Friday, April 19, 2013

Check out new N.C. exams

The Department of Public Instruction has posted samples of the reading, math, science, algebra, biology and English II exams that students will take this spring.  The  "released forms"  --  presumably not the same questions students will see in May  --  are designed to help teachers prepare their students for the tests.

These are not the final step in the new testing that will be linked to new national Common Core standards;  the tests will continue to evolve in the coming year.  In my limited amount of scanning,  they didn't seem as different from the old End of Grade exams as I'd expected them to be.  Nor do I see any tests in new grade levels or subjects that are supposed to land this year.  But there has been so much talk and concern about the new tests that I'm eager to hear what the rest of you think.  (Acronym alert:  ELA is English/Language Arts.)

You can try the new online testing for the high school exams.  It took me quite a bit of clicking to get it to work  (you have to make sure pop-ups aren't blocked),  and when it did, the computer  had the nerve to tell me I'd gotten the first English question wrong.  Hmph!

5 comments:

Pamela Grundy said...

Hey, Ann did you try filling out the new math grids?

Ann Doss Helms said...

No, didn't really have much time to play around with these.

steve8071 said...

Looked at the ela a 8th grade reading test. I got both sample questions wrong, and I have a graduate degree in English. What's wrong with this picture?

Anonymous said...

So thanks for finally providing some framework for what the spring tests will look like - only going to create my baseline for performance pay. NC has done a poor pitiful job of shifting to the common core and CMS an even worse job. They were not prepared. I have had to spend hundreds of hours researching OTHER states to find resources for my students.

Anonymous said...

ELA?

Perhaps I missed my opportunity to make a million designing a PfP acronym scoring rubric?

Alicia