I've noticed many kids are feeling discouraged at the end of the test, because they see their scores. no one wants to see 5 of 28 correct or 13 of 28 correct. Even students who are not masters of fractions know that they got more wrong than right. However, it's important to remind our students that this is a test of "end of 6th grade skills" as defines by the Common Core State Standards. This means that student who got 10 out of 28 already can answer 10 questions from the bank of skills 6th graders are expected to know at the end of the year.
This is a departure from the MAP test, which adjusted its questions for the level of the student based on how many they got right and wrong. The MAP then compared the students of the district to one another and eventually gave parents and teachers a percentile score. I've noticed that parents whose kids were in the 90th percentile seemed to like MAP testing more than parents whose kids were in the 20th percentile.
District and state testing is federally mandated, and is not going anywhere. I am not advocating that one type of test is better than another. It's just important to remind students that these tests are just one little window into their academic performance and that they do not define our success or happiness in life.
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