STAAR questions

[Trainwreck20]

Test taking is an art in-of-itself. Studying will not likely improve your scores on a test like STAAR, but NOT stressing will help more than anything. I went to school (from grade school on up through college) with a guy who was much harder working than me (studied his tail off) and damn smart; however, he almost always scored lower on standardized tests than me, even though I know he knew the material at least as well as me, if not better. But he was so worried about tests, it seriously affected his performance...

OTOH, he is doing quite well in real life, regardless of what his SAT or other test scores were....

Finally, yes, it is the school freaking out about the scores and wanting to be the 'best' and get bonuses or whatever. Pffft! Just let them take the test without the drama, and I bet they will do just as well.

[texasdiver]

OK, a little bit of clarification here.

the STAAR tests are given for various subjects from grades 3 - 8.
the EOC (end of course) tests are given at the HS level.

In various places the two tests are confused, even in materials put out by school districts and the state. In fact, I think the EOC tests are sometimes called STAAR tests, even on the TEA web site. So maybe they are the same thing but the rules for HS level EOC tests are somewhat different than for the grade 3-8 STAAR tests.

At the high school level students do have to pass the EOC tests in order to graduate. But they will be given many many chances to re-take the tests and most schools will have special tutoring programs to help those students who do not pass the first time around. Basically students just have to pass. Scoring exceptionally high really doesn't achieve anything. No college is going to look at EOC tests. 4-year colleges are going to look at the SAT or ACT. 2-year colleges are going to look at the Acuplacer test to determine if placement in remedial classes is required. No one will ever look at or care about a HS student's EOC tests.

At the elementary level the tests are supposed to gauge whether students are ready to progress to the next grade. Whether they are used for this purpose I really don't know. I suspect that a school making a decision about whether to hold a child back will be looking at their whole body of work for that school year and input from teachers and not simply 1 test score. But I don't really know much about how these tests are used at the elementary level.

The whole testing regime in this state is a complete mess and governed by a whole lot of competing and contradictory objectives. About the only thing it accomplishes anymore is put hundreds of millions of dollars into the pocket of Person Inc.

[Ralyks]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Test taking is an art in-of-itself. Studying will not likely improve your scores on a test like STAAR, but NOT stressing will help more than anything. I went to school (from grade school on up through college) with a guy who was much harder working than me (studied his tail off) and damn smart; however, he almost always scored lower on standardized tests than me, even though I know he knew the material at least as well as me, if not better. But he was so worried about tests, it seriously affected his performance...

OTOH, he is doing quite well in real life, regardless of what his SAT or other test scores were....

Finally, yes, it is the school freaking out about the scores and wanting to be the 'best' and get bonuses or whatever. Pffft! Just let them take the test without the drama, and I bet they will do just as well.

Well, abstract "studying" might not, but "practicing"will. Test taking is a skill that improves with practice. The more sample tests you take, the more you understand the idiosyncrasies of a particular test, and the faster you get at taking that particular type of test (which matters fortimed tests).

I remember before I took the LSAT, I used a Princeton LSAT prepbook, and one the FAQs asked – "What is the LSAT?" Answer: "The LSAT is a test of how well you take the LSAT."

That about sums up a lot ofstandardized tests. I improved my score by about 20% from my first practice test to my last actual test, simply by taking multiple practice tests. I didn't stress either, though.

[Trainwreck20]

Yes, but the trick is to practice w/o stressing the kid about the test.