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I will be doing my student teaching area around September.
Today I registered to take my North Carolina certification exams. (Total of three tests including math, reading, and social studies)
I've take several praxis and have not failed once so far, however looking at the NC certification practice exams, I was literally blown away by the difficulty of the questions.
From authors I had never heard of, to questions that were extremely tricky!!
The math portion is also quite difficult.
Are all the certification exams this difficult? or the practice exams are harder than the actual deal?
In most cases of these do-or-die high stakes tests the practice questions from test prep books like Barron's or Kaplan are harder. They want you to feel their program helped (and they usually do). Practice tests from the actual testing company are a mixed bag. Some are ridiculously easy compared to the real thing, others are right on level. They are not generally harder. Chances are if you had no issue with the Praxis exams you are probably equally capable of passing the North Carolina test.
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Personally, I had trouble with them. I'm also not the greatest at standardized tests. I took the MTELs in Massachusetts and one really threw me for a loop, it was the Foundations of Reading test which focused heavily on phonological and phonemic awareness and reading development of young children (my licensure is for Early Childhood, PreK-2nd).
What is the licensure you are seeking?
The practice tests are helpful but I advise you to speak to your university and see what they have for tutoring sessions or prep courses. My program had prep courses that were free for students and were usually held 4 hours on a Saturday or something like that. I also found a private prep class that I paid for. It's worth it to take these courses, even if you have to pay for them, so you won't have to repay for the tests if you fail.
I've lived in Ohio my entire life, and I just applied for my teaching license an hour ago as a matter of fact, and I just happened to see this post.
First of all, what is your license area? From what it looks like, you're middle school, or elementary, since you have multiple subject areas to take an exam for. In college, I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Adolescent to Young Adults English-Language Arts Education(Grades 7-12), but I strongly prefer the high school level to Jr. high(or middle school).
Second of all, I can't speak for North Carolina's specific exam, obviously. I had to take the Ohio Assessment for Educator's(OAE). Ohio revoked the Praxis exams starting in August, 2013(I never did take the Praxis II, but I heard it was more difficult than the OAE). Here is what I will say: The exam I took was extremely difficult. I failed it three times before I passed it by three points on the fourth try. Keep in mind, this was after countless hours of studying for the exam, using three different study sources, as well as notes from the classes I took in college.
The biggest problem I had was how subjective the questions were. Most of the questions seemed to have three correct answers, and one clear wrong answer, but since it was 150 multiple choice questions, I had to pick the "right" choice. Also, some of the questions seemed like they were opinionated. It was the most difficult exam I took it my life, and it's not even comparable to the American College Testing(ACT)-Which I also struggled on. If the OAE I had to take was easier than the Praxis II, I sure don't want to even smell a Praxis II exam. I can only hope your North Carolina certification exams aren't near as hard as the one I had to take.
Third of all, from my experience, the practice exams were significantly easier than the actual exams. But again, this is speaking for the OAE, and not the North Carolina State Board of Education(SBE) exam.
I didn't find the certification exams I took (which I took when transferring states/certifications, and when adding an additional endorsement in special education) to be prohibitively difficult. The special education Praxis II exam I took was quite comprehensive and detailed, including lots of court case-specific questions regarding FAPE and various aspects of IDEA legislation, but none of it was unknown to me.
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The biggest problem I had was how subjective the questions were. Most of the questions seemed to have three correct answers, and one clear wrong answer, but since it was 150 multiple choice questions, I had to pick the "right" choice. Also, some of the questions seemed like they were opinionated. ...!
This is one of the reasons I thoroughly dislike standardized testing. What you describe is one philosophy of building the test. IE Each question has to have four choices. One is obviously wrong. One is the desired (though not necessarily the true correct or only solution) and two are "distractors." The purpose of the distractors was to sound like they are correct, and maybe even be possibly correct, to pull you away from chosen correct answer. The problem is, like you mentioned, often the "correct" answer is a matter of opinion with reasonable arguments for all three. So it becomes a matter of deciphering from evidence in the wording which answer they want to hear.
At one time after getting out of the service I looked at becoming a teacher and took the Praxis. There were several questions on the test where, because there were specifically in my field, I knew the correct answer. I also knew there were commonly accepted and commonly taught answers that are incorrect. There were enough clues in the text to know they wanted the common "school", but incorrect, answer as the chosen one.
]This is one of the reasons I thoroughly dislike standardized testing. What you describe is one philosophy of building the test. IE Each question has to have four choices. One is obviously wrong. One is the desired (though not necessarily the true correct or only solution) and two are "distractors." The purpose of the distractors was to sound like they are correct, and maybe even be possibly correct, to pull you away from chosen correct answer. The problem is, like you mentioned, often the "correct" answer is a matter of opinion with reasonable arguments for all three. So it becomes a matter of deciphering from evidence in the wording which answer they want to hear.[/b]
At one time after getting out of the service I looked at becoming a teacher and took the Praxis. There were several questions on the test where, because there were specifically in my field, I knew the correct answer. I also knew there were commonly accepted and commonly taught answers that are incorrect. There were enough clues in the text to know they wanted the common "school", but incorrect, answer as the chosen one.
I couldn't have said this better myself. The "distractors" were the worst part. I seriously think they want candidates(In all career fields) to repeatedly fail these exams, just so they can make more money. It still astounds me how difficult my certification exam was.
I don't know, but my experience with tests that I have had adequate preparation for has been positive, so I would say it's probably not a big deal. I've never had to re-take an academic certification test, but I guess that isn't saying much since I didn't major in something demanding, like science or math.
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