Aren't tests of that type mainly to test your knowledge and see where the students as a state rather than to give you a grade? In other words, I assumed that certain tests had no real "meaning" except to see how the school's are doing at teaching and how the students are doing at learning (obviously this doesn't apply to the ACT, SAT, AP tests, etc.). I don't know if I've ever seen a standardized test that gave letter grades.
All I can say is do the best you can and try no to sweat it too much. What you're saying is screwy but high school has always been screwy for many reasons, and not the best educational environment. This might be hard to swallow, but real life and real learning starts after high school at college and there are a lot of good colleges. Just hold on and you'll find out. I promise.
Most of the UK's is massively messed up - although from what I've heard about the US', I heavily prefer my own country's OFSTED and Her Majesty's Inspectors have only just realised that surprise inspections are a good way to do their inspections, and its resulted in like, fifty bajillion schools being put in special measures, its revealed some of their school's racial/sexist/homophobic tendencies (and also OFSTED's own! ), and is also a good way of the government transforming loads of schools into academies - which puts them in control of them... which is, unsettling to say the least...
State testing sucks. Where I live, I sit in a room for four hours and do a packet of paper with 60+ questions on it. And if the teacher doesn't teach that one fact or technique, it's going to fail everyone in that class. I have a high school algebra end of course exam tomorrow. It's gonna suck. (lol, I'm not even in high school yet)
Related to this subject, I am now sad to learn I have to sit in a chair for 2 hours on 7th even if I finish the test in 30 min. The only thing I can do is read a book, though I do have a good one, and that isnt what I want to do. And it is history so I know I will have no issue even though we havent learned some of the material because its a more advanced course. Worst part is I will have just taken the test on the computer, but I can't mess around on the computer afterwards.
I remember my first SOL back in trgrad, everyone was sweating it while I sat there and simply said, "Why are you nervous? It's only stuff we know." The good old days.
Posting in here so I can follow the thread. I'll weigh in on this later this week when school eases up for a couple days.
My second day of this test ended, and yet again it was stuff we did not learn. Either way I see a major curve happening so that low scored magically end up being high scores lol.
Same lol. I may have been a bit nervous because I thought it meant something and this was before I kinda realized I was more advanced than most. But I don't remember a time getting below 500.
My friends that were nervous and tense mostly scored low 500s, while my other friends that had half a sense and were calm scored very high 500s or 600s. If you were taught what you needed, you just needed to be cool like a popsicle. (I might have done bad on part with similes )
...but school was easy Though, to be honest, I did have some individual teachers try to test us on material we didn't learn - I was in a private student session with our counselors, principal, and school board on how the teachers should change their teachings to better help the students... (Chemistry teacher was fired the next year ...and so was the CISCO/CSI/CAD teacher... and 13 others) The fault is, moreover, teachers being forced to have (standard of learning) as their priority to teach the students... ....and they get so stressed about some students knowing more than him/her ...that he/she lashes out at the students - or they don't want to teach because of the standardized testings. It's no longer about teaching the students the material so they'll be familiar with it - but what to learn for the (standard of learning) ... If a percentage doesn't pass the (standard of learning) - it's bye bye teacher, and the student has to re-take the course. ...I believe a few states are trying to get rid of this system, all together, and so should the other states. ps) except for history - I had almost straight 600's (or near 600's)
First rule of standardized test: you don't talk about standardized test, Second rule of strandardized test: you don't talk about standardized test..... Anyways "Last Week Tonight wwith John Oliver" had good segment about it last Sunday.
That video was amazing... and very true... My teacher took the PARCC (Practice test) and even he had trouble with the stuff and he has degrees certifying him to teach those areas on the test. Cow breeding formula... Gotta love it.
Ah, PARCC. My school had a ~49% attendance rate when it normally has 95%. The pushback against it is suprisingly large, so it'll be interesting to see what happens next in Colorado standardized testing.
