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 7 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q108\",\n \"number\": 108,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two printers, A and B, work together to print a 600-page document. Printer A, working alone, can print the document in 30 minutes. Printer B, working alone, can print the document in 60 minutes. If they start at the same time, how many minutes will it take for them to print the 600-page document together?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"15\",\n \"F\": \"45\",\n \"G\": \"20\",\n \"H\": \"90\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q109\",\n \"number\": 109,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A tablet is on sale for 20% off its original price. The sale price is then reduced by an additional 10% for a holiday special. If the final price after both discounts is $360, what was the original price of the tablet?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$475.20\",\n \"B\": \"$500\",\n \"C\": \"$468\",\n \"D\": \"$514.29\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q110\",\n \"number\": 110,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"Maya and Liam are running on a straight path. They start at the same point and at the same time, but run in opposite directions. Maya runs at a constant speed of 5 miles per hour. Liam runs at a constant speed of 7 miles per hour. How long will it take, in hours, for them to be 30 miles apart?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"2.5\",\n \"F\": \"3.0\",\n \"G\": \"6.0\",\n \"H\": \"15.0\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q111\",\n \"number\": 111,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A chemist has 40 milliliters of a solution that is 25% acid. How many milliliters of pure acid must be added to create a new solution that is 40% acid?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"8\",\n \"B\": \"15\",\n \"C\": \"12\",\n \"D\": \"10\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q112\",\n \"number\": 112,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"At a school event, the ratio of teachers to students is 2 to 15. If a total of 340 teachers and students are at the event, how many students are there?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"40\",\n \"F\": \"225\",\n \"G\": \"323\",\n \"H\": \"300\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q113\",\n \"number\": 113,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A charity sold tickets for a raffle. The ticket numbers were consecutive integers starting from 101. If the total revenue from the tickets was $450 and each ticket cost $3, what was the highest ticket number sold?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"250\",\n \"B\": \"251\",\n \"C\": \"150\",\n \"D\": \"249\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q114\",\n \"number\": 114,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A town's population was 10,000 at the beginning of 2022. It increased by 10% during 2022. Then, it decreased by 10% during 2023. What was the town's population at the end of 2023?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"10,000\",\n \"F\": \"9,900\",\n \"G\": \"9,000\",\n \"H\": \"10,100\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 6 } }, "upstream": { "gen-rev-a": { "count": 1, "costUsd": 0.084915, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0.084915, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 4 SHSAT Revising/Editing Part A standalone questions.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 1\n\nEach question is INDEPENDENT (no shared passage). Each presents 1-4 sentences in a boxed text and asks the student to identify the best edit.\n\nQUESTION TYPES (use a mix across the 4 questions):\n- punctuation_edit: which comma to add/remove (e.g., \"Insert a comma after X\" / \"Delete the comma after Y\")\n- sentence_revision_in_paragraph: a 4-sentence numbered paragraph, choices \"Sentence N: change X to Y\" — only one revision is needed\n- modifier_clarity: which version makes the modifier placement clearest (entire-sentence rewrites)\n- sentence_structure: which fix corrects a comma splice / run-on / fragment in a paragraph (the choices show the corrected fragment)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-revA-qN\" where N is 1, 2, 3, 4.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING:\n- Q1 → A, B, C, D | correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Q2 → E, F, G, H | correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n- Q3 → A, B, C, D\n- Q4 → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-revA-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"punctuation_edit\" | \"sentence_revision_in_paragraph\" | \"modifier_clarity\" | \"sentence_structure\",\n \"stimulus\": \"the boxed text (1 sentence or a 3-5 sentence numbered paragraph)\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which edit should be made in the sentence?\" or \"How should the paragraph be revised?\" or \"Which revision corrects the error?\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 4 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q1\",\"number\":1,\"type\":\"punctuation_edit\",\"stimulus\":\"After hiking for nearly six hours through the dense humid forest, the exhausted students finally reached the lookout tower at the summit.\",\"prompt\":\"Which edit should be made in the sentence?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Insert a comma after $hiking$.\",\"B\":\"Insert a comma after $dense$.\",\"C\":\"Insert a comma after $exhausted$.\",\"D\":\"Delete the comma after $hours$.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q2\",\"number\":2,\"type\":\"sentence_structure\",\"stimulus\":\"(1) Marine biologists have long been fascinated by octopuses. (2) These creatures can solve complex puzzles, they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside. (3) Some species also use coconut shells as portable shelters. (4) Such behaviors suggest a level of intelligence rarely observed in invertebrates.\",\"prompt\":\"Which revision best corrects the error in sentence 2?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"F\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles, and they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"G\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles, additionally they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"H\":\"These creatures, can solve complex puzzles, they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q3\",\"number\":3,\"type\":\"modifier_clarity\",\"stimulus\":\"Covered in thick layers of dust, the librarian discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf.\",\"prompt\":\"Which revision makes the meaning of the sentence clearest?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"On the top shelf, the librarian discovered an old manuscript covered in thick layers of dust.\",\"B\":\"The librarian discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf, covered in thick layers of dust.\",\"C\":\"Covered in thick layers of dust on the top shelf, the librarian discovered an old manuscript.\",\"D\":\"The librarian, covered in thick layers of dust, discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q4\",\"number\":4,\"type\":\"sentence_revision_in_paragraph\",\"stimulus\":\"(1) The city council approved a new plan to expand the public bike-share program. (2) Under the proposal, fifty additional stations will be built across the outer boroughs. (3) Officials hope the expansion will reduce traffic congestion and encourage healthier commuting. (4) The program, which began in 2013, have steadily grown each year since its launch.\",\"prompt\":\"How should the paragraph be revised?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Sentence 1: change $approved$ to $approves$.\",\"F\":\"Sentence 2: change $will be built$ to $will being built$.\",\"G\":\"Sentence 3: change $encourage$ to $encourages$.\",\"H\":\"Sentence 4: change $have$ to $has$.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"}]}" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0.084915, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 4 SHSAT Revising/Editing Part A standalone questions.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 1\n\nEach question is INDEPENDENT (no shared passage). Each presents 1-4 sentences in a boxed text and asks the student to identify the best edit.\n\nQUESTION TYPES (use a mix across the 4 questions):\n- punctuation_edit: which comma to add/remove (e.g., \"Insert a comma after X\" / \"Delete the comma after Y\")\n- sentence_revision_in_paragraph: a 4-sentence numbered paragraph, choices \"Sentence N: change X to Y\" — only one revision is needed\n- modifier_clarity: which version makes the modifier placement clearest (entire-sentence rewrites)\n- sentence_structure: which fix corrects a comma splice / run-on / fragment in a paragraph (the choices show the corrected fragment)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-revA-qN\" where N is 1, 2, 3, 4.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING:\n- Q1 → A, B, C, D | correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Q2 → E, F, G, H | correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n- Q3 → A, B, C, D\n- Q4 → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-revA-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"punctuation_edit\" | \"sentence_revision_in_paragraph\" | \"modifier_clarity\" | \"sentence_structure\",\n \"stimulus\": \"the boxed text (1 sentence or a 3-5 sentence numbered paragraph)\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which edit should be made in the sentence?\" or \"How should the paragraph be revised?\" or \"Which revision corrects the error?\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 4 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q1\",\"number\":1,\"type\":\"punctuation_edit\",\"stimulus\":\"After hiking for nearly six hours through the dense humid forest, the exhausted students finally reached the lookout tower at the summit.\",\"prompt\":\"Which edit should be made in the sentence?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Insert a comma after $hiking$.\",\"B\":\"Insert a comma after $dense$.\",\"C\":\"Insert a comma after $exhausted$.\",\"D\":\"Delete the comma after $hours$.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q2\",\"number\":2,\"type\":\"sentence_structure\",\"stimulus\":\"(1) Marine biologists have long been fascinated by octopuses. (2) These creatures can solve complex puzzles, they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside. (3) Some species also use coconut shells as portable shelters. (4) Such behaviors suggest a level of intelligence rarely observed in invertebrates.\",\"prompt\":\"Which revision best corrects the error in sentence 2?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"F\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles, and they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"G\":\"These creatures can solve complex puzzles, additionally they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\",\"H\":\"These creatures, can solve complex puzzles, they can even unscrew jars to retrieve food hidden inside.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q3\",\"number\":3,\"type\":\"modifier_clarity\",\"stimulus\":\"Covered in thick layers of dust, the librarian discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf.\",\"prompt\":\"Which revision makes the meaning of the sentence clearest?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"On the top shelf, the librarian discovered an old manuscript covered in thick layers of dust.\",\"B\":\"The librarian discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf, covered in thick layers of dust.\",\"C\":\"Covered in thick layers of dust on the top shelf, the librarian discovered an old manuscript.\",\"D\":\"The librarian, covered in thick layers of dust, discovered an old manuscript on the top shelf.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revA-q4\",\"number\":4,\"type\":\"sentence_revision_in_paragraph\",\"stimulus\":\"(1) The city council approved a new plan to expand the public bike-share program. (2) Under the proposal, fifty additional stations will be built across the outer boroughs. (3) Officials hope the expansion will reduce traffic congestion and encourage healthier commuting. (4) The program, which began in 2013, have steadily grown each year since its launch.\",\"prompt\":\"How should the paragraph be revised?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Sentence 1: change $approved$ to $approves$.\",\"F\":\"Sentence 2: change $will be built$ to $will being built$.\",\"G\":\"Sentence 3: change $encourage$ to $encourages$.\",\"H\":\"Sentence 4: change $have$ to $has$.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 1 }, "gen-rev-b": { "count": 1, "costUsd": 0.907515, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0.907515, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Revising/Editing Part B passage with EXACTLY 5 questions (Q5-Q9).\nTest number: 1 | Topic: everyday science topic relevant to teens (e.g., screen-time, sleep, plants, exercise)\n\nPASSAGE:\n- 250-350 words, 3-4 paragraphs\n- Sentences NUMBERED inline as (1) (2) (3) ... up to 17-20 sentences total\n- Topic: everyday science topic relevant to teens (e.g., screen-time, sleep, plants, exercise) (informational essay)\n- Title at top\n- Has a clear central topic that the questions probe (organization, support, transitions, cohesion)\n\nQUESTION TYPES (use these 5 in order):\n- Q5: best topic-introducing sentence to follow sentence 3 (4 sentence options)\n- Q6: best transition word/phrase to add to sentence X (options: \"As a result,\" / \"Primarily,\" / \"In contrast,\" / \"Unfortunately,\")\n- Q7: best supporting sentence to follow sentence Y (4 sentence options)\n- Q8: which sentence presents irrelevant ideas and should be deleted (4 sentence-number options)\n- Q9: best concluding sentence to follow the final sentence (4 sentence options)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-revB-qN\" where N is 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING:\n- Q5 → A, B, C, D\n- Q6 → E, F, G, H\n- Q7 → A, B, C, D\n- Q8 → E, F, G, H\n- Q9 → A, B, C, D\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-revB-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"introduction\"|\"transition\"|\"supporting_evidence\"|\"deletion\"|\"conclusion\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-revB-passage\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-revB-passage\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"text\": \"(1) ... (2) ... (3) ... ...\"\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 5 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"title\":\"Why Teens Can't Just Go to Bed Earlier\",\"text\":\"(1) Most teenagers have heard the familiar advice to get more sleep, yet few realize how dramatically their biology resists early bedtimes. (2) During adolescence, the brain shifts its internal clock, releasing the sleep hormone melatonin roughly two hours later than it does in younger children. (3) This biological change explains why a thirteen-year-old who once drifted off at nine now finds herself wide awake at eleven. (4) Researchers at the American Academy of Pediatrics report that teens sleeping fewer than seven hours per night perform measurably worse on tests of memory and attention. (5) Chronic sleep loss has also been linked to higher rates of anxiety, weakened immune response, and an increased risk of car accidents among new drivers. (6) Even athletic performance suffers, since muscles repair themselves primarily during the deepest stages of slumber. (7) Coaches have noticed that well-rested players sprint faster, react more quickly, and recover from injuries in less time. (8) _______ many American middle and high schools still begin classes before eight in the morning, forcing students out of bed long before their bodies are biologically prepared. (9) A handful of districts, however, have experimented with later start times and reported encouraging results. (10) The earliest public high school in the United States opened in Boston in 1821. (11) Even shifting the morning bell by thirty minutes has produced measurable gains in attendance and grades. (12) Of course, school schedules are only part of the picture; teens themselves can take steps to protect their rest. (13) Experts recommend dimming screens at least an hour before bedtime, since the blue light emitted by phones and laptops can suppress melatonin production. (14) Keeping a consistent sleep schedule on weekends, rather than sleeping until noon on Saturday, also helps stabilize the body's natural rhythms. (15) Caffeine, too, lingers in the bloodstream far longer than most teens realize—an afternoon iced coffee can still be active at midnight. (16) Some students even swear by short naps after school, though experts caution that naps longer than thirty minutes can interfere with nighttime sleep. (17) Even simply keeping the bedroom cool and dark can shave precious minutes off the time it takes to fall asleep.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q5\",\"number\":5,\"type\":\"introduction\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 3 to introduce the focus of the next paragraph. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"These shifted rhythms might seem like a minor inconvenience, but the consequences of chronic sleep loss reach into nearly every part of a teenager's life.\",\"B\":\"Teenagers also enjoy a wide range of hobbies, from competitive gaming to varsity sports, that fill their busy afternoons.\",\"C\":\"Scientists have studied many fascinating aspects of human biology over the past century.\",\"D\":\"Going to bed earlier is something every adolescent should simply try harder to do.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q6\",\"number\":6,\"type\":\"transition\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"Which transition would best fit in the blank at the beginning of sentence 8?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"As a result,\",\"F\":\"Primarily,\",\"G\":\"In contrast,\",\"H\":\"Unfortunately,\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q7\",\"number\":7,\"type\":\"supporting_evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 9 to provide concrete support for the claim about districts that adopted later start times. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Some parents, however, remain unconvinced that adjusting the school day is worth the trouble.\",\"B\":\"Schools serve many different roles in the lives of American teenagers and their families.\",\"C\":\"Researchers at the University of Minnesota tracked thousands of students before and after their schools delayed bell schedules and documented significant gains in standardized test scores.\",\"D\":\"Districts often debate budgets, calendars, and curriculum requirements during their spring planning meetings.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q8\",\"number\":8,\"type\":\"deletion\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"Which sentence presents an irrelevant idea and should be deleted from the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"sentence 7\",\"F\":\"sentence 10\",\"G\":\"sentence 14\",\"H\":\"sentence 16\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q9\",\"number\":9,\"type\":\"conclusion\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a concluding sentence to follow sentence 17. Which choice most effectively wraps up the central argument of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"In conclusion, melatonin is an interesting hormone that scientists are still working hard to understand.\",\"B\":\"Therefore, teenagers should always avoid coffee and energy drinks at any cost.\",\"C\":\"Schools must change their schedules immediately if they want any of their students to succeed.\",\"D\":\"Sleep, then, is not simply a matter of willpower; it is a partnership between biology, school schedules, and the daily choices teenagers make.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"D\"}]}" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0.907515, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Revising/Editing Part B passage with EXACTLY 5 questions (Q5-Q9).\nTest number: 1 | Topic: everyday science topic relevant to teens (e.g., screen-time, sleep, plants, exercise)\n\nPASSAGE:\n- 250-350 words, 3-4 paragraphs\n- Sentences NUMBERED inline as (1) (2) (3) ... up to 17-20 sentences total\n- Topic: everyday science topic relevant to teens (e.g., screen-time, sleep, plants, exercise) (informational essay)\n- Title at top\n- Has a clear central topic that the questions probe (organization, support, transitions, cohesion)\n\nQUESTION TYPES (use these 5 in order):\n- Q5: best topic-introducing sentence to follow sentence 3 (4 sentence options)\n- Q6: best transition word/phrase to add to sentence X (options: \"As a result,\" / \"Primarily,\" / \"In contrast,\" / \"Unfortunately,\")\n- Q7: best supporting sentence to follow sentence Y (4 sentence options)\n- Q8: which sentence presents irrelevant ideas and should be deleted (4 sentence-number options)\n- Q9: best concluding sentence to follow the final sentence (4 sentence options)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-revB-qN\" where N is 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING:\n- Q5 → A, B, C, D\n- Q6 → E, F, G, H\n- Q7 → A, B, C, D\n- Q8 → E, F, G, H\n- Q9 → A, B, C, D\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-revB-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"introduction\"|\"transition\"|\"supporting_evidence\"|\"deletion\"|\"conclusion\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-revB-passage\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-revB-passage\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"text\": \"(1) ... (2) ... (3) ... ...\"\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 5 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"title\":\"Why Teens Can't Just Go to Bed Earlier\",\"text\":\"(1) Most teenagers have heard the familiar advice to get more sleep, yet few realize how dramatically their biology resists early bedtimes. (2) During adolescence, the brain shifts its internal clock, releasing the sleep hormone melatonin roughly two hours later than it does in younger children. (3) This biological change explains why a thirteen-year-old who once drifted off at nine now finds herself wide awake at eleven. (4) Researchers at the American Academy of Pediatrics report that teens sleeping fewer than seven hours per night perform measurably worse on tests of memory and attention. (5) Chronic sleep loss has also been linked to higher rates of anxiety, weakened immune response, and an increased risk of car accidents among new drivers. (6) Even athletic performance suffers, since muscles repair themselves primarily during the deepest stages of slumber. (7) Coaches have noticed that well-rested players sprint faster, react more quickly, and recover from injuries in less time. (8) _______ many American middle and high schools still begin classes before eight in the morning, forcing students out of bed long before their bodies are biologically prepared. (9) A handful of districts, however, have experimented with later start times and reported encouraging results. (10) The earliest public high school in the United States opened in Boston in 1821. (11) Even shifting the morning bell by thirty minutes has produced measurable gains in attendance and grades. (12) Of course, school schedules are only part of the picture; teens themselves can take steps to protect their rest. (13) Experts recommend dimming screens at least an hour before bedtime, since the blue light emitted by phones and laptops can suppress melatonin production. (14) Keeping a consistent sleep schedule on weekends, rather than sleeping until noon on Saturday, also helps stabilize the body's natural rhythms. (15) Caffeine, too, lingers in the bloodstream far longer than most teens realize—an afternoon iced coffee can still be active at midnight. (16) Some students even swear by short naps after school, though experts caution that naps longer than thirty minutes can interfere with nighttime sleep. (17) Even simply keeping the bedroom cool and dark can shave precious minutes off the time it takes to fall asleep.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q5\",\"number\":5,\"type\":\"introduction\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 3 to introduce the focus of the next paragraph. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"These shifted rhythms might seem like a minor inconvenience, but the consequences of chronic sleep loss reach into nearly every part of a teenager's life.\",\"B\":\"Teenagers also enjoy a wide range of hobbies, from competitive gaming to varsity sports, that fill their busy afternoons.\",\"C\":\"Scientists have studied many fascinating aspects of human biology over the past century.\",\"D\":\"Going to bed earlier is something every adolescent should simply try harder to do.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q6\",\"number\":6,\"type\":\"transition\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"Which transition would best fit in the blank at the beginning of sentence 8?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"As a result,\",\"F\":\"Primarily,\",\"G\":\"In contrast,\",\"H\":\"Unfortunately,\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q7\",\"number\":7,\"type\":\"supporting_evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 9 to provide concrete support for the claim about districts that adopted later start times. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Some parents, however, remain unconvinced that adjusting the school day is worth the trouble.\",\"B\":\"Schools serve many different roles in the lives of American teenagers and their families.\",\"C\":\"Researchers at the University of Minnesota tracked thousands of students before and after their schools delayed bell schedules and documented significant gains in standardized test scores.\",\"D\":\"Districts often debate budgets, calendars, and curriculum requirements during their spring planning meetings.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q8\",\"number\":8,\"type\":\"deletion\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"Which sentence presents an irrelevant idea and should be deleted from the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"sentence 7\",\"F\":\"sentence 10\",\"G\":\"sentence 14\",\"H\":\"sentence 16\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-revB-q9\",\"number\":9,\"type\":\"conclusion\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-revB-passage\",\"prompt\":\"The writer wants to add a concluding sentence to follow sentence 17. Which choice most effectively wraps up the central argument of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"In conclusion, melatonin is an interesting hormone that scientists are still working hard to understand.\",\"B\":\"Therefore, teenagers should always avoid coffee and energy drinks at any cost.\",\"C\":\"Schools must change their schedules immediately if they want any of their students to succeed.\",\"D\":\"Sleep, then, is not simply a matter of willpower; it is a partnership between biology, school schedules, and the daily choices teenagers make.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"D\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 1 }, "gen-read": { "count": 6, "costUsd": 1.9728899999999998, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0.28089, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 1 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 10 | Topic: memory / cognition / neuroscience\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-qN\" where N starts at 10.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\n\"passage\": {\n\"id\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n\"title\": \"The Sleeping Architect: How the Brain Rebuilds Memory at Night\",\n\"text\": \"1 For most of the twentieth century, scientists treated sleep as a kind of biological pause button—a period when the body repaired tissues and the brain, presumably, idled. The memories a person carried to bed were assumed to be the same memories waiting in the morning. Beginning in the 1990s, however, a growing body of evidence began to overturn this assumption. Researchers now describe sleep not as a passive intermission but as an active rehearsal in which the brain edits, strengthens, and sometimes even rewrites the experiences of the day.\\n\\n2 The clearest demonstration of this rehearsal came from rats, not humans. In 1994, neuroscientists Matthew Wilson and Bruce McNaughton recorded the electrical activity of neurons in the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped region buried deep in the brain that is essential for forming new memories. As the rats explored a small maze, particular cells, called place cells, fired in a distinctive sequence that mapped the animals' route. When the rats later fell asleep, the same cells fired again, in the same order—only faster, sometimes at twenty times the original speed. The brain, in other words, was replaying the maze in miniature, long after the maze had been put away.\\n\\n3 This phenomenon, now called memory replay, has since been observed in birds, primates, and, with the help of indirect imaging, in human beings. The replays appear to occur most often during slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of non-dreaming rest, when long, lazy waves of electrical activity wash across the cortex. According to a model proposed by researcher Jan Born of the University of Tübingen, these waves act as a kind of conductor: they invite the hippocampus to broadcast recent memories to the cortex, where they can be filed into more permanent storage. Without this nightly conversation, Born argues, the cortex would never learn what the hippocampus had been collecting.\\n\\n4 The consequences for learning are striking. In one widely cited 2004 experiment, Harvard researcher Robert Stickgold trained volunteers on a finger-tapping task, asking them to type a short sequence as quickly and accurately as they could. Subjects who slept for a full night before being tested again improved by roughly twenty percent, while those who stayed awake the same number of hours showed almost no improvement at all. The motor circuits that controlled their fingers, it seemed, had practiced the sequence overnight without their knowledge.\\n\\n5 Sleep does more than polish skills, however. It also appears to discard them, or at least to weaken connections that the brain has decided are unimportant. The neuroscientist Giulio Tononi has championed a theory called synaptic homeostasis, which holds that during waking hours synapses—the junctions between neurons—grow stronger and more numerous as we absorb new information. By the end of the day, the brain is overloaded, like a notebook crammed with marginal scribbles. Slow-wave sleep, Tononi proposes, prunes the weakest of these connections, freeing room for tomorrow's learning. The memories that survive the pruning, paradoxically, become easier to retrieve precisely because their neighbors have faded.\\n\\n6 Dreams, long the most mysterious feature of sleep, may participate in this editing process as well. Studies of REM sleep, the stage in which most vivid dreams occur, have shown that volunteers who solve a creative puzzle—such as finding a hidden pattern in a string of numbers—are far more likely to discover the trick after a nap that includes REM than after one that does not. The dreaming brain, freed from the constraints of literal experience, seems able to combine memories in unexpected ways, occasionally stumbling onto a useful connection.\\n\\n7 Not all of the brain's nighttime activity is benign. Traumatic memories, researchers have found, can also be replayed during sleep, sometimes intensifying rather than fading. A 2017 study at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that REM sleep ordinarily strips emotional memories of their distress, leaving the facts intact while softening the feelings. When this stripping fails, as it appears to in some cases of post-traumatic stress, the same memory may return, night after night, with its original force undimmed.\\n\\n8 These findings have begun to change the advice that doctors and educators give. A student who pulls an all-nighter, the new science suggests, is not merely tired; she has skipped the very process by which the day's lessons become her own. Sleep, far from being a passive shutdown, may be the hidden classroom in which the brain decides what is worth remembering—and what is best left behind.\"\n},\n\"questions\": [\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q10\",\n\"number\": 10,\n\"type\": \"main_idea\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"Sleep researchers have proven that humans can learn entirely new skills while they sleep, without any prior practice.\",\n\"F\": \"Although sleep was once viewed as a passive state, research now shows it is a period of active memory processing that strengthens, prunes, and reorganizes what the brain has learned.\",\n\"G\": \"The hippocampus is the most important region of the brain for storing memories permanently, and it works only during slow-wave sleep.\",\n\"H\": \"Dreams produced during REM sleep are responsible for nearly all of the creative breakthroughs that scientists, artists, and inventors experience.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q11\",\n\"number\": 11,\n\"type\": \"detail\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"According to paragraph 2, what was unusual about the firing of place cells in the sleeping rats?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"The cells fired in a different order than they had during the maze, suggesting a new memory was forming.\",\n\"B\": \"The cells fired only when the rats were dreaming, never during deeper stages of sleep.\",\n\"C\": \"The cells repeated the original sequence, but did so far more rapidly than during the actual exploration.\",\n\"D\": \"The cells failed to fire at all unless the rats were placed back in the maze the following day.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q12\",\n\"number\": 12,\n\"type\": \"vocabulary_in_context\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"As used in paragraph 3, the word \\\"broadcast\\\" most nearly means\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"to scatter seeds across a wide area.\",\n\"F\": \"to announce loudly to a public audience.\",\n\"G\": \"to transmit information to another location.\",\n\"H\": \"to interrupt with sudden noise.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q13\",\n\"number\": 13,\n\"type\": \"author_purpose\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Why does the author most likely include the description of Stickgold's finger-tapping experiment in paragraph 4?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"To suggest that motor skills cannot be improved without specialized coaching.\",\n\"B\": \"To provide concrete evidence that sleep itself, rather than mere rest, produces measurable gains in learning.\",\n\"C\": \"To argue that Harvard researchers have done more important work on memory than researchers elsewhere.\",\n\"D\": \"To question whether the rat studies described earlier in the passage apply to human beings.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q14\",\n\"number\": 14,\n\"type\": \"inference\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Based on paragraph 5, which conclusion about Tononi's theory of synaptic homeostasis is best supported?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"Forgetting unimportant details may be necessary for important memories to remain easy to recall.\",\n\"F\": \"The brain's synapses are completely rebuilt from scratch during each night of slow-wave sleep.\",\n\"G\": \"People who sleep longer than eight hours form stronger memories than people who sleep less.\",\n\"H\": \"The hippocampus is the only region of the brain that participates in synaptic pruning.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q15\",\n\"number\": 15,\n\"type\": \"structure\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"How does paragraph 7 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"It introduces a competing theory that disproves the claims made in earlier paragraphs.\",\n\"B\": \"It returns the discussion to the rat studies that opened the passage and offers a final example.\",\n\"C\": \"It complicates the picture of sleep as helpful by showing that the same replay process can sometimes worsen distress.\",\n\"D\": \"It shifts the focus from memory to dreaming and argues that dreams are more important than slow-wave sleep.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q16\",\n\"number\": 16,\n\"type\": \"evidence\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Which quotation best supports the idea that scientists' understanding of sleep has changed dramatically over time?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"\\\"For most of the twentieth century, scientists treated sleep as a kind of biological pause button.\\\"\",\n\"F\": \"\\\"In 1994, neuroscientists Matthew Wilson and Bruce McNaughton recorded the electrical activity of neurons in the hippocampus.\\\"\",\n\"G\": \"\\\"The replays appear to occur most often during slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of non-dreaming rest.\\\"\",\n\"H\": \"\\\"Studies of REM sleep . . . have shown that volunteers who solve a creative puzzle . . . are far more likely to discover the trick after a nap that includes REM.\\\"\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q17\",\n\"number\": 17,\n\"type\": \"tone\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"The author's use of phrases such as \\\"hidden classroom\\\" and \\\"sleeping architect\\\" most strongly suggests an attitude that is\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"skeptical of the scientific findings being described.\",\n\"B\": \"appreciative of the brain's quiet but purposeful work during sleep.\",\n\"C\": \"alarmed by the dangers that sleep may pose to memory.\",\n\"D\": \"indifferent to the practical implications of the research.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n}\n]\n}" }, { "costUsd": 0.208815, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 9 questions.\nPassage number: 2 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: poetry | First Q: 18 | Topic: urban life / nature / change\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p2-qN\" where N starts at 18.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p2-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p2\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p2\",\n \"genre\": \"poetry\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"genre\":\"poetry\",\"title\":\"Lot 47, Bedford Avenue\",\"author\":\"Mariana Olwen\",\"text\":\"Line 1: They came on Tuesday with the orange tape\\nLine 2: and a clipboard heavier than the building itself,\\nLine 3: measuring what the wrecking ball already knew\\u2014\\nLine 4: that the corner store on Bedford had been leaning\\nLine 5: into the wind for forty winters, patient as a grandmother.\\n\\nLine 6: I used to count the cracks above the freezer case\\nLine 7: while Mr. Deol counted my quarters,\\nLine 8: each of us pretending the other wasn't watching.\\nLine 9: Now the bricks come down like a deck of cards\\nLine 10: shuffled by a careless hand.\\n\\nLine 11: A sycamore had crept against the back wall,\\nLine 12: roots threading the foundation like stitches\\nLine 13: holding two torn pages together.\\nLine 14: When the bulldozer pushed, the tree gave first,\\nLine 15: which surprised no one but the tree.\\n\\nLine 16: In the lot's new emptiness, light arrives early.\\nLine 17: I had forgotten the eastern sky existed here\\u2014\\nLine 18: it had been a rumor behind the awning,\\nLine 19: a postcard mailed but never opened.\\nLine 20: Pigeons wheel above the rubble, palimpsest\\u00b9\\nLine 21: of every roof they have ever circled.\\n\\nLine 22: A boy I do not know plants a sunflower seed\\nLine 23: in the cracked grout where the doorway stood.\\nLine 24: He waters it from a juice bottle, solemn as a priest.\\nLine 25: I want to tell him the developers will return in May,\\nLine 26: that this lot is already someone's spreadsheet,\\nLine 27: that nothing here belongs to him.\\n\\nLine 28: Instead I nod, the way you nod at weather,\\nLine 29: and walk home past the scaffolding, where a finch\\u00b2\\nLine 30: is teaching its small, unbothered song to the cranes.\",\"footnotes\":[{\"term\":\"palimpsest\",\"definition\":\"a surface that has been written on, erased, and written on again, so that traces of earlier writing remain\"},{\"term\":\"finch\",\"definition\":\"a small songbird often found in cities and gardens\"}]},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q18\",\"number\":18,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central theme of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Cities inevitably destroy the natural world that surrounds them.\",\"F\":\"The disappearance of familiar places creates both loss and unexpected openings.\",\"G\":\"Children are the only people who can find meaning in urban change.\",\"H\":\"Old buildings are usually safer and more beautiful than new ones.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q19\",\"number\":19,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"In line 5, the phrase \\\"patient as a grandmother\\\" suggests that the corner store\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"has endured for a long time with a quiet, familiar steadiness.\",\"B\":\"is run by an elderly woman who knows the speaker well.\",\"C\":\"has begun to deteriorate because of neglect and old age.\",\"D\":\"reminds the speaker of relatives who have recently passed away.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q20\",\"number\":20,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"How does the second stanza (lines 6-10) contribute to the development of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"It introduces a conflict between the speaker and Mr. Deol that is later resolved.\",\"F\":\"It shifts the focus from demolition to a memory that gives the lost building personal meaning.\",\"G\":\"It explains the financial reasons why the corner store was forced to close.\",\"H\":\"It contrasts the speaker's childhood with the childhood of the boy mentioned later.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q21\",\"number\":21,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Lines 14-15 (\\\"When the bulldozer pushed... but the tree\\\") most strongly suggest that\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"the sycamore had been weakened by disease before the demolition began.\",\"B\":\"living things often misjudge the forces aligned against them.\",\"C\":\"the demolition crew acted carelessly and damaged unintended property.\",\"D\":\"trees in cities tend to grow more slowly than those in the countryside.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q22\",\"number\":22,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"In lines 17-19, the speaker compares the eastern sky to \\\"a rumor\\\" and \\\"a postcard mailed but never opened\\\" primarily to emphasize that the sky\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"had been deliberately hidden by the store's owners for many years.\",\"F\":\"appeared unfamiliar and unwelcome once the building was gone.\",\"G\":\"had been present all along but unnoticed because of the building.\",\"H\":\"is more beautiful in this neighborhood than in surrounding areas.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q23\",\"number\":23,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"The footnoted word \\\"palimpsest\\\" (line 20) is used in the poem to suggest that the pigeons\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"are confused by the changing landscape and unable to find their old nests.\",\"B\":\"carry within their flight the layered memory of every place they have known.\",\"C\":\"return to the lot only because they expect food from former customers.\",\"D\":\"represent the developers who will soon overwrite the neighborhood again.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q24\",\"number\":24,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"The description of the boy in lines 22-24 is best characterized as\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"mocking and dismissive of his naive efforts.\",\"F\":\"reverent toward an act of small but earnest hope.\",\"G\":\"alarmed by his trespassing on private property.\",\"H\":\"indifferent to a stranger's unimportant gesture.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q25\",\"number\":25,\"type\":\"theme_development\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Lines 25-27 (\\\"I want to tell him... belongs to him\\\") most clearly develop the poem's theme by\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"revealing the speaker's awareness that hopeful gestures cannot stop economic forces.\",\"B\":\"showing that the speaker resents the boy for intruding on a private moment of mourning.\",\"C\":\"arguing that the city government should compensate displaced shopkeepers.\",\"D\":\"suggesting that the speaker plans to warn the developers about the new sunflower.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q26\",\"number\":26,\"type\":\"comparison\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"How does the final image of the finch (lines 29-30) relate to the rest of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"It contradicts the earlier scenes by suggesting that the neighborhood has not really changed.\",\"F\":\"It reinforces the speaker's earlier claim that nature cannot survive in the city.\",\"G\":\"It offers a quiet counterpoint to loss, showing life continuing alongside construction.\",\"H\":\"It returns to the grandmother image from the first stanza to complete a circular structure.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"}]}" }, { "costUsd": 0.26019, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 9 questions.\nPassage number: 3 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: narrative_nonfiction | First Q: 27 | Topic: indigenous community / oral tradition\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p3-qN\" where N starts at 27.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p3-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p3\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p3\",\n \"genre\": \"narrative_nonfiction\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"genre\":\"narrative_nonfiction\",\"title\":\"The Cedar Keeper of Hoonah\",\"author\":\"Marian Trask\",\"intro_line\":\"The narrator, a journalist, travels to a small village in southeast Alaska to record stories with a Tlingit elder named Naa Tláa.\",\"text\":\"(1) The float plane skipped across Icy Strait and shuddered to a halt at the wooden dock in Hoonah. I had come to record stories — or rather, I had come hoping to be allowed to record them. My editor in Seattle had given me a tidy list of questions about Tlingit oral tradition, the kind of questions that fit neatly into a magazine column. I would learn, before the week was out, that the list was useless.\\n\\n(2) Naa Tláa met me at the dock in a faded blue parka. She was perhaps seventy, perhaps ninety; the women in her family, she later told me, did not often bother with birthdays. She studied my recorder, my notebook, and my carefully ironed shirt with the same patient curiosity she might show a curious bird. Then she said, \\\"You will help me split cedar. After that, we will see what there is to talk about.\\\"\\n\\n(3) For three days I split cedar. My hands blistered, then bled, then hardened. Naa Tláa worked beside me, humming songs whose words I did not catch. She did not ask me about my list. When I tried, once, to bring it up, she looked toward the strait and said only, \\\"Stories are not groceries. You cannot put them in a basket and carry them home.\\\"\\n\\n(4) On the fourth morning, she told me about her grandfather. He had been a storyteller — a shagóon keeper, she said, one who carried the names and the deeds of the clan. As a boy, he had been forbidden to speak Lingít in the boarding school the government sent him to. The teachers, he had told her, washed his mouth with soap whenever he forgot. And yet, alone at night, under a wool blanket that smelled of other children's homesickness, he had whispered the old stories to himself so that he would not forget the shape of them. \\\"He kept them in his mouth like a smooth stone,\\\" Naa Tláa said. \\\"He did not let them fall out.\\\"\\n\\n(5) I asked, gently, if I could record her telling one of those stories. She laughed — not unkindly — and shook her head. \\\"Not yet,\\\" she said. \\\"You do not know who is in the story. You would write down the words and think you had it.\\\" She tapped my notebook with a finger callused from decades of weaving. \\\"A story is not the words. A story is the room the words make. You must learn the room first.\\\"\\n\\n(6) That afternoon she took me to the smokehouse, where her nephew Daniel was tending salmon over alder coals. Daniel was twenty-six and worked, in the off-season, as a software engineer in Juneau. He spoke Lingít haltingly, he admitted, but he had begun studying with Naa Tláa each Sunday evening over the phone. \\\"She corrects my vowels for an hour,\\\" he said, grinning. \\\"Then she tells me a story I am not allowed to write down. Then she hangs up.\\\" He turned a salmon on its rack. \\\"It is the most patient teaching I have ever received.\\\"\\n\\n(7) I began to understand, slowly, that the stories Naa Tláa carried were not artifacts to be preserved behind glass. They were living things, and like all living things they required a relationship. To tell them to a stranger with a recorder would be like handing a stranger one's child. The recorder did not care who was listening, or whether the listener had earned the listening. Naa Tláa cared a great deal.\\n\\n(8) On my last evening, she sat with me on the porch and watched a raven harry an eagle out over the water. She did not tell me a clan story. Instead, she told me about the time, in 1962, when her aunt had walked twelve miles in deep snow to bring medicine to a cousin's child. It was a small story, an everyday story, and she told it as if it were the most important thing in the world. When she finished, she looked at me and said, \\\"You can write that one down. That one is yours now, because you split cedar.\\\"\\n\\n(9) I flew out the next morning with my recorder still empty and my notebook nearly so. My editor was not pleased. But I had begun, I think, to understand the shape of the room.\",\"footnotes\":[{\"term\":\"shagóon\",\"definition\":\"In Tlingit culture, the ancestral heritage that connects a person to clan, history, and place.\"},{\"term\":\"Lingít\",\"definition\":\"The Tlingit language, indigenous to southeast Alaska.\"}]},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q27\",\"number\":27,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Recording oral traditions is the most reliable way to preserve a culture for future generations.\",\"B\":\"Tlingit elders are reluctant to share their traditions with outsiders because of past injustices.\",\"C\":\"Understanding a community's stories requires building relationships, not simply collecting words.\",\"D\":\"Modern technology has made it easier than ever for journalists to document indigenous languages.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q28\",\"number\":28,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 3, the statement \\\"Stories are not groceries\\\" most nearly means that stories\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"cannot be purchased from those who own them.\",\"F\":\"cannot be removed from their context and taken away whole.\",\"G\":\"are nourishing in ways that ordinary food is not.\",\"H\":\"are too fragile to survive long journeys.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q29\",\"number\":29,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 4, how did Naa Tláa's grandfather preserve the old stories during his time at the boarding school?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"He wrote them down in a hidden notebook beneath his bed.\",\"B\":\"He taught them quietly to the other Tlingit children at the school.\",\"C\":\"He whispered them to himself at night so he would not forget them.\",\"D\":\"He repeated them to his teachers in defiance of the school's rules.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q30\",\"number\":30,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the description of Daniel in paragraph 6 in order to\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"contrast Daniel's modern career with Naa Tláa's traditional way of life.\",\"F\":\"suggest that younger Tlingit people have largely abandoned the old traditions.\",\"G\":\"illustrate that the transmission of oral tradition continues through patient, ongoing relationships.\",\"H\":\"emphasize how difficult the Lingít language is for young people to learn.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q31\",\"number\":31,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"It can reasonably be inferred from the passage that Naa Tláa required the narrator to split cedar primarily because\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"she needed practical help preparing materials for weaving and building.\",\"B\":\"she wanted to test whether the narrator was willing to invest effort before being trusted.\",\"C\":\"physical labor is a traditional requirement before any Tlingit story can be told.\",\"D\":\"she hoped the narrator would abandon the project and return to Seattle.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q32\",\"number\":32,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"In paragraph 5, Naa Tláa's statement that \\\"a story is the room the words make\\\" emphasizes that\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"the words of a story are less memorable than its setting.\",\"F\":\"a story should always be told in a single, quiet location.\",\"G\":\"the meaning of a story depends on the relationships and context surrounding it.\",\"H\":\"stories are best understood when written down and read carefully.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q33\",\"number\":33,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"How does paragraph 7 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"It introduces a new conflict between Naa Tláa and the narrator's editor.\",\"B\":\"It articulates the realization that allows the narrator to reinterpret earlier events.\",\"C\":\"It provides historical background about the boarding-school system.\",\"D\":\"It shifts the focus away from Naa Tláa to the narrator's professional concerns.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q34\",\"number\":34,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage best supports the idea that the narrator's understanding of journalism has been changed by the visit?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"\\\"My editor in Seattle had given me a tidy list of questions about Tlingit oral tradition...\\\"\",\"F\":\"\\\"For three days I split cedar. My hands blistered, then bled, then hardened.\\\"\",\"G\":\"\\\"He turned a salmon on its rack. 'It is the most patient teaching I have ever received.'\\\"\",\"H\":\"\\\"I flew out the next morning with my recorder still empty and my notebook nearly so... But I had begun, I think, to understand the shape of the room.\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q35\",\"number\":35,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"The narrator's tone throughout the passage is best described as\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"reverent and reflective.\",\"B\":\"defensive and impatient.\",\"C\":\"detached and analytical.\",\"D\":\"sentimental and nostalgic.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"}]}" }, { "costUsd": 0.721815, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 4 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 36 | Topic: ecology / conservation / land management\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p4-qN\" where N starts at 36.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p4-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p4\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p4\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"genre\":\"informational_science\",\"title\":\"The Engineers Return\",\"text\":\"(1) For more than a century, North American beavers were trapped relentlessly for their dense, water-repellent fur, a pursuit that drove their population from an estimated 60 million in 1600 to fewer than 100,000 by 1900. Their near disappearance reshaped the continent's waterways in ways that few people noticed at the time. Without beavers to fell saplings, plug streams, and flood low meadows, thousands of wetlands quietly drained away. Streams that had once meandered through brushy floodplains became straight, narrow channels racing toward the sea. Today, ecologists are working to bring beavers back—and in doing so, they are rediscovering just how much these animals shape the land.\\n\\n(2) Beavers are sometimes called \\\"ecosystem engineers\\\" because of the elaborate dams they construct from logs, sticks, and mud. A single colony, working through a summer, can transform a trickling brook into a series of stepped ponds and saturated meadows. The water that pools behind a dam slows down, allowing sediment to settle and giving plants time to take root along the banks. Insects multiply in the still water, drawing fish, frogs, and migrating birds. Researchers at Utah State University, surveying restored beaver sites in 2018, recorded an average of seventy-five percent more bird species at active dams than at comparable stretches of open stream.\\n\\n(3) Perhaps the most striking finding has come from regions threatened by drought. Dr. Emily Fairfax, a hydrologist who studies beaver-modified landscapes, used satellite imagery to compare wetlands with and without beavers during the severe western droughts of 2018 and 2020. In one set of comparisons across California and Nevada, areas containing beaver dams remained as much as three times greener than nearby waterways during peak summer heat. The pooled water, Fairfax noted, was acting as a slow-release reservoir: rather than rushing downstream after spring snowmelt, it lingered in the soil and emerged through the dry months. When wildfires later swept through the region, beaver complexes acted as natural firebreaks, the moist vegetation refusing to ignite even as the surrounding hillsides burned.\\n\\n(4) Such findings have shifted how land managers think about beavers. For decades, the animals were treated mostly as pests: chewing through ornamental trees, plugging culverts, and flooding farm fields. Trappers and county crews often removed problem beavers without considering whether the resulting drained meadow might be more harmful than the animals themselves. In Washington State's Methow Valley, biologists with a project called the Methow Beaver Project began, in 2008, to capture beavers from areas where they were unwanted and release them into degraded creeks high in the mountains. By 2022, the program had relocated more than 400 beavers, and follow-up surveys showed expanded wetlands at a majority of the release sites.\\n\\n(5) Reintroduction is far from simple. Beavers do not always stay where biologists place them; some swim downstream within hours of release, searching for mates or familiar territory. Others build dams in spots that conflict with roads, septic systems, or irrigation ditches. To address these conflicts, engineers have designed devices known as \\\"pond levelers\\\"—pipes set through a dam that quietly drain excess water without alarming the beavers, who respond to the sound of running water by piling on more sticks. With levelers in place, a dam can stay intact while the pond behind it stops creeping into a neighbor's pasture.\\n\\n(6) Critics caution that beavers are not a universal remedy. In some heavily altered watersheds, the animals lack enough woody vegetation to sustain a colony, and translocated families starve or disperse. Steep, fast-moving streams can wash dams away before they mature. And in places where invasive plants such as reed canary grass dominate the banks, beaver activity can sometimes spread the invader rather than restore native diversity. \\\"We have to read the landscape,\\\" Fairfax has written, \\\"and ask whether it is asking for beavers, or asking for something else first.\\\"\\n\\n(7) Still, the broader trend is unmistakable. State agencies that once paid bounties on beavers now subsidize relocation programs. Schoolchildren in Oregon trace beaver-shaped maps of their watersheds. The animal that was nearly erased from the continent has become, for many ecologists, a quiet emblem of how the smallest engineers can repair what larger forces have broken.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q36\",\"number\":36,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement BEST expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Once viewed primarily as nuisances, beavers are increasingly recognized for the ways their dam-building can restore wetlands and buffer landscapes against drought and fire.\",\"F\":\"Although beaver populations have largely recovered, conflicts with human infrastructure remain the greatest obstacle to expanding North American wetlands.\",\"G\":\"Recent satellite studies have proven that wetlands without beavers cannot survive prolonged droughts in the western United States.\",\"H\":\"Reintroducing beavers to mountain creeks succeeds only when biologists first remove invasive plants such as reed canary grass.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"E\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q37\",\"number\":37,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 3, Dr. Emily Fairfax's satellite comparisons during the western droughts of 2018 and 2020 found that areas with beaver dams\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"produced roughly three times as many beaver kits as in years of normal rainfall.\",\"B\":\"were sometimes as much as three times greener than nearby waterways without beavers.\",\"C\":\"drained faster than unmodified streams once the spring snowmelt had ended.\",\"D\":\"burned hotter than the surrounding hillsides because of the thick brush along the banks.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q38\",\"number\":38,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 3, the phrase \\\"slow-release reservoir\\\" most nearly suggests that\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"beaver dams generate small amounts of electrical current as water seeps through them.\",\"F\":\"the dams release water on a strict daily schedule controlled by the beavers themselves.\",\"G\":\"minerals dissolved in the pooled water are slowly absorbed by the roots of nearby plants.\",\"H\":\"water trapped by the dams is gradually freed into the surrounding soil over an extended period.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q39\",\"number\":39,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The description of pond levelers in paragraph 5 suggests that beavers\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"instinctively reinforce a dam whenever they hear water flowing through gaps in it.\",\"B\":\"avoid building dams in any creek where humans have installed pipes or culverts.\",\"C\":\"abandon a colony as soon as the water level behind a dam begins to fall.\",\"D\":\"have learned to recognize human-made devices and dismantle them at night.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q40\",\"number\":40,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The author includes the example of the Methow Beaver Project (paragraph 4) primarily to\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"argue that beavers should be removed from valley farmland whenever they appear in fields.\",\"F\":\"illustrate a concrete program that has put the changing view of beavers into practice.\",\"G\":\"show that earlier attempts at beaver relocation in the West usually ended in failure.\",\"H\":\"compare beaver populations in Washington with those in California and Nevada.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q41\",\"number\":41,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Paragraph 6 contributes to the development of the passage by\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"summarizing the historical decline of beaver populations across North America.\",\"B\":\"introducing a new set of researchers whose findings directly contradict Dr. Fairfax's conclusions.\",\"C\":\"acknowledging limits and complications that qualify the optimistic findings discussed earlier.\",\"D\":\"proposing a step-by-step plan for restoring degraded watersheds without using any animals.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q42\",\"number\":42,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage BEST supports the claim that public attitudes toward beavers have shifted in recent years?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"\\\"Beavers are sometimes called 'ecosystem engineers' because of the elaborate dams they construct from logs, sticks, and mud.\\\"\",\"F\":\"\\\"Beavers do not always stay where biologists place them; some swim downstream within hours of release...\\\"\",\"G\":\"\\\"State agencies that once paid bounties on beavers now subsidize relocation programs.\\\"\",\"H\":\"\\\"In some heavily altered watersheds, the animals lack enough woody vegetation to sustain a colony...\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q43\",\"number\":43,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The author's overall attitude toward beaver reintroduction can BEST be described as\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"openly skeptical, doubting that such small animals can meaningfully change a landscape.\",\"B\":\"strictly neutral, presenting only data without offering any evaluation of the work.\",\"C\":\"nostalgic, focused mainly on mourning the loss of historical beaver populations.\",\"D\":\"cautiously enthusiastic, recognizing both clear benefits and genuine difficulties.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"D\"}]}" }, { "costUsd": 0.27324, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 5 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: prose_fiction | First Q: 44 | Topic: family / coming-of-age\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p5-qN\" where N starts at 44.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p5-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p5\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p5\",\n \"genre\": \"prose_fiction\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"genre\":\"prose_fiction\",\"title\":\"The Recipe Box\",\"author\":\"Maren Halvorsen\",\"intro_line\":\"Ellen, the narrator, is a fourteen-year-old spending the summer with her grandmother, who has begun to forget small things.\",\"text\":\"(1) The recipe box sat on the kitchen counter the way a small coffin might sit on a table—closed, important, and unwilling to explain itself. Grandma Ines had pulled it down from the top shelf that morning, set it between us, and then walked off to water the geraniums as though the box were a guest who could entertain itself. I waited. I had learned, over three weeks of summer, that Grandma's projects often began this way: an object placed, a silence offered, and then, eventually, a story.\\n\\n(2) She came back smelling of the porch, of warm tin and dust. \\\"Open it,\\\" she said, the way another grandmother might say, \\\"Eat your peas.\\\"\\n\\n(3) The cards inside were yellowed at the edges and written in at least four different hands. Some were typed. One, near the front, had been folded so many times the creases had eaten through the paper, leaving a small window of nothing in the middle of the directions. Grandma watched me lift them out, one by one, the way you might watch a stranger handle a newborn.\\n\\n(4) \\\"That one,\\\" she said, pointing to the folded card, \\\"was your great-grandmother's. The lefse. I haven't made it since—\\\" She stopped. Her hand floated up and then settled, like a bird that had changed its mind about landing. \\\"In a while.\\\"\\n\\n(5) I did not say what I was thinking, which was that \\\"in a while\\\" had begun to do a lot of work in Grandma's sentences lately. It carried the weight of weeks and decades equally, and you could not tell, from the outside, which it meant. Last Tuesday she had asked me three times whether the mail had come. On Thursday she had called me Margaret, which was my mother's name, and then laughed at herself so brightly that I laughed too, because that seemed like the kind thing to do.\\n\\n(6) \\\"We could make it,\\\" I said. I tried to sound as if I were suggesting a movie. \\\"The lefse. Today. If you wanted.\\\"\\n\\n(7) She looked at me for what felt like a long time. I had the strange sense she was weighing something, and that the something was me. Then she nodded once, briskly, the way she used to nod at the bank teller when I was small and she was still the tallest person in any room.\\n\\n(8) The kitchen, it turned out, did not have everything. We needed riced potatoes, which meant peeling, which meant Grandma sat at the table with the peeler and I stood at the stove, and for a while the only sound was the small wet music of skin coming off potato. She hummed something I did not know. I did not ask what it was. There are questions, I had begun to understand, that cost more than they answer.\\n\\n(9) \\\"Your mother used to stand on a chair right there,\\\" Grandma said, pointing the peeler at the spot where I was standing. \\\"She was too short, but she didn't like to be told. So I let her stand on the chair and burn her wrist on the kettle, and then she told me, very seriously, that the kettle had bitten her.\\\" Grandma laughed, and the laugh was so much like my mother's that for a second I had to look down at the pot.\\n\\n(10) \\\"Did she cry?\\\" I asked.\\n\\n(11) \\\"Margaret? Oh, no. Your mother has never cried about anything she could be angry at instead.\\\" She said it without judgment, the way you might describe the color of a door. \\\"You're more like me. You go quiet.\\\"\\n\\n(12) I had not known that about myself, or about her. I turned the burner down so I would have something to do with my hands.\\n\\n(13) When the dough was ready, Grandma rolled the first round herself, and her hands moved without consulting her. The pin went out from the center in six smooth strokes, the way a person signs their name without looking at the pen. Then she stopped, and her face did a thing I had not seen it do before—a kind of quiet surprise, as if she had walked into a room and forgotten which one.\\n\\n(14) \\\"You finish,\\\" she said. She did not move from the counter. She put her hand over mine and pressed, just once, and I understood that I was being given something, and that I was expected to keep it without being told what it was. The pin was warm where she had held it. I rolled, and she watched, and somewhere outside a screen door banged, and the kitchen smelled, faintly and forever, like flour and someone else's childhood.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q44\",\"number\":44,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"A grandmother teaches her granddaughter a difficult recipe so that the family tradition will not be lost when the grandmother moves away.\",\"F\":\"A summer visit becomes the moment a granddaughter recognizes both her grandmother's decline and her own quiet inheritance from her.\",\"G\":\"A teenager grows frustrated with her grandmother's forgetfulness and learns to be more patient through the act of cooking together.\",\"H\":\"A grandmother and granddaughter discover that they have very little in common until they begin working side by side in the kitchen.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q45\",\"number\":45,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 1, the comparison of the recipe box to \\\"a small coffin\\\" most strongly suggests that the box is\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"frightening to Ellen because she does not yet know what it contains.\",\"B\":\"weighed down with a sense of seriousness and of something preserved from the past.\",\"C\":\"a sign that someone in the family has recently died.\",\"D\":\"too fragile for Ellen and her grandmother to handle without care.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q46\",\"number\":46,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"In paragraph 5, Ellen's observation that the phrase \\\"in a while\\\" has \\\"begun to do a lot of work\\\" in her grandmother's sentences most strongly suggests that Ellen\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"is annoyed by her grandmother's vague way of speaking.\",\"F\":\"believes her grandmother is deliberately hiding details about the past.\",\"G\":\"has quietly noticed that her grandmother's memory is slipping, even though she has not said so aloud.\",\"H\":\"thinks her grandmother uses old-fashioned expressions that are difficult to understand.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q47\",\"number\":47,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"How does paragraph 9 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"It introduces a memory that allows Grandma Ines to compare Ellen's mother as a child to Ellen, deepening the sense of family layers within the kitchen.\",\"B\":\"It provides background information that explains why Ellen's mother is not present during the summer visit.\",\"C\":\"It establishes a conflict between Ellen and her grandmother about who is allowed to use the stove.\",\"D\":\"It shows that Grandma Ines has begun to confuse Ellen with her mother because of her failing memory.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q48\",\"number\":48,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 11, Grandma Ines describes Ellen's mother as someone who\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"cries easily when she is hurt or surprised.\",\"F\":\"resembles Grandma Ines more than Ellen does.\",\"G\":\"prefers anger to sadness when something upsets her.\",\"H\":\"refuses to talk about painful experiences from her childhood.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q49\",\"number\":49,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the simile that Grandma's hand \\\"floated up and then settled, like a bird that had changed its mind about landing\\\" (paragraph 4) in order to\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"emphasize how physically frail Grandma Ines has become over the summer.\",\"B\":\"convey the small, hesitant moment in which Grandma loses her place in her own sentence.\",\"C\":\"suggest that Grandma is gesturing toward something outside the window.\",\"D\":\"show that Grandma is annoyed at being interrupted by her own thoughts.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q50\",\"number\":50,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"The narrator's tone throughout the passage is best described as\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"nostalgic and openly grieving.\",\"F\":\"observant and gently restrained.\",\"G\":\"impatient and faintly resentful.\",\"H\":\"playful and lightly teasing.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q51\",\"number\":51,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best describes what Ellen comes to understand by the end of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"That she has been entrusted with something her grandmother can no longer fully carry herself.\",\"B\":\"That she will need to teach her own mother how to make the family's lefse one day.\",\"C\":\"That her grandmother regrets not having spent more time with her in earlier summers.\",\"D\":\"That cooking is a skill she is unlikely to enjoy as much as her grandmother does.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"}]}" }, { "costUsd": 0.22794, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 6 questions.\nPassage number: 6 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 52 | Topic: wildlife / biology / habitat\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p6-qN\" where N starts at 52.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p6-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p6\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p6\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 6 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"genre\":\"informational_science\",\"title\":\"The Hidden Highways of the Pronghorn\",\"text\":\"1 Across the sagebrush basins of the American West, an animal that most travelers will never see is performing one of the longest land migrations on the continent. The pronghorn, often miscalled an antelope, is in fact the sole surviving member of an ancient family native to North America. Each autumn, herds in western Wyoming abandon their summer ranges in the high meadows of Grand Teton National Park and travel more than 150 miles south to wintering grounds in the Upper Green River Basin. In spring, they reverse the journey. Biologists have learned that pronghorn do not improvise these routes. They follow narrow corridors that have been used, by some estimates, for at least six thousand years.\\n\\n2 The discovery of these corridors owes a great deal to the work of Joel Berger, a wildlife ecologist who began tracking pronghorn with GPS collars in the early 2000s. Before his study, scientists understood that the animals moved seasonally, but the precise paths were a matter of guesswork. Berger's collars recorded a position every few hours, producing thousands of data points per animal. When he and his colleagues plotted the locations on a map, an unexpected pattern emerged. Rather than dispersing across the open landscape, individual pronghorn from many different herds funneled through the same handful of bottlenecks—some no wider than a few hundred yards—year after year.\\n\\n3 One bottleneck, known as Trapper's Point, lies near the town of Pinedale, Wyoming. Here the migration corridor narrows to less than half a mile as it threads between two rivers. Archaeological evidence suggests that human hunters camped at this very spot more than six thousand years ago, presumably because they too recognized the predictability of the herd's passage. The fact that the pronghorn still use the same pinch point is, in Berger's words, \\\"a kind of living memory written into the landscape.\\\" Why the animals are so faithful to these routes is not entirely settled. Pronghorn lambs travel with their mothers on their first migration, and researchers suspect that the path is learned rather than inherited. A herd that loses its corridor, in other words, may not easily invent a new one.\\n\\n4 This faithfulness has become a serious conservation problem. Unlike six thousand years ago, the corridors today are crossed by highways, fences, and natural-gas drilling pads. A standard livestock fence, with its lowest wire strung tight against the ground, is a particular hazard: pronghorn evolved on open plains and almost never jump obstacles, preferring instead to crawl beneath them. When the bottom wire is too low, a fast-moving herd can pile up against it. Highways present a different danger. A 2019 study by researchers at the Wyoming Migration Initiative found that vehicle collisions along a single 30-mile stretch of U.S. Route 191 killed an average of 85 pronghorn per year, a figure the authors called \\\"unsustainable for a population already pressed at its margins.\\\"\\n\\n5 The conservation response has been unusually creative. In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service designated the 6,000-year-old route as the \\\"Path of the Pronghorn,\\\" the first federally protected migration corridor in American history. More recently, transportation engineers have built a series of overpasses and underpasses across Route 191 near Trapper's Point. The structures are landscaped with native sagebrush and funneled by tall fencing that nudges animals toward the safe crossings. Camera-trap data from the first five years of operation showed that pronghorn use of the overpasses rose from near zero in the opening months to more than 80 percent of attempted crossings by year three. Mule deer, which were not the project's intended beneficiary, took to the structures almost immediately.\\n\\n6 Some biologists caution that engineering solutions, however successful, treat the symptoms rather than the cause. As natural-gas development continues to fragment winter range in the Upper Green River Basin, even the most carefully protected corridor leads to a destination that is shrinking each year. Berger himself has argued that conservation of long-distance migration must be considered at the scale of the entire route, from summer pasture to winter shelter, including everything in between. \\\"You cannot save half a migration,\\\" he has written. \\\"The animal does not recognize the boundary on the map.\\\"\\n\\n7 For the pronghorn of western Wyoming, the question is no longer whether the ancient highways exist. The collars and the cameras have settled that. The question is whether a modern landscape, sliced by roads and pipelines and property lines, can still make room for an animal whose habits were set down before any of those things existed.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q52\",\"number\":52,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"GPS collar technology has revolutionized the way wildlife biologists track animals across the American West.\",\"F\":\"The pronghorn's reliance on ancient, narrow migration corridors makes the species both remarkable and vulnerable in a developed landscape.\",\"G\":\"Conservation efforts at Trapper's Point demonstrate that wildlife overpasses are the most effective solution to highway mortality.\",\"H\":\"Joel Berger's research has overturned earlier scientific beliefs about how pronghorn navigate over long distances.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q53\",\"number\":53,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 4, why are standard livestock fences especially dangerous for pronghorn?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"The wire is often electrified along migration corridors.\",\"B\":\"Pronghorn tend to crawl under obstacles rather than jump them, and the lowest wire is set too close to the ground.\",\"C\":\"Fences fragment the herd, separating lambs from their mothers during migration.\",\"D\":\"The fences are typically built across the narrowest points of the migration corridor.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q54\",\"number\":54,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 2, the word \\\"funneled\\\" most nearly means\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"poured liquid through a narrow opening.\",\"F\":\"converged into a constrained passage.\",\"G\":\"hurried away from a perceived danger.\",\"H\":\"scattered widely across an open area.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q55\",\"number\":55,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the detail about human hunters camping at Trapper's Point six thousand years ago in order to\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"establish that pronghorn populations were once much larger than they are today.\",\"B\":\"emphasize the remarkable consistency of the migration route across vast spans of time.\",\"C\":\"suggest that hunting pressure has historically shaped the pronghorn's chosen corridors.\",\"D\":\"contrast modern conservation methods with ancient methods of wildlife management.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q56\",\"number\":56,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"The passage suggests that if a pronghorn herd were permanently cut off from its traditional corridor, the herd would most likely\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"adapt quickly by selecting a new route through trial and error.\",\"F\":\"begin to jump fences rather than crawl beneath them.\",\"G\":\"struggle to establish an alternative path because the route is learned from older animals.\",\"H\":\"merge with neighboring herds that still have access to a corridor.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q57\",\"number\":57,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage best supports the idea that engineering fixes alone cannot guarantee the long-term survival of pronghorn migration?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"\\\"Berger's collars recorded a position every few hours, producing thousands of data points per animal.\\\"\",\"B\":\"\\\"Camera-trap data from the first five years of operation showed that pronghorn use of the overpasses rose from near zero in the opening months to more than 80 percent of attempted crossings by year three.\\\"\",\"C\":\"\\\"As natural-gas development continues to fragment winter range in the Upper Green River Basin, even the most carefully protected corridor leads to a destination that is shrinking each year.\\\"\",\"D\":\"\\\"In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service designated the 6,000-year-old route as the 'Path of the Pronghorn,' the first federally protected migration corridor in American history.\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"}]}" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0.28089, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 1 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 10 | Topic: memory / cognition / neuroscience\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-qN\" where N starts at 10.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\n\"passage\": {\n\"id\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n\"title\": \"The Sleeping Architect: How the Brain Rebuilds Memory at Night\",\n\"text\": \"1 For most of the twentieth century, scientists treated sleep as a kind of biological pause button—a period when the body repaired tissues and the brain, presumably, idled. The memories a person carried to bed were assumed to be the same memories waiting in the morning. Beginning in the 1990s, however, a growing body of evidence began to overturn this assumption. Researchers now describe sleep not as a passive intermission but as an active rehearsal in which the brain edits, strengthens, and sometimes even rewrites the experiences of the day.\\n\\n2 The clearest demonstration of this rehearsal came from rats, not humans. In 1994, neuroscientists Matthew Wilson and Bruce McNaughton recorded the electrical activity of neurons in the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped region buried deep in the brain that is essential for forming new memories. As the rats explored a small maze, particular cells, called place cells, fired in a distinctive sequence that mapped the animals' route. When the rats later fell asleep, the same cells fired again, in the same order—only faster, sometimes at twenty times the original speed. The brain, in other words, was replaying the maze in miniature, long after the maze had been put away.\\n\\n3 This phenomenon, now called memory replay, has since been observed in birds, primates, and, with the help of indirect imaging, in human beings. The replays appear to occur most often during slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of non-dreaming rest, when long, lazy waves of electrical activity wash across the cortex. According to a model proposed by researcher Jan Born of the University of Tübingen, these waves act as a kind of conductor: they invite the hippocampus to broadcast recent memories to the cortex, where they can be filed into more permanent storage. Without this nightly conversation, Born argues, the cortex would never learn what the hippocampus had been collecting.\\n\\n4 The consequences for learning are striking. In one widely cited 2004 experiment, Harvard researcher Robert Stickgold trained volunteers on a finger-tapping task, asking them to type a short sequence as quickly and accurately as they could. Subjects who slept for a full night before being tested again improved by roughly twenty percent, while those who stayed awake the same number of hours showed almost no improvement at all. The motor circuits that controlled their fingers, it seemed, had practiced the sequence overnight without their knowledge.\\n\\n5 Sleep does more than polish skills, however. It also appears to discard them, or at least to weaken connections that the brain has decided are unimportant. The neuroscientist Giulio Tononi has championed a theory called synaptic homeostasis, which holds that during waking hours synapses—the junctions between neurons—grow stronger and more numerous as we absorb new information. By the end of the day, the brain is overloaded, like a notebook crammed with marginal scribbles. Slow-wave sleep, Tononi proposes, prunes the weakest of these connections, freeing room for tomorrow's learning. The memories that survive the pruning, paradoxically, become easier to retrieve precisely because their neighbors have faded.\\n\\n6 Dreams, long the most mysterious feature of sleep, may participate in this editing process as well. Studies of REM sleep, the stage in which most vivid dreams occur, have shown that volunteers who solve a creative puzzle—such as finding a hidden pattern in a string of numbers—are far more likely to discover the trick after a nap that includes REM than after one that does not. The dreaming brain, freed from the constraints of literal experience, seems able to combine memories in unexpected ways, occasionally stumbling onto a useful connection.\\n\\n7 Not all of the brain's nighttime activity is benign. Traumatic memories, researchers have found, can also be replayed during sleep, sometimes intensifying rather than fading. A 2017 study at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that REM sleep ordinarily strips emotional memories of their distress, leaving the facts intact while softening the feelings. When this stripping fails, as it appears to in some cases of post-traumatic stress, the same memory may return, night after night, with its original force undimmed.\\n\\n8 These findings have begun to change the advice that doctors and educators give. A student who pulls an all-nighter, the new science suggests, is not merely tired; she has skipped the very process by which the day's lessons become her own. Sleep, far from being a passive shutdown, may be the hidden classroom in which the brain decides what is worth remembering—and what is best left behind.\"\n},\n\"questions\": [\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q10\",\n\"number\": 10,\n\"type\": \"main_idea\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"Sleep researchers have proven that humans can learn entirely new skills while they sleep, without any prior practice.\",\n\"F\": \"Although sleep was once viewed as a passive state, research now shows it is a period of active memory processing that strengthens, prunes, and reorganizes what the brain has learned.\",\n\"G\": \"The hippocampus is the most important region of the brain for storing memories permanently, and it works only during slow-wave sleep.\",\n\"H\": \"Dreams produced during REM sleep are responsible for nearly all of the creative breakthroughs that scientists, artists, and inventors experience.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q11\",\n\"number\": 11,\n\"type\": \"detail\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"According to paragraph 2, what was unusual about the firing of place cells in the sleeping rats?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"The cells fired in a different order than they had during the maze, suggesting a new memory was forming.\",\n\"B\": \"The cells fired only when the rats were dreaming, never during deeper stages of sleep.\",\n\"C\": \"The cells repeated the original sequence, but did so far more rapidly than during the actual exploration.\",\n\"D\": \"The cells failed to fire at all unless the rats were placed back in the maze the following day.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q12\",\n\"number\": 12,\n\"type\": \"vocabulary_in_context\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"As used in paragraph 3, the word \\\"broadcast\\\" most nearly means\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"to scatter seeds across a wide area.\",\n\"F\": \"to announce loudly to a public audience.\",\n\"G\": \"to transmit information to another location.\",\n\"H\": \"to interrupt with sudden noise.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q13\",\n\"number\": 13,\n\"type\": \"author_purpose\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Why does the author most likely include the description of Stickgold's finger-tapping experiment in paragraph 4?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"To suggest that motor skills cannot be improved without specialized coaching.\",\n\"B\": \"To provide concrete evidence that sleep itself, rather than mere rest, produces measurable gains in learning.\",\n\"C\": \"To argue that Harvard researchers have done more important work on memory than researchers elsewhere.\",\n\"D\": \"To question whether the rat studies described earlier in the passage apply to human beings.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q14\",\n\"number\": 14,\n\"type\": \"inference\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Based on paragraph 5, which conclusion about Tononi's theory of synaptic homeostasis is best supported?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"Forgetting unimportant details may be necessary for important memories to remain easy to recall.\",\n\"F\": \"The brain's synapses are completely rebuilt from scratch during each night of slow-wave sleep.\",\n\"G\": \"People who sleep longer than eight hours form stronger memories than people who sleep less.\",\n\"H\": \"The hippocampus is the only region of the brain that participates in synaptic pruning.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q15\",\n\"number\": 15,\n\"type\": \"structure\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"How does paragraph 7 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"It introduces a competing theory that disproves the claims made in earlier paragraphs.\",\n\"B\": \"It returns the discussion to the rat studies that opened the passage and offers a final example.\",\n\"C\": \"It complicates the picture of sleep as helpful by showing that the same replay process can sometimes worsen distress.\",\n\"D\": \"It shifts the focus from memory to dreaming and argues that dreams are more important than slow-wave sleep.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q16\",\n\"number\": 16,\n\"type\": \"evidence\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"Which quotation best supports the idea that scientists' understanding of sleep has changed dramatically over time?\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"E\": \"\\\"For most of the twentieth century, scientists treated sleep as a kind of biological pause button.\\\"\",\n\"F\": \"\\\"In 1994, neuroscientists Matthew Wilson and Bruce McNaughton recorded the electrical activity of neurons in the hippocampus.\\\"\",\n\"G\": \"\\\"The replays appear to occur most often during slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of non-dreaming rest.\\\"\",\n\"H\": \"\\\"Studies of REM sleep . . . have shown that volunteers who solve a creative puzzle . . . are far more likely to discover the trick after a nap that includes REM.\\\"\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n},\n{\n\"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p1-q17\",\n\"number\": 17,\n\"type\": \"tone\",\n\"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p1\",\n\"prompt\": \"The author's use of phrases such as \\\"hidden classroom\\\" and \\\"sleeping architect\\\" most strongly suggests an attitude that is\",\n\"choices\": {\n\"A\": \"skeptical of the scientific findings being described.\",\n\"B\": \"appreciative of the brain's quiet but purposeful work during sleep.\",\n\"C\": \"alarmed by the dangers that sleep may pose to memory.\",\n\"D\": \"indifferent to the practical implications of the research.\"\n},\n\"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n\"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n}\n]\n}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 1, "output": { "costUsd": 0.208815, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 9 questions.\nPassage number: 2 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: poetry | First Q: 18 | Topic: urban life / nature / change\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p2-qN\" where N starts at 18.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p2-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p2\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p2\",\n \"genre\": \"poetry\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"genre\":\"poetry\",\"title\":\"Lot 47, Bedford Avenue\",\"author\":\"Mariana Olwen\",\"text\":\"Line 1: They came on Tuesday with the orange tape\\nLine 2: and a clipboard heavier than the building itself,\\nLine 3: measuring what the wrecking ball already knew\\u2014\\nLine 4: that the corner store on Bedford had been leaning\\nLine 5: into the wind for forty winters, patient as a grandmother.\\n\\nLine 6: I used to count the cracks above the freezer case\\nLine 7: while Mr. Deol counted my quarters,\\nLine 8: each of us pretending the other wasn't watching.\\nLine 9: Now the bricks come down like a deck of cards\\nLine 10: shuffled by a careless hand.\\n\\nLine 11: A sycamore had crept against the back wall,\\nLine 12: roots threading the foundation like stitches\\nLine 13: holding two torn pages together.\\nLine 14: When the bulldozer pushed, the tree gave first,\\nLine 15: which surprised no one but the tree.\\n\\nLine 16: In the lot's new emptiness, light arrives early.\\nLine 17: I had forgotten the eastern sky existed here\\u2014\\nLine 18: it had been a rumor behind the awning,\\nLine 19: a postcard mailed but never opened.\\nLine 20: Pigeons wheel above the rubble, palimpsest\\u00b9\\nLine 21: of every roof they have ever circled.\\n\\nLine 22: A boy I do not know plants a sunflower seed\\nLine 23: in the cracked grout where the doorway stood.\\nLine 24: He waters it from a juice bottle, solemn as a priest.\\nLine 25: I want to tell him the developers will return in May,\\nLine 26: that this lot is already someone's spreadsheet,\\nLine 27: that nothing here belongs to him.\\n\\nLine 28: Instead I nod, the way you nod at weather,\\nLine 29: and walk home past the scaffolding, where a finch\\u00b2\\nLine 30: is teaching its small, unbothered song to the cranes.\",\"footnotes\":[{\"term\":\"palimpsest\",\"definition\":\"a surface that has been written on, erased, and written on again, so that traces of earlier writing remain\"},{\"term\":\"finch\",\"definition\":\"a small songbird often found in cities and gardens\"}]},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q18\",\"number\":18,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central theme of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Cities inevitably destroy the natural world that surrounds them.\",\"F\":\"The disappearance of familiar places creates both loss and unexpected openings.\",\"G\":\"Children are the only people who can find meaning in urban change.\",\"H\":\"Old buildings are usually safer and more beautiful than new ones.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q19\",\"number\":19,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"In line 5, the phrase \\\"patient as a grandmother\\\" suggests that the corner store\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"has endured for a long time with a quiet, familiar steadiness.\",\"B\":\"is run by an elderly woman who knows the speaker well.\",\"C\":\"has begun to deteriorate because of neglect and old age.\",\"D\":\"reminds the speaker of relatives who have recently passed away.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q20\",\"number\":20,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"How does the second stanza (lines 6-10) contribute to the development of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"It introduces a conflict between the speaker and Mr. Deol that is later resolved.\",\"F\":\"It shifts the focus from demolition to a memory that gives the lost building personal meaning.\",\"G\":\"It explains the financial reasons why the corner store was forced to close.\",\"H\":\"It contrasts the speaker's childhood with the childhood of the boy mentioned later.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q21\",\"number\":21,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Lines 14-15 (\\\"When the bulldozer pushed... but the tree\\\") most strongly suggest that\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"the sycamore had been weakened by disease before the demolition began.\",\"B\":\"living things often misjudge the forces aligned against them.\",\"C\":\"the demolition crew acted carelessly and damaged unintended property.\",\"D\":\"trees in cities tend to grow more slowly than those in the countryside.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q22\",\"number\":22,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"In lines 17-19, the speaker compares the eastern sky to \\\"a rumor\\\" and \\\"a postcard mailed but never opened\\\" primarily to emphasize that the sky\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"had been deliberately hidden by the store's owners for many years.\",\"F\":\"appeared unfamiliar and unwelcome once the building was gone.\",\"G\":\"had been present all along but unnoticed because of the building.\",\"H\":\"is more beautiful in this neighborhood than in surrounding areas.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q23\",\"number\":23,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"The footnoted word \\\"palimpsest\\\" (line 20) is used in the poem to suggest that the pigeons\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"are confused by the changing landscape and unable to find their old nests.\",\"B\":\"carry within their flight the layered memory of every place they have known.\",\"C\":\"return to the lot only because they expect food from former customers.\",\"D\":\"represent the developers who will soon overwrite the neighborhood again.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q24\",\"number\":24,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"The description of the boy in lines 22-24 is best characterized as\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"mocking and dismissive of his naive efforts.\",\"F\":\"reverent toward an act of small but earnest hope.\",\"G\":\"alarmed by his trespassing on private property.\",\"H\":\"indifferent to a stranger's unimportant gesture.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q25\",\"number\":25,\"type\":\"theme_development\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"Lines 25-27 (\\\"I want to tell him... belongs to him\\\") most clearly develop the poem's theme by\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"revealing the speaker's awareness that hopeful gestures cannot stop economic forces.\",\"B\":\"showing that the speaker resents the boy for intruding on a private moment of mourning.\",\"C\":\"arguing that the city government should compensate displaced shopkeepers.\",\"D\":\"suggesting that the speaker plans to warn the developers about the new sunflower.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p2-q26\",\"number\":26,\"type\":\"comparison\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p2\",\"prompt\":\"How does the final image of the finch (lines 29-30) relate to the rest of the poem?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"It contradicts the earlier scenes by suggesting that the neighborhood has not really changed.\",\"F\":\"It reinforces the speaker's earlier claim that nature cannot survive in the city.\",\"G\":\"It offers a quiet counterpoint to loss, showing life continuing alongside construction.\",\"H\":\"It returns to the grandmother image from the first stanza to complete a circular structure.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 2, "output": { "costUsd": 0.26019, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 9 questions.\nPassage number: 3 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: narrative_nonfiction | First Q: 27 | Topic: indigenous community / oral tradition\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p3-qN\" where N starts at 27.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p3-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p3\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p3\",\n \"genre\": \"narrative_nonfiction\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"genre\":\"narrative_nonfiction\",\"title\":\"The Cedar Keeper of Hoonah\",\"author\":\"Marian Trask\",\"intro_line\":\"The narrator, a journalist, travels to a small village in southeast Alaska to record stories with a Tlingit elder named Naa Tláa.\",\"text\":\"(1) The float plane skipped across Icy Strait and shuddered to a halt at the wooden dock in Hoonah. I had come to record stories — or rather, I had come hoping to be allowed to record them. My editor in Seattle had given me a tidy list of questions about Tlingit oral tradition, the kind of questions that fit neatly into a magazine column. I would learn, before the week was out, that the list was useless.\\n\\n(2) Naa Tláa met me at the dock in a faded blue parka. She was perhaps seventy, perhaps ninety; the women in her family, she later told me, did not often bother with birthdays. She studied my recorder, my notebook, and my carefully ironed shirt with the same patient curiosity she might show a curious bird. Then she said, \\\"You will help me split cedar. After that, we will see what there is to talk about.\\\"\\n\\n(3) For three days I split cedar. My hands blistered, then bled, then hardened. Naa Tláa worked beside me, humming songs whose words I did not catch. She did not ask me about my list. When I tried, once, to bring it up, she looked toward the strait and said only, \\\"Stories are not groceries. You cannot put them in a basket and carry them home.\\\"\\n\\n(4) On the fourth morning, she told me about her grandfather. He had been a storyteller — a shagóon keeper, she said, one who carried the names and the deeds of the clan. As a boy, he had been forbidden to speak Lingít in the boarding school the government sent him to. The teachers, he had told her, washed his mouth with soap whenever he forgot. And yet, alone at night, under a wool blanket that smelled of other children's homesickness, he had whispered the old stories to himself so that he would not forget the shape of them. \\\"He kept them in his mouth like a smooth stone,\\\" Naa Tláa said. \\\"He did not let them fall out.\\\"\\n\\n(5) I asked, gently, if I could record her telling one of those stories. She laughed — not unkindly — and shook her head. \\\"Not yet,\\\" she said. \\\"You do not know who is in the story. You would write down the words and think you had it.\\\" She tapped my notebook with a finger callused from decades of weaving. \\\"A story is not the words. A story is the room the words make. You must learn the room first.\\\"\\n\\n(6) That afternoon she took me to the smokehouse, where her nephew Daniel was tending salmon over alder coals. Daniel was twenty-six and worked, in the off-season, as a software engineer in Juneau. He spoke Lingít haltingly, he admitted, but he had begun studying with Naa Tláa each Sunday evening over the phone. \\\"She corrects my vowels for an hour,\\\" he said, grinning. \\\"Then she tells me a story I am not allowed to write down. Then she hangs up.\\\" He turned a salmon on its rack. \\\"It is the most patient teaching I have ever received.\\\"\\n\\n(7) I began to understand, slowly, that the stories Naa Tláa carried were not artifacts to be preserved behind glass. They were living things, and like all living things they required a relationship. To tell them to a stranger with a recorder would be like handing a stranger one's child. The recorder did not care who was listening, or whether the listener had earned the listening. Naa Tláa cared a great deal.\\n\\n(8) On my last evening, she sat with me on the porch and watched a raven harry an eagle out over the water. She did not tell me a clan story. Instead, she told me about the time, in 1962, when her aunt had walked twelve miles in deep snow to bring medicine to a cousin's child. It was a small story, an everyday story, and she told it as if it were the most important thing in the world. When she finished, she looked at me and said, \\\"You can write that one down. That one is yours now, because you split cedar.\\\"\\n\\n(9) I flew out the next morning with my recorder still empty and my notebook nearly so. My editor was not pleased. But I had begun, I think, to understand the shape of the room.\",\"footnotes\":[{\"term\":\"shagóon\",\"definition\":\"In Tlingit culture, the ancestral heritage that connects a person to clan, history, and place.\"},{\"term\":\"Lingít\",\"definition\":\"The Tlingit language, indigenous to southeast Alaska.\"}]},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q27\",\"number\":27,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"Recording oral traditions is the most reliable way to preserve a culture for future generations.\",\"B\":\"Tlingit elders are reluctant to share their traditions with outsiders because of past injustices.\",\"C\":\"Understanding a community's stories requires building relationships, not simply collecting words.\",\"D\":\"Modern technology has made it easier than ever for journalists to document indigenous languages.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q28\",\"number\":28,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 3, the statement \\\"Stories are not groceries\\\" most nearly means that stories\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"cannot be purchased from those who own them.\",\"F\":\"cannot be removed from their context and taken away whole.\",\"G\":\"are nourishing in ways that ordinary food is not.\",\"H\":\"are too fragile to survive long journeys.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q29\",\"number\":29,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 4, how did Naa Tláa's grandfather preserve the old stories during his time at the boarding school?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"He wrote them down in a hidden notebook beneath his bed.\",\"B\":\"He taught them quietly to the other Tlingit children at the school.\",\"C\":\"He whispered them to himself at night so he would not forget them.\",\"D\":\"He repeated them to his teachers in defiance of the school's rules.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q30\",\"number\":30,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the description of Daniel in paragraph 6 in order to\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"contrast Daniel's modern career with Naa Tláa's traditional way of life.\",\"F\":\"suggest that younger Tlingit people have largely abandoned the old traditions.\",\"G\":\"illustrate that the transmission of oral tradition continues through patient, ongoing relationships.\",\"H\":\"emphasize how difficult the Lingít language is for young people to learn.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q31\",\"number\":31,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"It can reasonably be inferred from the passage that Naa Tláa required the narrator to split cedar primarily because\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"she needed practical help preparing materials for weaving and building.\",\"B\":\"she wanted to test whether the narrator was willing to invest effort before being trusted.\",\"C\":\"physical labor is a traditional requirement before any Tlingit story can be told.\",\"D\":\"she hoped the narrator would abandon the project and return to Seattle.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q32\",\"number\":32,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"In paragraph 5, Naa Tláa's statement that \\\"a story is the room the words make\\\" emphasizes that\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"the words of a story are less memorable than its setting.\",\"F\":\"a story should always be told in a single, quiet location.\",\"G\":\"the meaning of a story depends on the relationships and context surrounding it.\",\"H\":\"stories are best understood when written down and read carefully.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q33\",\"number\":33,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"How does paragraph 7 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"It introduces a new conflict between Naa Tláa and the narrator's editor.\",\"B\":\"It articulates the realization that allows the narrator to reinterpret earlier events.\",\"C\":\"It provides historical background about the boarding-school system.\",\"D\":\"It shifts the focus away from Naa Tláa to the narrator's professional concerns.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q34\",\"number\":34,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage best supports the idea that the narrator's understanding of journalism has been changed by the visit?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"\\\"My editor in Seattle had given me a tidy list of questions about Tlingit oral tradition...\\\"\",\"F\":\"\\\"For three days I split cedar. My hands blistered, then bled, then hardened.\\\"\",\"G\":\"\\\"He turned a salmon on its rack. 'It is the most patient teaching I have ever received.'\\\"\",\"H\":\"\\\"I flew out the next morning with my recorder still empty and my notebook nearly so... But I had begun, I think, to understand the shape of the room.\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p3-q35\",\"number\":35,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p3\",\"prompt\":\"The narrator's tone throughout the passage is best described as\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"reverent and reflective.\",\"B\":\"defensive and impatient.\",\"C\":\"detached and analytical.\",\"D\":\"sentimental and nostalgic.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 3, "output": { "costUsd": 0.721815, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 4 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 36 | Topic: ecology / conservation / land management\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p4-qN\" where N starts at 36.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p4-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p4\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p4\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"genre\":\"informational_science\",\"title\":\"The Engineers Return\",\"text\":\"(1) For more than a century, North American beavers were trapped relentlessly for their dense, water-repellent fur, a pursuit that drove their population from an estimated 60 million in 1600 to fewer than 100,000 by 1900. Their near disappearance reshaped the continent's waterways in ways that few people noticed at the time. Without beavers to fell saplings, plug streams, and flood low meadows, thousands of wetlands quietly drained away. Streams that had once meandered through brushy floodplains became straight, narrow channels racing toward the sea. Today, ecologists are working to bring beavers back—and in doing so, they are rediscovering just how much these animals shape the land.\\n\\n(2) Beavers are sometimes called \\\"ecosystem engineers\\\" because of the elaborate dams they construct from logs, sticks, and mud. A single colony, working through a summer, can transform a trickling brook into a series of stepped ponds and saturated meadows. The water that pools behind a dam slows down, allowing sediment to settle and giving plants time to take root along the banks. Insects multiply in the still water, drawing fish, frogs, and migrating birds. Researchers at Utah State University, surveying restored beaver sites in 2018, recorded an average of seventy-five percent more bird species at active dams than at comparable stretches of open stream.\\n\\n(3) Perhaps the most striking finding has come from regions threatened by drought. Dr. Emily Fairfax, a hydrologist who studies beaver-modified landscapes, used satellite imagery to compare wetlands with and without beavers during the severe western droughts of 2018 and 2020. In one set of comparisons across California and Nevada, areas containing beaver dams remained as much as three times greener than nearby waterways during peak summer heat. The pooled water, Fairfax noted, was acting as a slow-release reservoir: rather than rushing downstream after spring snowmelt, it lingered in the soil and emerged through the dry months. When wildfires later swept through the region, beaver complexes acted as natural firebreaks, the moist vegetation refusing to ignite even as the surrounding hillsides burned.\\n\\n(4) Such findings have shifted how land managers think about beavers. For decades, the animals were treated mostly as pests: chewing through ornamental trees, plugging culverts, and flooding farm fields. Trappers and county crews often removed problem beavers without considering whether the resulting drained meadow might be more harmful than the animals themselves. In Washington State's Methow Valley, biologists with a project called the Methow Beaver Project began, in 2008, to capture beavers from areas where they were unwanted and release them into degraded creeks high in the mountains. By 2022, the program had relocated more than 400 beavers, and follow-up surveys showed expanded wetlands at a majority of the release sites.\\n\\n(5) Reintroduction is far from simple. Beavers do not always stay where biologists place them; some swim downstream within hours of release, searching for mates or familiar territory. Others build dams in spots that conflict with roads, septic systems, or irrigation ditches. To address these conflicts, engineers have designed devices known as \\\"pond levelers\\\"—pipes set through a dam that quietly drain excess water without alarming the beavers, who respond to the sound of running water by piling on more sticks. With levelers in place, a dam can stay intact while the pond behind it stops creeping into a neighbor's pasture.\\n\\n(6) Critics caution that beavers are not a universal remedy. In some heavily altered watersheds, the animals lack enough woody vegetation to sustain a colony, and translocated families starve or disperse. Steep, fast-moving streams can wash dams away before they mature. And in places where invasive plants such as reed canary grass dominate the banks, beaver activity can sometimes spread the invader rather than restore native diversity. \\\"We have to read the landscape,\\\" Fairfax has written, \\\"and ask whether it is asking for beavers, or asking for something else first.\\\"\\n\\n(7) Still, the broader trend is unmistakable. State agencies that once paid bounties on beavers now subsidize relocation programs. Schoolchildren in Oregon trace beaver-shaped maps of their watersheds. The animal that was nearly erased from the continent has become, for many ecologists, a quiet emblem of how the smallest engineers can repair what larger forces have broken.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q36\",\"number\":36,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement BEST expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"Once viewed primarily as nuisances, beavers are increasingly recognized for the ways their dam-building can restore wetlands and buffer landscapes against drought and fire.\",\"F\":\"Although beaver populations have largely recovered, conflicts with human infrastructure remain the greatest obstacle to expanding North American wetlands.\",\"G\":\"Recent satellite studies have proven that wetlands without beavers cannot survive prolonged droughts in the western United States.\",\"H\":\"Reintroducing beavers to mountain creeks succeeds only when biologists first remove invasive plants such as reed canary grass.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"E\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q37\",\"number\":37,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 3, Dr. Emily Fairfax's satellite comparisons during the western droughts of 2018 and 2020 found that areas with beaver dams\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"produced roughly three times as many beaver kits as in years of normal rainfall.\",\"B\":\"were sometimes as much as three times greener than nearby waterways without beavers.\",\"C\":\"drained faster than unmodified streams once the spring snowmelt had ended.\",\"D\":\"burned hotter than the surrounding hillsides because of the thick brush along the banks.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q38\",\"number\":38,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 3, the phrase \\\"slow-release reservoir\\\" most nearly suggests that\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"beaver dams generate small amounts of electrical current as water seeps through them.\",\"F\":\"the dams release water on a strict daily schedule controlled by the beavers themselves.\",\"G\":\"minerals dissolved in the pooled water are slowly absorbed by the roots of nearby plants.\",\"H\":\"water trapped by the dams is gradually freed into the surrounding soil over an extended period.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"H\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q39\",\"number\":39,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The description of pond levelers in paragraph 5 suggests that beavers\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"instinctively reinforce a dam whenever they hear water flowing through gaps in it.\",\"B\":\"avoid building dams in any creek where humans have installed pipes or culverts.\",\"C\":\"abandon a colony as soon as the water level behind a dam begins to fall.\",\"D\":\"have learned to recognize human-made devices and dismantle them at night.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q40\",\"number\":40,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The author includes the example of the Methow Beaver Project (paragraph 4) primarily to\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"argue that beavers should be removed from valley farmland whenever they appear in fields.\",\"F\":\"illustrate a concrete program that has put the changing view of beavers into practice.\",\"G\":\"show that earlier attempts at beaver relocation in the West usually ended in failure.\",\"H\":\"compare beaver populations in Washington with those in California and Nevada.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q41\",\"number\":41,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Paragraph 6 contributes to the development of the passage by\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"summarizing the historical decline of beaver populations across North America.\",\"B\":\"introducing a new set of researchers whose findings directly contradict Dr. Fairfax's conclusions.\",\"C\":\"acknowledging limits and complications that qualify the optimistic findings discussed earlier.\",\"D\":\"proposing a step-by-step plan for restoring degraded watersheds without using any animals.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q42\",\"number\":42,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage BEST supports the claim that public attitudes toward beavers have shifted in recent years?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"\\\"Beavers are sometimes called 'ecosystem engineers' because of the elaborate dams they construct from logs, sticks, and mud.\\\"\",\"F\":\"\\\"Beavers do not always stay where biologists place them; some swim downstream within hours of release...\\\"\",\"G\":\"\\\"State agencies that once paid bounties on beavers now subsidize relocation programs.\\\"\",\"H\":\"\\\"In some heavily altered watersheds, the animals lack enough woody vegetation to sustain a colony...\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p4-q43\",\"number\":43,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p4\",\"prompt\":\"The author's overall attitude toward beaver reintroduction can BEST be described as\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"openly skeptical, doubting that such small animals can meaningfully change a landscape.\",\"B\":\"strictly neutral, presenting only data without offering any evaluation of the work.\",\"C\":\"nostalgic, focused mainly on mourning the loss of historical beaver populations.\",\"D\":\"cautiously enthusiastic, recognizing both clear benefits and genuine difficulties.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"D\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 4, "output": { "costUsd": 0.27324, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 8 questions.\nPassage number: 5 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: prose_fiction | First Q: 44 | Topic: family / coming-of-age\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p5-qN\" where N starts at 44.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p5-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p5\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p5\",\n \"genre\": \"prose_fiction\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"genre\":\"prose_fiction\",\"title\":\"The Recipe Box\",\"author\":\"Maren Halvorsen\",\"intro_line\":\"Ellen, the narrator, is a fourteen-year-old spending the summer with her grandmother, who has begun to forget small things.\",\"text\":\"(1) The recipe box sat on the kitchen counter the way a small coffin might sit on a table—closed, important, and unwilling to explain itself. Grandma Ines had pulled it down from the top shelf that morning, set it between us, and then walked off to water the geraniums as though the box were a guest who could entertain itself. I waited. I had learned, over three weeks of summer, that Grandma's projects often began this way: an object placed, a silence offered, and then, eventually, a story.\\n\\n(2) She came back smelling of the porch, of warm tin and dust. \\\"Open it,\\\" she said, the way another grandmother might say, \\\"Eat your peas.\\\"\\n\\n(3) The cards inside were yellowed at the edges and written in at least four different hands. Some were typed. One, near the front, had been folded so many times the creases had eaten through the paper, leaving a small window of nothing in the middle of the directions. Grandma watched me lift them out, one by one, the way you might watch a stranger handle a newborn.\\n\\n(4) \\\"That one,\\\" she said, pointing to the folded card, \\\"was your great-grandmother's. The lefse. I haven't made it since—\\\" She stopped. Her hand floated up and then settled, like a bird that had changed its mind about landing. \\\"In a while.\\\"\\n\\n(5) I did not say what I was thinking, which was that \\\"in a while\\\" had begun to do a lot of work in Grandma's sentences lately. It carried the weight of weeks and decades equally, and you could not tell, from the outside, which it meant. Last Tuesday she had asked me three times whether the mail had come. On Thursday she had called me Margaret, which was my mother's name, and then laughed at herself so brightly that I laughed too, because that seemed like the kind thing to do.\\n\\n(6) \\\"We could make it,\\\" I said. I tried to sound as if I were suggesting a movie. \\\"The lefse. Today. If you wanted.\\\"\\n\\n(7) She looked at me for what felt like a long time. I had the strange sense she was weighing something, and that the something was me. Then she nodded once, briskly, the way she used to nod at the bank teller when I was small and she was still the tallest person in any room.\\n\\n(8) The kitchen, it turned out, did not have everything. We needed riced potatoes, which meant peeling, which meant Grandma sat at the table with the peeler and I stood at the stove, and for a while the only sound was the small wet music of skin coming off potato. She hummed something I did not know. I did not ask what it was. There are questions, I had begun to understand, that cost more than they answer.\\n\\n(9) \\\"Your mother used to stand on a chair right there,\\\" Grandma said, pointing the peeler at the spot where I was standing. \\\"She was too short, but she didn't like to be told. So I let her stand on the chair and burn her wrist on the kettle, and then she told me, very seriously, that the kettle had bitten her.\\\" Grandma laughed, and the laugh was so much like my mother's that for a second I had to look down at the pot.\\n\\n(10) \\\"Did she cry?\\\" I asked.\\n\\n(11) \\\"Margaret? Oh, no. Your mother has never cried about anything she could be angry at instead.\\\" She said it without judgment, the way you might describe the color of a door. \\\"You're more like me. You go quiet.\\\"\\n\\n(12) I had not known that about myself, or about her. I turned the burner down so I would have something to do with my hands.\\n\\n(13) When the dough was ready, Grandma rolled the first round herself, and her hands moved without consulting her. The pin went out from the center in six smooth strokes, the way a person signs their name without looking at the pen. Then she stopped, and her face did a thing I had not seen it do before—a kind of quiet surprise, as if she had walked into a room and forgotten which one.\\n\\n(14) \\\"You finish,\\\" she said. She did not move from the counter. She put her hand over mine and pressed, just once, and I understood that I was being given something, and that I was expected to keep it without being told what it was. The pin was warm where she had held it. I rolled, and she watched, and somewhere outside a screen door banged, and the kitchen smelled, faintly and forever, like flour and someone else's childhood.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q44\",\"number\":44,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses a central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"A grandmother teaches her granddaughter a difficult recipe so that the family tradition will not be lost when the grandmother moves away.\",\"F\":\"A summer visit becomes the moment a granddaughter recognizes both her grandmother's decline and her own quiet inheritance from her.\",\"G\":\"A teenager grows frustrated with her grandmother's forgetfulness and learns to be more patient through the act of cooking together.\",\"H\":\"A grandmother and granddaughter discover that they have very little in common until they begin working side by side in the kitchen.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q45\",\"number\":45,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 1, the comparison of the recipe box to \\\"a small coffin\\\" most strongly suggests that the box is\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"frightening to Ellen because she does not yet know what it contains.\",\"B\":\"weighed down with a sense of seriousness and of something preserved from the past.\",\"C\":\"a sign that someone in the family has recently died.\",\"D\":\"too fragile for Ellen and her grandmother to handle without care.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q46\",\"number\":46,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"In paragraph 5, Ellen's observation that the phrase \\\"in a while\\\" has \\\"begun to do a lot of work\\\" in her grandmother's sentences most strongly suggests that Ellen\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"is annoyed by her grandmother's vague way of speaking.\",\"F\":\"believes her grandmother is deliberately hiding details about the past.\",\"G\":\"has quietly noticed that her grandmother's memory is slipping, even though she has not said so aloud.\",\"H\":\"thinks her grandmother uses old-fashioned expressions that are difficult to understand.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q47\",\"number\":47,\"type\":\"structure\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"How does paragraph 9 contribute to the development of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"It introduces a memory that allows Grandma Ines to compare Ellen's mother as a child to Ellen, deepening the sense of family layers within the kitchen.\",\"B\":\"It provides background information that explains why Ellen's mother is not present during the summer visit.\",\"C\":\"It establishes a conflict between Ellen and her grandmother about who is allowed to use the stove.\",\"D\":\"It shows that Grandma Ines has begun to confuse Ellen with her mother because of her failing memory.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q48\",\"number\":48,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 11, Grandma Ines describes Ellen's mother as someone who\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"cries easily when she is hurt or surprised.\",\"F\":\"resembles Grandma Ines more than Ellen does.\",\"G\":\"prefers anger to sadness when something upsets her.\",\"H\":\"refuses to talk about painful experiences from her childhood.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q49\",\"number\":49,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the simile that Grandma's hand \\\"floated up and then settled, like a bird that had changed its mind about landing\\\" (paragraph 4) in order to\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"emphasize how physically frail Grandma Ines has become over the summer.\",\"B\":\"convey the small, hesitant moment in which Grandma loses her place in her own sentence.\",\"C\":\"suggest that Grandma is gesturing toward something outside the window.\",\"D\":\"show that Grandma is annoyed at being interrupted by her own thoughts.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q50\",\"number\":50,\"type\":\"tone\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"The narrator's tone throughout the passage is best described as\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"nostalgic and openly grieving.\",\"F\":\"observant and gently restrained.\",\"G\":\"impatient and faintly resentful.\",\"H\":\"playful and lightly teasing.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p5-q51\",\"number\":51,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p5\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best describes what Ellen comes to understand by the end of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"That she has been entrusted with something her grandmother can no longer fully carry herself.\",\"B\":\"That she will need to teach her own mother how to make the family's lefse one day.\",\"C\":\"That her grandmother regrets not having spent more time with her in earlier summers.\",\"D\":\"That cooking is a skill she is unlikely to enjoy as much as her grandmother does.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"A\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 5, "output": { "costUsd": 0.22794, "model": "opus", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate 1 SHSAT Reading Comprehension passage with EXACTLY 6 questions.\nPassage number: 6 of 6 | Test: 1 | Genre: informational_science | First Q: 52 | Topic: wildlife / biology / habitat\n\nPASSAGE STRUCTURE depends on genre:\n\n[informational_science] — 600-900 words, scientific topic, paragraphs numbered 1, 2, 3, ...\n - Specific researchers, dates, findings, technical terms\n - Optionally include 1 diagram described as ASCII or text\n[informational_history] — 600-900 words, history/social science, paragraphs numbered\n - Specific events, dates, named figures, places\n[prose_fiction] — 700-900 words, literary narrative excerpt, paragraphs numbered\n - Distinct narrator voice, character interaction, dialogue, subtext\n - Italic intro line: \"Ellen, the narrator, is ...\" (sets context)\n[narrative_nonfiction] — 600-900 words, true narrative (e.g., cultural/historical narrative), paragraphs numbered\n - Italic intro line setting context\n[poetry] — 20-30 lines of free verse, line numbers shown every 5 lines\n - 1-2 footnote definitions for difficult words\n - Title and \"by [Author]\"\n - Themes: nature, urban life, memory, identity, change\n\nQUESTION TYPES — pick from based on genre:\n- main_idea: central idea of passage / paragraph\n- detail: specific information stated\n- inference: logical conclusion from text\n- vocabulary_in_context: precise meaning of word/phrase\n- author_purpose: why a section is included\n- structure: how a sentence/paragraph contributes to development\n- evidence: which quotation supports a claim\n- tone: tone or word-choice effect\n- theme_development: how lines develop a theme (poetry)\n- comparison: relationship between two elements\n- diagram_support: how diagram supports topic (only if passage has visual)\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-ela-read-p6-qN\" where N starts at 52.\n\nCHOICE LETTERING (alternating per number):\n- Odd N → A, B, C, D\n- Even N → E, F, G, H\n\nQUESTION SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-ela-read-p6-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"...\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"shsat1-read-p6\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nOUTPUT:\n{\n \"passage\": {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-read-p6\",\n \"genre\": \"informational_science\",\n \"title\": \"...\",\n \"author\": \"...\" (optional for informational; required for fiction/poetry/narrative),\n \"intro_line\": \"...\" (optional; required for fiction/narrative),\n \"text\": \"...\",\n \"footnotes\": [{\"term\":\"...\",\"definition\":\"...\"}] (optional)\n },\n \"questions\": [ /* 6 questions */ ]\n}\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "{\"passage\":{\"id\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"genre\":\"informational_science\",\"title\":\"The Hidden Highways of the Pronghorn\",\"text\":\"1 Across the sagebrush basins of the American West, an animal that most travelers will never see is performing one of the longest land migrations on the continent. The pronghorn, often miscalled an antelope, is in fact the sole surviving member of an ancient family native to North America. Each autumn, herds in western Wyoming abandon their summer ranges in the high meadows of Grand Teton National Park and travel more than 150 miles south to wintering grounds in the Upper Green River Basin. In spring, they reverse the journey. Biologists have learned that pronghorn do not improvise these routes. They follow narrow corridors that have been used, by some estimates, for at least six thousand years.\\n\\n2 The discovery of these corridors owes a great deal to the work of Joel Berger, a wildlife ecologist who began tracking pronghorn with GPS collars in the early 2000s. Before his study, scientists understood that the animals moved seasonally, but the precise paths were a matter of guesswork. Berger's collars recorded a position every few hours, producing thousands of data points per animal. When he and his colleagues plotted the locations on a map, an unexpected pattern emerged. Rather than dispersing across the open landscape, individual pronghorn from many different herds funneled through the same handful of bottlenecks—some no wider than a few hundred yards—year after year.\\n\\n3 One bottleneck, known as Trapper's Point, lies near the town of Pinedale, Wyoming. Here the migration corridor narrows to less than half a mile as it threads between two rivers. Archaeological evidence suggests that human hunters camped at this very spot more than six thousand years ago, presumably because they too recognized the predictability of the herd's passage. The fact that the pronghorn still use the same pinch point is, in Berger's words, \\\"a kind of living memory written into the landscape.\\\" Why the animals are so faithful to these routes is not entirely settled. Pronghorn lambs travel with their mothers on their first migration, and researchers suspect that the path is learned rather than inherited. A herd that loses its corridor, in other words, may not easily invent a new one.\\n\\n4 This faithfulness has become a serious conservation problem. Unlike six thousand years ago, the corridors today are crossed by highways, fences, and natural-gas drilling pads. A standard livestock fence, with its lowest wire strung tight against the ground, is a particular hazard: pronghorn evolved on open plains and almost never jump obstacles, preferring instead to crawl beneath them. When the bottom wire is too low, a fast-moving herd can pile up against it. Highways present a different danger. A 2019 study by researchers at the Wyoming Migration Initiative found that vehicle collisions along a single 30-mile stretch of U.S. Route 191 killed an average of 85 pronghorn per year, a figure the authors called \\\"unsustainable for a population already pressed at its margins.\\\"\\n\\n5 The conservation response has been unusually creative. In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service designated the 6,000-year-old route as the \\\"Path of the Pronghorn,\\\" the first federally protected migration corridor in American history. More recently, transportation engineers have built a series of overpasses and underpasses across Route 191 near Trapper's Point. The structures are landscaped with native sagebrush and funneled by tall fencing that nudges animals toward the safe crossings. Camera-trap data from the first five years of operation showed that pronghorn use of the overpasses rose from near zero in the opening months to more than 80 percent of attempted crossings by year three. Mule deer, which were not the project's intended beneficiary, took to the structures almost immediately.\\n\\n6 Some biologists caution that engineering solutions, however successful, treat the symptoms rather than the cause. As natural-gas development continues to fragment winter range in the Upper Green River Basin, even the most carefully protected corridor leads to a destination that is shrinking each year. Berger himself has argued that conservation of long-distance migration must be considered at the scale of the entire route, from summer pasture to winter shelter, including everything in between. \\\"You cannot save half a migration,\\\" he has written. \\\"The animal does not recognize the boundary on the map.\\\"\\n\\n7 For the pronghorn of western Wyoming, the question is no longer whether the ancient highways exist. The collars and the cameras have settled that. The question is whether a modern landscape, sliced by roads and pipelines and property lines, can still make room for an animal whose habits were set down before any of those things existed.\"},\"questions\":[{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q52\",\"number\":52,\"type\":\"main_idea\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"GPS collar technology has revolutionized the way wildlife biologists track animals across the American West.\",\"F\":\"The pronghorn's reliance on ancient, narrow migration corridors makes the species both remarkable and vulnerable in a developed landscape.\",\"G\":\"Conservation efforts at Trapper's Point demonstrate that wildlife overpasses are the most effective solution to highway mortality.\",\"H\":\"Joel Berger's research has overturned earlier scientific beliefs about how pronghorn navigate over long distances.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q53\",\"number\":53,\"type\":\"detail\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"According to paragraph 4, why are standard livestock fences especially dangerous for pronghorn?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"The wire is often electrified along migration corridors.\",\"B\":\"Pronghorn tend to crawl under obstacles rather than jump them, and the lowest wire is set too close to the ground.\",\"C\":\"Fences fragment the herd, separating lambs from their mothers during migration.\",\"D\":\"The fences are typically built across the narrowest points of the migration corridor.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q54\",\"number\":54,\"type\":\"vocabulary_in_context\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"As used in paragraph 2, the word \\\"funneled\\\" most nearly means\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"poured liquid through a narrow opening.\",\"F\":\"converged into a constrained passage.\",\"G\":\"hurried away from a perceived danger.\",\"H\":\"scattered widely across an open area.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"F\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q55\",\"number\":55,\"type\":\"author_purpose\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"The author most likely includes the detail about human hunters camping at Trapper's Point six thousand years ago in order to\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"establish that pronghorn populations were once much larger than they are today.\",\"B\":\"emphasize the remarkable consistency of the migration route across vast spans of time.\",\"C\":\"suggest that hunting pressure has historically shaped the pronghorn's chosen corridors.\",\"D\":\"contrast modern conservation methods with ancient methods of wildlife management.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"B\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q56\",\"number\":56,\"type\":\"inference\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"The passage suggests that if a pronghorn herd were permanently cut off from its traditional corridor, the herd would most likely\",\"choices\":{\"E\":\"adapt quickly by selecting a new route through trial and error.\",\"F\":\"begin to jump fences rather than crawl beneath them.\",\"G\":\"struggle to establish an alternative path because the route is learned from older animals.\",\"H\":\"merge with neighboring herds that still have access to a corridor.\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"G\"},{\"id\":\"shsat1-ela-read-p6-q57\",\"number\":57,\"type\":\"evidence\",\"passage_ref\":\"shsat1-read-p6\",\"prompt\":\"Which quotation from the passage best supports the idea that engineering fixes alone cannot guarantee the long-term survival of pronghorn migration?\",\"choices\":{\"A\":\"\\\"Berger's collars recorded a position every few hours, producing thousands of data points per animal.\\\"\",\"B\":\"\\\"Camera-trap data from the first five years of operation showed that pronghorn use of the overpasses rose from near zero in the opening months to more than 80 percent of attempted crossings by year three.\\\"\",\"C\":\"\\\"As natural-gas development continues to fragment winter range in the Upper Green River Basin, even the most carefully protected corridor leads to a destination that is shrinking each year.\\\"\",\"D\":\"\\\"In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service designated the 6,000-year-old route as the 'Path of the Pronghorn,' the first federally protected migration corridor in American history.\\\"\"},\"answer_format\":\"mcq\",\"correct_answer\":\"C\"}]}" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 6 }, "gen-math-grid": { "count": 1, "costUsd": 0, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 5 SHSAT Math grid-in questions (Q58 through Q62).\nTest number: 1\n\nGrid-in answers must be:\n- Integer or simple decimal (max 4 digits incl. decimal point)\n- May be negative (grid has a \"-\" bubble)\n- No fractions in answer (use decimal: 1/2 → 0.5)\n- Reduce all answers to simplest form\n\nTYPE COVERAGE — one each (in this order):\n- Q58: word problem with simple percentages, rates, or basic algebra setup\n- Q59: order of operations expression with absolute value, exponent, fractions\n- Q60: solve a linear equation for x\n- Q61: geometry — find an unknown angle (parallel lines, perpendicular, supplementary)\n- Q62: statistics — mean of set after add/remove, or related stats computation\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-q{N}\" where N = 58, 59, 60, 61, 62.\n\nGRID-IN SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"word_problem\" | \"order_of_operations\" | \"linear_equation\" | \"geometry_angle\" | \"statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"\"\n}\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER by solving step-by-step.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 5 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q58\",\n \"number\": 58,\n \"type\": \"word_problem\",\n \"prompt\": \"A television is on sale for 30% off its original price. If the sale price of the television is $245, what was its original price in dollars?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"350\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q59\",\n \"number\": 59,\n \"type\": \"order_of_operations\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $20 - 3 \\times [ (2-5)^3 + |-15| ]$ ?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"56\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q60\",\n \"number\": 60,\n \"type\": \"linear_equation\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $\\\\frac{3}{5}(x + 10) = x - 2$, what is the value of $x$?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"20\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q61\",\n \"number\": 61,\n \"type\": \"geometry_angle\",\n \"prompt\": \"In the figure described, horizontal line $L$ is parallel to horizontal line $M$. A path connects point $P$ on line $L$ to point $Q$ on line $M$ via a point $R$ located between the lines. The angle formed at point $P$ by line $L$ and segment $PR$ measures $42^{\\\\circ}$. The angle formed at point $Q$ by line $M$ and segment $QR$ measures $35^{\\\\circ}$. The angles at $P$ and $Q$ are alternate interior angles relative to the parallel lines. What is the measure of angle $PRQ$ in degrees?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"77\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q62\",\n \"number\": 62,\n \"type\": \"statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"The average (arithmetic mean) of a set of 8 numbers is 15. When a 9th number is added to the set, the new average is 16. What is the value of the 9th number?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"24\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 5 SHSAT Math grid-in questions (Q58 through Q62).\nTest number: 1\n\nGrid-in answers must be:\n- Integer or simple decimal (max 4 digits incl. decimal point)\n- May be negative (grid has a \"-\" bubble)\n- No fractions in answer (use decimal: 1/2 → 0.5)\n- Reduce all answers to simplest form\n\nTYPE COVERAGE — one each (in this order):\n- Q58: word problem with simple percentages, rates, or basic algebra setup\n- Q59: order of operations expression with absolute value, exponent, fractions\n- Q60: solve a linear equation for x\n- Q61: geometry — find an unknown angle (parallel lines, perpendicular, supplementary)\n- Q62: statistics — mean of set after add/remove, or related stats computation\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-q{N}\" where N = 58, 59, 60, 61, 62.\n\nGRID-IN SCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"word_problem\" | \"order_of_operations\" | \"linear_equation\" | \"geometry_angle\" | \"statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"\"\n}\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER by solving step-by-step.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 5 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q58\",\n \"number\": 58,\n \"type\": \"word_problem\",\n \"prompt\": \"A television is on sale for 30% off its original price. If the sale price of the television is $245, what was its original price in dollars?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"350\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q59\",\n \"number\": 59,\n \"type\": \"order_of_operations\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $20 - 3 \\times [ (2-5)^3 + |-15| ]$ ?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"56\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q60\",\n \"number\": 60,\n \"type\": \"linear_equation\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $\\\\frac{3}{5}(x + 10) = x - 2$, what is the value of $x$?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"20\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q61\",\n \"number\": 61,\n \"type\": \"geometry_angle\",\n \"prompt\": \"In the figure described, horizontal line $L$ is parallel to horizontal line $M$. A path connects point $P$ on line $L$ to point $Q$ on line $M$ via a point $R$ located between the lines. The angle formed at point $P$ by line $L$ and segment $PR$ measures $42^{\\\\circ}$. The angle formed at point $Q$ by line $M$ and segment $QR$ measures $35^{\\\\circ}$. The angles at $P$ and $Q$ are alternate interior angles relative to the parallel lines. What is the measure of angle $PRQ$ in degrees?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"77\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q62\",\n \"number\": 62,\n \"type\": \"statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"The average (arithmetic mean) of a set of 8 numbers is 15. When a 9th number is added to the set, the new average is 16. What is the value of the 9th number?\",\n \"answer_format\": \"grid_in\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"24\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 1 }, "gen-math-mcq": { "count": 6, "costUsd": 0, "failed": 0, "items": [ { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 12 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic pre_algebra.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 63\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 63.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = pre_algebra:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 12 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q63\",\n \"number\": 63,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A winter coat that originally costs $80.00 is on sale for 20% off. If an 8% sales tax is applied to the sale price, what is the final cost of the coat?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$68.48\",\n \"B\": \"$69.12\",\n \"C\": \"$64.00\",\n \"D\": \"$70.40\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q64\",\n \"number\": 64,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $(\\\\frac{3}{4} - \\\\frac{1}{3}) \\\\div \\\\frac{5}{6}$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{25}{72}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{7}{12}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q65\",\n \"number\": 65,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"In a school band with 45 members, the ratio of students who play brass instruments to students who play woodwind instruments is 2:3. How many students play woodwind instruments?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"9\",\n \"B\": \"18\",\n \"C\": \"27\",\n \"D\": \"30\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q66\",\n \"number\": 66,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A container holds 2 liters of liquid. If 750 milliliters are poured out, how many milliliters of liquid remain in the container? ($1$ liter = $1000$ milliliters)\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"250\",\n \"F\": \"748\",\n \"G\": \"1250\",\n \"H\": \"1750\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q67\",\n \"number\": 67,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following values is the greatest?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{8}$\",\n \"B\": \"62%\",\n \"C\": \"0.62\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{5}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q68\",\n \"number\": 68,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A baker has $10\\\\frac{1}{2}$ pounds of flour. A recipe for one batch of cookies requires $1\\\\frac{3}{4}$ pounds of flour. What is the maximum number of full batches of cookies the baker can make?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"5\",\n \"F\": \"6\",\n \"G\": \"7\",\n \"H\": \"8\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q69\",\n \"number\": 69,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Of the 240 students in the eighth grade, 35% are enrolled in an art class. How many eighth-grade students are enrolled in art?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"70\",\n \"B\": \"84\",\n \"C\": \"96\",\n \"D\": \"156\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q70\",\n \"number\": 70,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"If a train travels at a constant speed of 75 miles per hour, how many miles does it travel in 12 minutes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"9\",\n \"F\": \"12.5\",\n \"G\": \"15\",\n \"H\": \"18\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q71\",\n \"number\": 71,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Calculate: $5\\\\frac{1}{4} - 3\\\\frac{2}{3}$\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$1\\\\frac{1}{12}$\",\n \"B\": \"$1\\\\frac{5}{12}$\",\n \"C\": \"$1\\\\frac{7}{12}$\",\n \"D\": \"$2\\\\frac{5}{12}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q72\",\n \"number\": 72,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"On a scale drawing of an apartment, 1 centimeter represents $2.5$ meters. If a room is 4.2 centimeters long on the drawing, what is its actual length?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1.68 meters\",\n \"F\": \"8.4 meters\",\n \"G\": \"10.5 meters\",\n \"H\": \"12.25 meters\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q73\",\n \"number\": 73,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following is equivalent to the decimal $0.375$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{8}$\",\n \"B\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{8}$\",\n \"C\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{16}$\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{7}{20}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q74\",\n \"number\": 74,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Last year, a city's population was 120,000. This year, its population is 125,400. What is the percent increase in the population?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"4.3%\",\n \"F\": \"4.5%\",\n \"G\": \"5.4%\",\n \"H\": \"54%\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic number_theory.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 75\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 75.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = number_theory:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q75\",\n \"number\": 75,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"How many distinct prime factors does the number 360 have?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"3\",\n \"B\": \"4\",\n \"C\": \"5\",\n \"D\": \"6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q76\",\n \"number\": 76,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two runners are on a circular track. Runner A completes a lap in 8 minutes. Runner B completes a lap in 6 minutes. If they start at the same time from the same point, after how many minutes will they first be at the starting point together again?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"12 minutes\",\n \"F\": \"24 minutes\",\n \"G\": \"48 minutes\",\n \"H\": \"2 minutes\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q77\",\n \"number\": 77,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $x$ is an integer and $20 < 4x < 35$, which of the following statements must be true?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$x$ is even.\",\n \"B\": \"$x > 6$.\",\n \"C\": \"$x$ is prime.\",\n \"D\": \"$x > 5$.\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q78\",\n \"number\": 78,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"The number $3N8$ is a three-digit number divisible by 9, where $N$ represents a single digit. What is the value of $N$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"6\",\n \"G\": \"7\",\n \"H\": \"9\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q79\",\n \"number\": 79,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $m$ is an odd integer and $n$ is an even integer, which of the following expressions MUST result in an odd integer?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$m + n + 1$\",\n \"B\": \"$mn$\",\n \"C\": \"$m - n$\",\n \"D\": \"$2m + n$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q80\",\n \"number\": 80,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"When a positive integer $k$ is divided by 7, the remainder is 4. What is the remainder when $2k+5$ is divided by 7?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"2\",\n \"G\": \"4\",\n \"H\": \"6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q81\",\n \"number\": 81,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"The sum of three different prime numbers is 16. What is the largest of these three primes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"7\",\n \"B\": \"11\",\n \"C\": \"13\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q82\",\n \"number\": 82,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"A teacher has a bag of fewer than 100 marbles. When the marbles are divided equally among 3, 4, or 5 students, there is always 1 marble left over. How many marbles are in the bag?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"31\",\n \"F\": \"41\",\n \"G\": \"61\",\n \"H\": \"60\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic algebra.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 83\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 83.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = algebra:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q83\",\n \"number\": 83,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $5x - 8 = 2x + 7$, what is the value of $x$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"5\",\n \"B\": \"-5\",\n \"C\": \"1\",\n \"D\": \"15/7\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q84\",\n \"number\": 84,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $3a^2 - 2(b-c)$ when $a=3$, $b=5$, and $c=-1$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"6\",\n \"F\": \"15\",\n \"G\": \"19\",\n \"H\": \"39\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q85\",\n \"number\": 85,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Maria has a collection of 42 comic books. This is 6 less than twice the number of comic books, $n$, that her friend Ben has. Which equation represents this situation?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"2n + 6 = 42\",\n \"B\": \"6 - 2n = 42\",\n \"C\": \"2n - 6 = 42\",\n \"D\": \"n = 2(42) - 6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q86\",\n \"number\": 86,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following values of $y$ is a solution to the inequality $15 - 3y > 6$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"5\",\n \"F\": \"4\",\n \"G\": \"3\",\n \"H\": \"2\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q87\",\n \"number\": 87,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following expressions is equivalent to $3(x + 2y) - (2x - y)$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"x + 5y\",\n \"B\": \"x + 7y\",\n \"C\": \"-x + 3y\",\n \"D\": \"5x + y\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q88\",\n \"number\": 88,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A rectangle has a length of $4x^5$ units and a width of $3x^2$ units. What is the area of the rectangle in square units?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"7x^7\",\n \"F\": \"12x^{10}\",\n \"G\": \"12x^7\",\n \"H\": \"7x^{10}\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q89\",\n \"number\": 89,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A taxi service charges a flat fee of $3.50 plus $2.25 per mile. If a passenger's total fare was $37.25, how many miles, $m$, was the ride?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"10\",\n \"B\": \"12\",\n \"C\": \"18\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q90\",\n \"number\": 90,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"The formula for the perimeter of a rectangle is $P = 2l + 2w$. Which of the following equations is correctly solved for the width, $w$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"w = (P - 2l) / 2\",\n \"F\": \"w = P/2 - 2l\",\n \"G\": \"w = P - 2l\",\n \"H\": \"w = P - l\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 9 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic geometry.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 91\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 91.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = geometry:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q91\",\n \"number\": 91,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"The measure of a single interior angle of a regular polygon is $150^\\\\circ$. How many sides does the polygon have?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"8\",\n \"B\": \"10\",\n \"C\": \"12\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q92\",\n \"number\": 92,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A rectangular park is 40 meters long and 30 meters wide. A straight path is built from one corner of the park to the diagonally opposite corner. What is the length of the path in meters?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"50\",\n \"F\": \"60\",\n \"G\": \"70\",\n \"H\": \"1200\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q93\",\n \"number\": 93,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A circle is inscribed inside a square with a perimeter of 48 inches. What is the area of the circle in square inches?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"12π\",\n \"B\": \"36π\",\n \"C\": \"48π\",\n \"D\": \"144π\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q94\",\n \"number\": 94,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"Triangle PQR is similar to triangle XYZ. The length of side PQ is 6 cm, and the length of the corresponding side XY is 10 cm. If the area of triangle PQR is 27 square cm, what is the area of triangle XYZ in square cm?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"45\",\n \"F\": \"54\",\n \"G\": \"75\",\n \"H\": \"135\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q95\",\n \"number\": 95,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A cylindrical can has a diameter of 4 inches and a height of 10 inches. What is the volume of the can in cubic inches?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"40π\",\n \"B\": \"80π\",\n \"C\": \"160π\",\n \"D\": \"400π\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q96\",\n \"number\": 96,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A square has a perimeter of 36 feet. What is its area in square feet?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"36\",\n \"F\": \"81\",\n \"G\": \"144\",\n \"H\": \"324\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q97\",\n \"number\": 97,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two parallel lines are intersected by a transversal line. The measure of an acute interior angle is $(2x + 10)^\\\\circ$, and the measure of an obtuse interior angle on the same side of the transversal is $(3x + 40)^\\\\circ$. What is the value of $x$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"26\",\n \"B\": \"24\",\n \"C\": \"46\",\n \"D\": \"50\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q98\",\n \"number\": 98,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"In rhombus JKLM, the length of diagonal JL is 36 and the length of diagonal KM is 48. What is the perimeter of the rhombus?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"60\",\n \"F\": \"84\",\n \"G\": \"100\",\n \"H\": \"120\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q99\",\n \"number\": 99,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"The base of a right prism is a triangle with side lengths of 8 cm, 15 cm, and 17 cm. The height of the prism is 10 cm. What is the volume of the prism in cubic centimeters?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"400\",\n \"B\": \"520\",\n \"C\": \"1200\",\n \"D\": \"600\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic probability_statistics.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 100\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 100.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = probability_statistics:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q100\",\n \"number\": 100,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A student's scores on five quizzes were 88, 92, 84, 95, and 88. What is the student's average (arithmetic mean) score for the five quizzes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"88\",\n \"F\": \"89.4\",\n \"G\": \"90\",\n \"H\": \"11\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q101\",\n \"number\": 101,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A bag contains 5 red marbles, 3 blue marbles, and 2 green marbles. If one marble is drawn at random, its color is noted, and then it is put back in the bag before a second marble is drawn, what is the probability that both marbles drawn are red?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{5}$\",\n \"B\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{4}$\",\n \"C\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{2}{9}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q102\",\n \"number\": 102,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"For the set of numbers {15, 8, 22, 15, 30, 5}, what is the sum of the median and the range?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"30\",\n \"F\": \"40\",\n \"G\": \"40.5\",\n \"H\": \"55\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q103\",\n \"number\": 103,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A sandwich shop offers 4 types of bread, 3 types of cheese, and 5 types of meat. How many different sandwiches, each consisting of one type of bread, one type of cheese, and one type of meat, can be made?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"12\",\n \"B\": \"47\",\n \"C\": \"60\",\n \"D\": \"120\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q104\",\n \"number\": 104,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A spinner is divided into 8 equal sections, numbered 1 through 8. What is the probability that the spinner will NOT land on a prime number?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{4}$\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{8}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{8}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q105\",\n \"number\": 105,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A data set consists of the following 9 values: 12, 47, 25, 18, 20, 31, 40, 15, 29. What is the interquartile range (IQR) of this data?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"16\",\n \"B\": \"19\",\n \"C\": \"25\",\n \"D\": \"35\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q106\",\n \"number\": 106,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"From a standard 52-card deck, two cards are drawn at random without replacement. What is the probability that both cards are aces?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{169}$\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{221}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{2}{221}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{4}{663}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q107\",\n \"number\": 107,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"In a certain class, there are 10 boys and 20 girls. The average score on a test for the boys was 80, and the average score for the girls was 95. What was the average test score for the entire class?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"87.5\",\n \"B\": \"88\",\n \"C\": \"90\",\n \"D\": \"92.5\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 7 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic word_problems.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 108\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 108.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = word_problems:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 7 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q108\",\n \"number\": 108,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two printers, A and B, work together to print a 600-page document. Printer A, working alone, can print the document in 30 minutes. Printer B, working alone, can print the document in 60 minutes. If they start at the same time, how many minutes will it take for them to print the 600-page document together?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"15\",\n \"F\": \"45\",\n \"G\": \"20\",\n \"H\": \"90\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q109\",\n \"number\": 109,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A tablet is on sale for 20% off its original price. The sale price is then reduced by an additional 10% for a holiday special. If the final price after both discounts is $360, what was the original price of the tablet?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$475.20\",\n \"B\": \"$500\",\n \"C\": \"$468\",\n \"D\": \"$514.29\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q110\",\n \"number\": 110,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"Maya and Liam are running on a straight path. They start at the same point and at the same time, but run in opposite directions. Maya runs at a constant speed of 5 miles per hour. Liam runs at a constant speed of 7 miles per hour. How long will it take, in hours, for them to be 30 miles apart?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"2.5\",\n \"F\": \"3.0\",\n \"G\": \"6.0\",\n \"H\": \"15.0\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q111\",\n \"number\": 111,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A chemist has 40 milliliters of a solution that is 25% acid. How many milliliters of pure acid must be added to create a new solution that is 40% acid?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"8\",\n \"B\": \"15\",\n \"C\": \"12\",\n \"D\": \"10\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q112\",\n \"number\": 112,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"At a school event, the ratio of teachers to students is 2 to 15. If a total of 340 teachers and students are at the event, how many students are there?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"40\",\n \"F\": \"225\",\n \"G\": \"323\",\n \"H\": \"300\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q113\",\n \"number\": 113,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A charity sold tickets for a raffle. The ticket numbers were consecutive integers starting from 101. If the total revenue from the tickets was $450 and each ticket cost $3, what was the highest ticket number sold?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"250\",\n \"B\": \"251\",\n \"C\": \"150\",\n \"D\": \"249\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q114\",\n \"number\": 114,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A town's population was 10,000 at the beginning of 2022. It increased by 10% during 2022. Then, it decreased by 10% during 2023. What was the town's population at the end of 2023?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"10,000\",\n \"F\": \"9,900\",\n \"G\": \"9,000\",\n \"H\": \"10,100\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" } ], "results": [ { "attempts": 1, "index": 0, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 12 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic pre_algebra.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 63\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 63.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = pre_algebra:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 12 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q63\",\n \"number\": 63,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A winter coat that originally costs $80.00 is on sale for 20% off. If an 8% sales tax is applied to the sale price, what is the final cost of the coat?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$68.48\",\n \"B\": \"$69.12\",\n \"C\": \"$64.00\",\n \"D\": \"$70.40\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q64\",\n \"number\": 64,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $(\\\\frac{3}{4} - \\\\frac{1}{3}) \\\\div \\\\frac{5}{6}$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{25}{72}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{7}{12}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q65\",\n \"number\": 65,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"In a school band with 45 members, the ratio of students who play brass instruments to students who play woodwind instruments is 2:3. How many students play woodwind instruments?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"9\",\n \"B\": \"18\",\n \"C\": \"27\",\n \"D\": \"30\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q66\",\n \"number\": 66,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A container holds 2 liters of liquid. If 750 milliliters are poured out, how many milliliters of liquid remain in the container? ($1$ liter = $1000$ milliliters)\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"250\",\n \"F\": \"748\",\n \"G\": \"1250\",\n \"H\": \"1750\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q67\",\n \"number\": 67,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following values is the greatest?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{8}$\",\n \"B\": \"62%\",\n \"C\": \"0.62\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{5}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q68\",\n \"number\": 68,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A baker has $10\\\\frac{1}{2}$ pounds of flour. A recipe for one batch of cookies requires $1\\\\frac{3}{4}$ pounds of flour. What is the maximum number of full batches of cookies the baker can make?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"5\",\n \"F\": \"6\",\n \"G\": \"7\",\n \"H\": \"8\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q69\",\n \"number\": 69,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Of the 240 students in the eighth grade, 35% are enrolled in an art class. How many eighth-grade students are enrolled in art?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"70\",\n \"B\": \"84\",\n \"C\": \"96\",\n \"D\": \"156\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q70\",\n \"number\": 70,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"If a train travels at a constant speed of 75 miles per hour, how many miles does it travel in 12 minutes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"9\",\n \"F\": \"12.5\",\n \"G\": \"15\",\n \"H\": \"18\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q71\",\n \"number\": 71,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Calculate: $5\\\\frac{1}{4} - 3\\\\frac{2}{3}$\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$1\\\\frac{1}{12}$\",\n \"B\": \"$1\\\\frac{5}{12}$\",\n \"C\": \"$1\\\\frac{7}{12}$\",\n \"D\": \"$2\\\\frac{5}{12}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q72\",\n \"number\": 72,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"On a scale drawing of an apartment, 1 centimeter represents $2.5$ meters. If a room is 4.2 centimeters long on the drawing, what is its actual length?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1.68 meters\",\n \"F\": \"8.4 meters\",\n \"G\": \"10.5 meters\",\n \"H\": \"12.25 meters\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q73\",\n \"number\": 73,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following is equivalent to the decimal $0.375$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{8}$\",\n \"B\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{8}$\",\n \"C\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{16}$\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{7}{20}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q74\",\n \"number\": 74,\n \"type\": \"pre_algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Last year, a city's population was 120,000. This year, its population is 125,400. What is the percent increase in the population?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"4.3%\",\n \"F\": \"4.5%\",\n \"G\": \"5.4%\",\n \"H\": \"54%\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 1, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic number_theory.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 75\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 75.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = number_theory:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q75\",\n \"number\": 75,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"How many distinct prime factors does the number 360 have?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"3\",\n \"B\": \"4\",\n \"C\": \"5\",\n \"D\": \"6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q76\",\n \"number\": 76,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two runners are on a circular track. Runner A completes a lap in 8 minutes. Runner B completes a lap in 6 minutes. If they start at the same time from the same point, after how many minutes will they first be at the starting point together again?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"12 minutes\",\n \"F\": \"24 minutes\",\n \"G\": \"48 minutes\",\n \"H\": \"2 minutes\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q77\",\n \"number\": 77,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $x$ is an integer and $20 < 4x < 35$, which of the following statements must be true?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$x$ is even.\",\n \"B\": \"$x > 6$.\",\n \"C\": \"$x$ is prime.\",\n \"D\": \"$x > 5$.\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q78\",\n \"number\": 78,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"The number $3N8$ is a three-digit number divisible by 9, where $N$ represents a single digit. What is the value of $N$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"6\",\n \"G\": \"7\",\n \"H\": \"9\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q79\",\n \"number\": 79,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $m$ is an odd integer and $n$ is an even integer, which of the following expressions MUST result in an odd integer?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$m + n + 1$\",\n \"B\": \"$mn$\",\n \"C\": \"$m - n$\",\n \"D\": \"$2m + n$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q80\",\n \"number\": 80,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"When a positive integer $k$ is divided by 7, the remainder is 4. What is the remainder when $2k+5$ is divided by 7?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"1\",\n \"F\": \"2\",\n \"G\": \"4\",\n \"H\": \"6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q81\",\n \"number\": 81,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"The sum of three different prime numbers is 16. What is the largest of these three primes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"7\",\n \"B\": \"11\",\n \"C\": \"13\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q82\",\n \"number\": 82,\n \"type\": \"number_theory\",\n \"prompt\": \"A teacher has a bag of fewer than 100 marbles. When the marbles are divided equally among 3, 4, or 5 students, there is always 1 marble left over. How many marbles are in the bag?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"31\",\n \"F\": \"41\",\n \"G\": \"61\",\n \"H\": \"60\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 2, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic algebra.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 83\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 83.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = algebra:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q83\",\n \"number\": 83,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"If $5x - 8 = 2x + 7$, what is the value of $x$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"5\",\n \"B\": \"-5\",\n \"C\": \"1\",\n \"D\": \"15/7\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q84\",\n \"number\": 84,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"What is the value of the expression $3a^2 - 2(b-c)$ when $a=3$, $b=5$, and $c=-1$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"6\",\n \"F\": \"15\",\n \"G\": \"19\",\n \"H\": \"39\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q85\",\n \"number\": 85,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Maria has a collection of 42 comic books. This is 6 less than twice the number of comic books, $n$, that her friend Ben has. Which equation represents this situation?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"2n + 6 = 42\",\n \"B\": \"6 - 2n = 42\",\n \"C\": \"2n - 6 = 42\",\n \"D\": \"n = 2(42) - 6\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q86\",\n \"number\": 86,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following values of $y$ is a solution to the inequality $15 - 3y > 6$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"5\",\n \"F\": \"4\",\n \"G\": \"3\",\n \"H\": \"2\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q87\",\n \"number\": 87,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"Which of the following expressions is equivalent to $3(x + 2y) - (2x - y)$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"x + 5y\",\n \"B\": \"x + 7y\",\n \"C\": \"-x + 3y\",\n \"D\": \"5x + y\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q88\",\n \"number\": 88,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A rectangle has a length of $4x^5$ units and a width of $3x^2$ units. What is the area of the rectangle in square units?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"7x^7\",\n \"F\": \"12x^{10}\",\n \"G\": \"12x^7\",\n \"H\": \"7x^{10}\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q89\",\n \"number\": 89,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"A taxi service charges a flat fee of $3.50 plus $2.25 per mile. If a passenger's total fare was $37.25, how many miles, $m$, was the ride?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"10\",\n \"B\": \"12\",\n \"C\": \"18\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q90\",\n \"number\": 90,\n \"type\": \"algebra\",\n \"prompt\": \"The formula for the perimeter of a rectangle is $P = 2l + 2w$. Which of the following equations is correctly solved for the width, $w$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"w = (P - 2l) / 2\",\n \"F\": \"w = P/2 - 2l\",\n \"G\": \"w = P - 2l\",\n \"H\": \"w = P - l\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 3, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 9 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic geometry.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 91\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 91.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = geometry:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 9 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q91\",\n \"number\": 91,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"The measure of a single interior angle of a regular polygon is $150^\\\\circ$. How many sides does the polygon have?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"8\",\n \"B\": \"10\",\n \"C\": \"12\",\n \"D\": \"15\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q92\",\n \"number\": 92,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A rectangular park is 40 meters long and 30 meters wide. A straight path is built from one corner of the park to the diagonally opposite corner. What is the length of the path in meters?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"50\",\n \"F\": \"60\",\n \"G\": \"70\",\n \"H\": \"1200\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q93\",\n \"number\": 93,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A circle is inscribed inside a square with a perimeter of 48 inches. What is the area of the circle in square inches?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"12π\",\n \"B\": \"36π\",\n \"C\": \"48π\",\n \"D\": \"144π\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q94\",\n \"number\": 94,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"Triangle PQR is similar to triangle XYZ. The length of side PQ is 6 cm, and the length of the corresponding side XY is 10 cm. If the area of triangle PQR is 27 square cm, what is the area of triangle XYZ in square cm?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"45\",\n \"F\": \"54\",\n \"G\": \"75\",\n \"H\": \"135\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q95\",\n \"number\": 95,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A cylindrical can has a diameter of 4 inches and a height of 10 inches. What is the volume of the can in cubic inches?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"40π\",\n \"B\": \"80π\",\n \"C\": \"160π\",\n \"D\": \"400π\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q96\",\n \"number\": 96,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"A square has a perimeter of 36 feet. What is its area in square feet?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"36\",\n \"F\": \"81\",\n \"G\": \"144\",\n \"H\": \"324\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q97\",\n \"number\": 97,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two parallel lines are intersected by a transversal line. The measure of an acute interior angle is $(2x + 10)^\\\\circ$, and the measure of an obtuse interior angle on the same side of the transversal is $(3x + 40)^\\\\circ$. What is the value of $x$?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"26\",\n \"B\": \"24\",\n \"C\": \"46\",\n \"D\": \"50\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q98\",\n \"number\": 98,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"In rhombus JKLM, the length of diagonal JL is 36 and the length of diagonal KM is 48. What is the perimeter of the rhombus?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"60\",\n \"F\": \"84\",\n \"G\": \"100\",\n \"H\": \"120\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q99\",\n \"number\": 99,\n \"type\": \"geometry\",\n \"prompt\": \"The base of a right prism is a triangle with side lengths of 8 cm, 15 cm, and 17 cm. The height of the prism is 10 cm. What is the volume of the prism in cubic centimeters?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"400\",\n \"B\": \"520\",\n \"C\": \"1200\",\n \"D\": \"600\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 4, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 8 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic probability_statistics.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 100\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 100.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = probability_statistics:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 8 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q100\",\n \"number\": 100,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A student's scores on five quizzes were 88, 92, 84, 95, and 88. What is the student's average (arithmetic mean) score for the five quizzes?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"88\",\n \"F\": \"89.4\",\n \"G\": \"90\",\n \"H\": \"11\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q101\",\n \"number\": 101,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A bag contains 5 red marbles, 3 blue marbles, and 2 green marbles. If one marble is drawn at random, its color is noted, and then it is put back in the bag before a second marble is drawn, what is the probability that both marbles drawn are red?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{5}$\",\n \"B\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{4}$\",\n \"C\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"D\": \"$\\\\frac{2}{9}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q102\",\n \"number\": 102,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"For the set of numbers {15, 8, 22, 15, 30, 5}, what is the sum of the median and the range?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"30\",\n \"F\": \"40\",\n \"G\": \"40.5\",\n \"H\": \"55\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q103\",\n \"number\": 103,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A sandwich shop offers 4 types of bread, 3 types of cheese, and 5 types of meat. How many different sandwiches, each consisting of one type of bread, one type of cheese, and one type of meat, can be made?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"12\",\n \"B\": \"47\",\n \"C\": \"60\",\n \"D\": \"120\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q104\",\n \"number\": 104,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A spinner is divided into 8 equal sections, numbered 1 through 8. What is the probability that the spinner will NOT land on a prime number?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{4}$\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{3}{8}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{2}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{5}{8}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q105\",\n \"number\": 105,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"A data set consists of the following 9 values: 12, 47, 25, 18, 20, 31, 40, 15, 29. What is the interquartile range (IQR) of this data?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"16\",\n \"B\": \"19\",\n \"C\": \"25\",\n \"D\": \"35\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q106\",\n \"number\": 106,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"From a standard 52-card deck, two cards are drawn at random without replacement. What is the probability that both cards are aces?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{169}$\",\n \"F\": \"$\\\\frac{1}{221}$\",\n \"G\": \"$\\\\frac{2}{221}$\",\n \"H\": \"$\\\\frac{4}{663}$\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q107\",\n \"number\": 107,\n \"type\": \"probability_statistics\",\n \"prompt\": \"In a certain class, there are 10 boys and 20 girls. The average score on a test for the boys was 80, and the average score for the girls was 95. What was the average test score for the entire class?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"87.5\",\n \"B\": \"88\",\n \"C\": \"90\",\n \"D\": \"92.5\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"C\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" }, { "attempts": 1, "index": 5, "output": { "costUsd": 0, "model": "gemini-2.5-pro", "prompt": "You are one of the world's foremost SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) question writers with 25 years of NYC test experience. The SHSAT is taken by 8th-graders for admission to NYC's specialized high schools.\n\nOUTPUT FORMAT (mandatory):\nYour entire response MUST be a single JSON object. No prose. No markdown fences. No leading/trailing text.\n\nFor passage-based batches (revising-editing-B, reading), the JSON has:\n{ \"passage\": { ... }, \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nFor batches without passage (revising-editing-A, math-grid, math-mcq), the JSON has:\n{ \"questions\": [ ... ] }\n\nEVERY MCQ question object has this EXACT structure — only these keys, in this order:\n{\n \"id\": \"string\",\n \"number\": integer,\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"passage_ref\": \"string (omit when no passage)\",\n \"prompt\": \"string\",\n \"choices\": {\"A\": \"...\", \"B\": \"...\", \"C\": \"...\", \"D\": \"...\"} (odd numbers) OR {\"E\": \"...\", \"F\": \"...\", \"G\": \"...\", \"H\": \"...\"} (even numbers),\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"|\"B\"|\"C\"|\"D\" or \"E\"|\"F\"|\"G\"|\"H\"\n}\n\nGrid-in (math only) question object:\n{ \"id\":\"...\", \"number\":N, \"type\":\"...\", \"prompt\":\"...\", \"answer_format\":\"grid_in\", \"correct_answer\": \"\" }\n\nCRITICAL CHOICE LETTERING RULE (SHSAT idiosyncrasy):\n- Questions with ODD number (1, 3, 5, ...) → choices labeled A, B, C, D and correct_answer ∈ {A, B, C, D}\n- Questions with EVEN number (2, 4, 6, ...) → choices labeled E, F, G, H and correct_answer ∈ {E, F, G, H}\n\nABSOLUTE RULES (violation = rejection):\n1. Output exactly the requested counts.\n2. Each question has EXACTLY ONE defensible correct answer.\n3. 100% original content (no recycled phrasing from real SHSAT items).\n4. Each distractor represents a real, common 8th-grade student mistake.\n5. Zero cultural, racial, gender, or socioeconomic bias.\n6. Use $...$ LaTeX for ALL math notation (variables, equations, fractions, exponents).\n7. Reading passages must feel like genuine published works (informational, fiction, poetry, narrative).\n8. Difficulty: appropriate for high-performing 8th-graders. Pre-algebra and early algebra. NO trigonometry, NO calculus, NO advanced functions.\n9. VERIFY your own answer key before finalizing.\n\nANSWER DISTRIBUTION:\n- For odd-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across A, B, C, D\n- For even-numbered batches: distribute correct answers roughly evenly across E, F, G, H\n- Never have 3+ consecutive same-letter answers within a batch\n- \"NO CHANGE\" / first option correct ~25% of the time, NOT always\n\nSELF-CHECK before output:\n□ \"questions\" array length equals requested count exactly\n□ Odd-numbered questions use A-D ; even-numbered use E-H\n□ Every \"choices\" object has exactly 4 keys with non-empty string values\n□ Grid-in questions have NO \"choices\" field, only numeric correct_answer\n□ Answer letters are balanced across the batch\n\nGenerate EXACTLY 7 SHSAT Math multiple-choice questions of topic word_problems.\nTest number: 1 | First question number: 108\n\nEach MCQ has EXACTLY 4 choices.\n- Odd-numbered questions → A, B, C, D\n- Even-numbered questions → E, F, G, H\n\nID FORMAT: \"shsat1-math-qN\" where N starts at 108.\n\nSCHEMA:\n{\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-qN\",\n \"number\": N,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"...\",\n \"choices\": { ... },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"...\"\n}\n\nTopic = word_problems:\n\n[pre_algebra] — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, basic operations, mixed numbers\n - Word problems and abstract computation. Use $...$ for fractions/notation.\n - Distractors: arithmetic errors, sign mistakes, off-by-one, common conversions errors\n\n[number_theory] — divisibility, multiples, factors, primes, parity, integer properties, GCD/LCM concepts (basic)\n - Multi-step reasoning with whole numbers\n - Distractors: confused parity, missed factor, wrong direction of inequality\n\n[algebra] — linear equations, simple inequalities, expressions, exponents (basic), substitution\n - Single-variable focus. Use $...$ for all algebra.\n - Distractors: sign errors, distribution errors, wrong inverse operation\n\n[geometry] — angles (parallel lines, polygons, perpendiculars), triangles (Pythagorean, similar, special right), parallelograms, area, perimeter, volume, circles (sector, circumference, basic)\n - Diagrams described in text or with optional \"visual\" field\n - Distractors: wrong formula, missed factor of 2, area-vs-perimeter confusion, complementary-vs-supplementary\n\n[probability_statistics] — single/independent events, basic combinatorics (small cases), mean/median/range, IQR, box plots, sampling\n - Realistic contexts (spinners, marbles, cards, surveys)\n - Distractors: P(A) vs P(not A), independent vs dependent, mean vs median\n\n[word_problems] — distance/rate/time, money/percentages compound, mixtures, work-rate, ratios in context\n - Multi-step. Set up equations explicitly when helpful.\n - Distractors: missed conversion, wrong rate direction, incomplete answer\n\nVERIFY EVERY ANSWER: solve step-by-step before finalizing correct_answer.\n\nOUTPUT: { \"questions\": [ /* 7 questions */ ] }\nNo markdown. No commentary.", "text": "```json\n{\n \"questions\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q108\",\n \"number\": 108,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"Two printers, A and B, work together to print a 600-page document. Printer A, working alone, can print the document in 30 minutes. Printer B, working alone, can print the document in 60 minutes. If they start at the same time, how many minutes will it take for them to print the 600-page document together?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"15\",\n \"F\": \"45\",\n \"G\": \"20\",\n \"H\": \"90\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"G\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q109\",\n \"number\": 109,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A tablet is on sale for 20% off its original price. The sale price is then reduced by an additional 10% for a holiday special. If the final price after both discounts is $360, what was the original price of the tablet?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"$475.20\",\n \"B\": \"$500\",\n \"C\": \"$468\",\n \"D\": \"$514.29\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"B\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q110\",\n \"number\": 110,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"Maya and Liam are running on a straight path. They start at the same point and at the same time, but run in opposite directions. Maya runs at a constant speed of 5 miles per hour. Liam runs at a constant speed of 7 miles per hour. How long will it take, in hours, for them to be 30 miles apart?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"2.5\",\n \"F\": \"3.0\",\n \"G\": \"6.0\",\n \"H\": \"15.0\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"E\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q111\",\n \"number\": 111,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A chemist has 40 milliliters of a solution that is 25% acid. How many milliliters of pure acid must be added to create a new solution that is 40% acid?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"8\",\n \"B\": \"15\",\n \"C\": \"12\",\n \"D\": \"10\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"D\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q112\",\n \"number\": 112,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"At a school event, the ratio of teachers to students is 2 to 15. If a total of 340 teachers and students are at the event, how many students are there?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"40\",\n \"F\": \"225\",\n \"G\": \"323\",\n \"H\": \"300\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"H\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q113\",\n \"number\": 113,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A charity sold tickets for a raffle. The ticket numbers were consecutive integers starting from 101. If the total revenue from the tickets was $450 and each ticket cost $3, what was the highest ticket number sold?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"A\": \"250\",\n \"B\": \"251\",\n \"C\": \"150\",\n \"D\": \"249\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"A\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"shsat1-math-q114\",\n \"number\": 114,\n \"type\": \"word_problems\",\n \"prompt\": \"A town's population was 10,000 at the beginning of 2022. It increased by 10% during 2022. Then, it decreased by 10% during 2023. What was the town's population at the end of 2023?\",\n \"choices\": {\n \"E\": \"10,000\",\n \"F\": \"9,900\",\n \"G\": \"9,000\",\n \"H\": \"10,100\"\n },\n \"answer_format\": \"mcq\",\n \"correct_answer\": \"F\"\n }\n ]\n}\n```" }, "status": "ok" } ], "succeeded": 6 } } }

Noeud	Statut	Duree	Tentatives
Assemble Exam	Success	694ms	1
Build Batches	Success	411ms	1
Generate Math Grid-In (Gemini)	Success	30.4s	1
Generate Math MCQ (Gemini)	Success	2m 29s	1
Generate Reading (Opus)	Success	2m 48s	1
Generate Rev/Edit Part A (Opus)	Success	16.6s	1
Generate Rev/Edit Part B (Opus)	Success	2m 11s	1
Test Number	Success	476ms	1
Output	Success	513ms	1

Run run_20260428Success