Many of you are High School or Middle School students, and understand the epidemic of standardized testing. Test makers claim that the tests somehow test out our intelligence. What is screwed up is when test makers do not follow the rules! I live in Florida which goes by the common core standard. State education chiefs and governors in 48 states came together to develop the Common Core, a set of clear college- and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. Today, 43 states have voluntarily adopted and are working to implement the standards, which are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to take credit bearing introductory courses in two- or four-year college programs or enter the workforce. Basically a teacher is supposed to follow the list and teach what is on there. I took a test today (I will not tell facts about the test because that can invalidate my test)- 100% of my fellow classmates think they failed. Why? Because the test makers do not understand test making. If everyone in your state fails a REQUIRED test for graduation, dont you think you need to question your test? I am pissed with the testing they make us do, in no way does this test help me in any way. Politicians need to listen to what students and teachers say otherwise you will be losing support in your next election. How about instead of putting politicians in office who just agree with one an other, put someone in office who makes CONSTRUCTIVE ARGUMENTS- something they teach you to do in school. /rant.
In the UK, exams all scale depending how much people screw up on them. For example, my GCSE Physics (I think?) was so stupidly hard that A became something like 65%. Definitely a good system. Also, this was on Last Week Tonight. EDIT: ....annnd wrong account.
I have heard about the UK schooling system in general, and I must say they tend to do things right from what I heard. Yes, my test WILL have a curve on it to make it so that people will pass because in all honesty you dont want the headlines of a major paper to say a whole state failed your test.
Yeah, but yours seem to be WAAAYY more fixed in terms of % than ours. Hell, ours isn't technically graded on %, it's on UMS points (which it's impossible for anyone to know how many you've got until the whole country's papers are marked). Also test being invalided for talking about it... how the hell does that work?... In the UK, everyone does them at once, and once they're over, you can post the answers online if you really wanted to.
Teachers: What will the standardized test cover? Schoolboard: The subject Teachers: Anything in particular Schoolboard: Certain parts of the subject.
I dont know, they make you sign an agreement saying you wont talk about the questions or anything online. Most tests I take are 2 day tests (90 minutes one day, 90 the next), so I still have half the test tomorrow and the 2nd half is usually harder than the first.... We do not know our scores until everyone's is scored for the reason of testing being a giant publicity stunt. "OH Florida students did great on the test!" but really we didnt do good, they will just crack down on teachers who are already stressed as is.
I always think I fail in standardized testing because I do not understand the questions completely and yes, they do screw up.
They told my teacher what to teach in order. When he got the practice test, he noticed that even he couldnt answer most of the questions. He had to go through everything at the end of the book (what was on the test) in under 4 weeks. In 4 weeks anything he taught when from one ear to the other.
I am actually a supporter of standardized testing as I am someone who never studies and relies on general subject questions.
So that's why I got an A in additional physics... Last years English paper tripped up a lot of students so they had to reduce the grade boundaries for that. The only problem is if everyone does well they'll bring the grade boundaries up.
We have 2 part ones too, but they're considered completely separate. Trying to stop people talking about the tests is so stupid... and won't work...
Last year (Grade 8) we took a pilot test, called SBAC. There were so many mistakes in the questions and was a disaster. Next time we take them is in junior year. Yeah, not looking forward to that.
I dont study either, I trust what my teacher teaches. When the teacher doesnt even know how to do the question or have time to teach it... whats the point?
I live in Virginia and we have the SOLs as our standardized tests, which in my opinion are stupidly easy. I believe you can get like 20-30 wrong and still pass. Even if you don't there are retakes. I never really study and get what is called a pass advanced. They say don't talk about them because not everyone in the state takes them at the same time. Either way I do agree standardized tests are pointless after a certain point because your teachers give you their own final exams. I just sit down and take them as quickly as possible, and luckily only have two this year. (Though my history one will suck because I'm in AP World History and we didn't learn the same as those in World 2 who the SOL is made for)
Yeah we take SOLs too...Horribly boring. Apparently there are 10 "Field Questions" Which you can get wrong and it doesn't even count
-lives in Pennsylvania- -stares at Keystone tests I need to take- -stares at the stupidity of how I needed to take the Algebra I Keystone when I was in Algebra II- Test makers don't understand the concept of learning curriculum very well.
Here in Colorado, we had to take the PARC test. So many students opted out that they removed the dedicated testing time and are just pulling students out of class. The problem being that now the results are going to be incredibly useless because it isn't a complete sampling. One (of many) problems with the test is that they are used to determine how well a teacher teaches. While that makes sense, the execution doesn't. Me and many other students had to take the Algebra 2 test even though a large chunk of us have already passed that class. This means our Precalc/calc teaches are being graded on how well we were taught by a different teacher. Standardized testing can be a very good thing and can give very insightful information, but the way it is generally executed makes it pretty much pointless.
Us in Ohio also have to take the PARCC test, but is mandatory. No opting out, and if you miss the date, you have to make up the test next day you are back. We have to take 3 rounds of PARCC testing per year, and we don't get the results back for AT LEAST 36 MONTHS! Its totally insane, plus our district(state maybe?) hasn't been told any information about how our test scores need to pan out in order to graduate. My algebra teacher told us not to talk about it to him, since he isn't allowed to know exactly what is on the test and he refused to teach compound interest and exponential decay/growth until after the 3rd round of testing because "thats not the proper order".
