<p>In my opinion, the thing that is worst about this third grade math test is that now one has a large number of third graders who are convinced that they are “no good at math,” when that is not the case at all.</p>
<p>My math guy got a questions about tiling a floor wrong on the SATs. He lost track of two different sizes of tiles and since all the suggested wrong answers are always ones you make by being careless - forgetting a step, not seeing the “NOT” and stuff like that, it’s very easy to lose points by carelessness even though you actually understand the material. I thought this seemed like a pretty hard test for third graders who have just been introduced to multiplication and division that year. My youngest still didn’t know all his multiplication facts in 4th grade - or at least couldn’t write them down fast enough, but they were still getting mad minutes that year. That was about when we tested him for LDs.</p>
<p>I was fine with the Common Core standards, but the tests seem unnecessarily convoluted - I got irritated just reading the first question for the third graders on the reading section. I wish there were tests where you could read a passage and then just tell someone what the story was about. Nobody reads for the intricate reasoning they ask for - except philosophers.</p>
<p>A base calumny against philosophers, mathmom! :)</p>
<p>But aside from that, I agree with you. I think that if you throw in the stress of a test situation, then if the students have not had prior experience with some of the weird wording on the math test, they will quietly freak out.</p>
<p>With regard to reading, QMP encountered a situation on a 7th grade test in which the students were asked which of the characters in a brief sketch was the first to realize that he had done something wrong. The correct answer was based on the explicit statements in the test. QMP psychoanalyzed the characters from their explicitly described actions (correctly, in my opinion), and got the question wrong.</p>
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<p>Takes me back to an exam in school that was graded by external teachers, when I had a similar problem. I grew up overseas in a region of the country which had its own language but we were forced to take classes in the national language (similar to French speakers in Quebec taking an English language exam) which none of us cared for.<br>
The essay in the question referred to word which meant “log” in my “English” which was unknown to me, but it was very close to the word for “girl”. The spelling was so close that my brain corrected it to the familiar word for “girl”. So my whole understanding of the passage was these workers using elephants to drag lots of girls through the woods, and my answers to the questions (not multiple choice, but written essays) reflected this thought. Fortunately our grading system was 60% for 1st class down to 35% for a third class pass, which is what I secured. I’m pretty sure this was well beyond 3rd grade.</p>
<p>For fun:
[Bullitt</a> County History - 1912 School Exam](<a href=“The Bullitt County History Museum - Page Not Found”>Bullitt County History - 1912 School Exam)
^1912 8th Grade Exam</p>
<p>[Bullitt</a> County History - 1912 School Exam Answers](<a href=“The Bullitt County History Museum - Page Not Found”>Bullitt County History - 1912 School Exam Answers)
^answers</p>
<p>They were sure better at writing questions that are easy to understand.</p>
<p>What I like about the old exam is that you aren’t fooled by wrong answers. You know that the question - “You bought a farm for 2400 and sold it for $2700 what percent did you gain?” would have $300 as a suggested answer in a bubble test. I prefer math tests that give you a way to figure out the answer on your own and just bubble in the right digits. But I realize it will probably take most kids longer to fill out - there’s always one section of the SAT like that.</p>
<p>I am heartened to see more educators speaking out. </p>
<p><a href=“In Testing, a Principal Leans on Her Experience - The New York Times”>In Testing, a Principal Leans on Her Experience - The New York Times;
<p>My goodness</p>
<p>Dadof3: Great story (Post #44)! I can’t help, but think of Rosannadanna (Gilda Radner):</p>
<p>Rosannadanna: “I am appalled that this test question would be written in such a way as to terrorize all the little girls in this school! It is an outrage that third graders shold have to read a passage and visualize girls being dragged by elephants!”</p>
<p>news anchor: “It’s not “girls” that were dragged by the elephants, it was logs.”</p>
<p>Rosannadanna: “Nevermind.”</p>
<p>For anyone that wants to make their voice heard this Saturday </p>
<p>[‘Students</a>, Not Scores’ Rally Planned for Saturday - Schools - Port Jefferson, NY Patch](<a href=“http://portjefferson.patch.com/groups/schools/p/students-not-scores-rally-planned-for-saturday]'Students”>'Students, Not Scores' Rally Planned for Saturday | Port Jefferson, NY Patch)</p>