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I have an 8th grader in honors math. Never in the course of his education has he been allowed to use a calculator. That's pretty normal.
The tests are meant to have questions that run the spectrum. You can pick out the hardest questions, the ones that only the brighter kids will get, but that doesn't mean that that is the level that the average student is meant to be at. Those tests help figure out who is on track, below average, and who is above.
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Originally Posted by STL74
I have an 8th grader in honors math. Never in the course of his education has he been allowed to use a calculator. That's pretty normal.
The tests are meant to have questions that run the spectrum. You can pick out the hardest questions, the ones that only the brighter kids will get, but that doesn't mean that that is the level that the average student is meant to be at. Those tests help figure out who is on track, below average, and who is above.
Well, the STAAR test has been used to determine who passes the grade and who has to be held back; it's not really a diagnostic to figure out where the student is on the achievement scale, as kind of a curiosity.
And I posted the whole test. Those questions weren't cherry picked. The entire test was posted.
And I posted the whole test. Those questions weren't cherry picked. The entire test was posted.
Do you understand anything about how such tests are weighted? It's not a simple "X out of 30" calculation. Any student with a pulse can probably get 20% of academic test questions right. Only an advanced portion will get certain high-difficulty ones. Most will fall somewhere in between, but the scoring is weighted to represent achievement against a standard profile. It's basic to allow for over-achievers on such curves.
And I'm still puzzled as to how you can think "calculate the volume of a cylinder" is such an impossibly hard task for someone about to enter high school.
Bear in mind that not all the questions on a standardized bubble test of this sort count toward the person's score, anyway. Some of them are questions that are being workshopped or gathering other performance data.
Do you understand anything about how such tests are weighted? It's not a simple "X out of 30" calculation. Any student with a pulse can probably get 20% of academic test questions right. Only an advanced portion will get certain high-difficulty ones. Most will fall somewhere in between, but the scoring is weighted to represent achievement against a standard profile. It's basic to allow for over-achievers on such curves.
And I'm still puzzled as to how you can think "calculate the volume of a cylinder" is such an impossibly hard task for someone about to enter high school.
Hmm. This "volume of a cylinder" has been mentioned twice, but I did not see it on the test. The test did ask for lateral surface area, however. If you figured the volume, you did not get the correct answer.
I have never lived in Texas and don't know how their kids are doing in math. But the Washington State high school kids I tutor would not be able to work most of the problems. Sad, but true.
Hmm. This "volume of a cylinder" has been mentioned twice, but I did not see it on the test. The test did ask for lateral surface area, however.
Sorry, you're right. The problem stuck in my head as a simple volume calculation. However, no basic geometry surface or volume question should be beyond an upper-percentile 8th grader.
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