<p>@Dread - Please take a look at the sample questions on the Smarter Balanced CC test: [Sample</a> Items and Performance Tasks | Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium](<a href=“http://www.smarterbalanced.org/sample-items-and-performance-tasks/]Sample”>http://www.smarterbalanced.org/sample-items-and-performance-tasks/) </p>
<p>Click on the link to “mathematics” under “sample items.” </p>
<p>The first question contains an animation which I missed the first time I opened it. I don’t know if my computer didn’t play it or I got distracted and missed it. Anyway, the bandwidth for the school internet connection is going to have to be large enough to play that animation while the kids are taking the test. Is part of the test prep going to be taking computerized tests so schools can test their bandwidth and so students know not to look away from the computer at any moment? As far as I can tell there is no way to play the “video” again. It isn’t necessary to answer the question but it could mess a kid up.</p>
<p>On the second question, if you only mark the “yes” boxes and don’t think about marking the “no” boxes (which is more like the multiple choice questions kids are used to taking), you get no points even though you could correctly identify which number lines matched.</p>
<p>On Q3, you’ll notice that if you miss one of the equations, you get no points at all. You either get them all correct or you miss the one point available. Why isn’t it worth 4 pts? Also, you can guesstimate on some of them but others you have to calculate which is going to be time consuming if they can’t use a calculator (which I hope they don’t allow because the kids can do this math). My concern would be if there is a time limit. For only one point, I would skip that one if I were taking the test and was afraid I’d run out of time.</p>
<p>For the jar and bag question, my computer registers nothing in the first bag even though I put jars in there. I e-mailed Smarter Balanced last Spring to let them know that their sample questions had a glitch which didn’t reflect very well on the quality of their testing and I see they still haven’t fixed it. Guess that shows how much they care about the quality of their tests.</p>
<p>I’ll stop there on pointing out the flaws with the tests but this is one of the reasons parents need to be nervous about the Common Core. A lot is riding on the test results (in Washington State high schoolers can’t graduate if they don’t pass their high school tests). Teachers will be evaluated on the test scores. Taking tests on computer is relatively new in most states and it measures a student’s IT ability just as much (probably more) than it measures how much they know about math and language arts.</p>
<p>There was a huge drop in scores in New York but was that just because the students weren’t used to this format for the tests? How many teachers will get fired because of the test results while the testing companies are working out the bugs?</p>