It is a passion for students’ authentic engagement in science that influenced the author’s decision to heed the Utah State Office of Education’s (USOE) call for test writers at a professional workshop last summer. The workshop offered science teachers across the state of Utah the opportunity to craft test items used in Utah’s state assessment, the Utah Criterion Referenced Tests. These test items capture the extent to which students are learning the Utah Core Curriculum (USOE 2003). He saw the USOE workshop as a chance to help shape items that would measure the kind of learning that is embedded in the lives of students and centers on inquiry experiences.