One component of the Maryland School Performance Program (MSPAP) is the state's performance-based assessments, criterion-referenced tests that require students to apply what they know and can do to solve problems and display other higher-order thinking skills. This document helps parents, teachers, students, and other citizens understand the tasks of the MSPAP by presenting information and materials related to "Soil Investigations," one of the nine operational MSPAP tasks that have been selected to illustrate the types of response the MSPAP requires of students. Actual operational test materials are presented for this third-grade science activity. The "Student Response Book" contains questions and other directions to students and space for students to enter their responses. "Soil Investigations" asks the third grader to be a geologist and consider the information needed to study the soil, as well as ways to approach its study. The "Student Resource Materials Book" gives directions for handling the actual soil samples students work with in the performance task, and the "Examiner's Manual" contains teacher task preparation directions and the directions the teacher gives the students. (SLD)