The assessment instruments of the Maine Educational Assessment emphasize extended constructed-response questions. The results from these assessments are reported in terms of percentages of students at four performance levels. The Student-Based Constructed-Response Method was used to establish performance standards for these levels on the eighth-grade reading and mathematics tests. First, a policy advisory group recommended general definitions for the four performance levels. Then, subject-area committees (including educators and noneducators) translated these definitions into brief subject-specific definitions. The members of these committees served as the judges for standard-setting, assigning individual students to proficiency levels based on a review of the students' answers to the extended constructed-response questions. Work from the full range of the item response theory ability scale was judged to identify the cut score intervals, and extensive review of those intervals pinpointed the cut scores. The judges attained high levels of agreement. (Contains 10 exhibits and 3 references.) (Author/SLD)