Could you correctly answer these reading comprehension questions?

[Nart]

NM

[Tsuga]

Ladies and gentlemen, the reason I home school, in a nutshell.

 

:hurray:

 

I public school because that took up 1% of my entire education, and I loved having lots of teachers.

 

Great education can happen anywhere.

 

And everyone has to take the SATs or ACTs (and then GREs) to pursue higher education. :) What I want is homeschool for college... save myself $60,000 and just do it myself.

[hornblower]

And everyone has to take the SATs or ACTs (and then GREs) to pursue higher education.

 

Canadians don't ;) 

 

[Lang Syne Boardie]

The funny thing about the SAT is that a homeschooled kid can go through his entire elementary and secondary academic experience without sitting down to a single standardized test UNTIL the PSAT, and then ace it. He can more than ace it -- he can whup over 99% of the nation.

 

I don't mean that they'll all do so well, but I do believe that a classically/traditionally educated young person will find the PSAT/SAT/ACT simple enough to pass.

 

So I don't really see "they'll have to take one or two tests as young adults" as any sort of negation to the "that's why we homeschool" refrain.

 

The "that's why we homeschool" refrain is one of those obnoxious but true thingies in this world. I don't blame people for being annoyed when we homeschoolers pipe up with that, but there's not really much of an argument against people's reasonable reasons for what they do.

 

Dumb teaching and inane testing are indeed why people homeschool.

[Tsuga]

The funny thing about the SAT is that a homeschooled kid can go through his entire elementary and secondary academic experience without sitting down to a single standardized test UNTIL the PSAT, and then ace it. He can more than ace it -- he can whup over 99% of the nation.

 

Sure he can. And so did I though I went to below-average schools my whole life. :) My point wasn't that you need a public school education to do well on those tests, but that you need to practice for them a bit to do well, if only to learn the logic of the tests, because the verbal portions are written by the very same teams that do the elementary questions. You have to know the game to play the game, and it's a game, NOT a knowledge test. It's much closer to an IQ test.

 

I don't mean that they'll all do so well, but I do believe that a classically/traditionally educated young person will find the PSAT/SAT/ACT simple enough to pass.

 

It's not a question of passing. It's a standardized test, and standardized means they normalize the curve and give you a percentile. That percentile will tell colleges how you compare to others in their classes.

 

The verbal portion of the PSAT and SAT is written by the same sort of people who do these tests for children.

 

I got the exact same percentile on my CTBS tests, PSAT, SAT, and GRE practice exams. 88th. (You know what's funny... my verbal kids got the same.)

 

Until, one day, the reasoning behind the test was explained to me (as I said above). Then I was able to use logic to ace the GRE. I studied classics, I studied Latin, Greek, I finished AP calc in high school, I took music for 11 years, and so on. But I wasn't able to up my score on the GRE speaking three languages and reading two more. You know why?

 

They are a game. Play the game by their rules. Test prep works. Is that a good thing? No. But even in public schools, people who prep do better. It's really not raw intelligence because at that upper end where the money is, it's all within the margin of error and it's all down to one day and one click.

 

So I don't really see "they'll have to take one or two tests as young adults" as any sort of negation to the "that's why we homeschool" refrain.

 

I'm not saying, "so you shouldn't homeschool". I am saying, the fact that our country's "reading comprehension" questions are stupid has nothing to do with homeschooling because (a) you're going to have to take them anyway if you go to college in the US in most cases, and (b) even if you don't homeschool, you are still allowed to say "that's stupid" and just get it wrong, and know that it's a stupid test. Homeschoolers do not have a monopoly on good education or thinking for themselves. On the contrary, if the only person you can really defend your opinion from is your mom, honestly, there's something wrong there. My kids know how to stand up to many different adults. So seriously, own the choice. You like homeschooling? It worked for you? Great. Doesn't mean the rest of us are suffering. I swear.

 

The "that's why we homeschool" refrain is one of those obnoxious but true thingies in this world. I don't blame people for being annoyed when we homeschoolers pipe up with that, but there's not really much of an argument against people's reasonable reasons for what they do.

 

I simply don't believe that people are homeschooling to avoid one bad teacher or a grand total of what, 2 days of testing every couple of years. That is just not worth it.

 

Dumb teaching and inane testing are indeed why people homeschool.

 

They're also reasons why some people should be public schooled.

 

When you're a fringe group, it's easy to say that most people are doing a good job. You know them, first of all, and second of all only really dedicated people join. The public schools have problems not because the majority of people are so incredibly stupid and all teachers are bad. They have the end of the bell curve that brings down the average. When enough people get into any system, you get problems.

 

I don't agree with the implications that frustration with a single test company is a sufficient or necessary condition to pull children out of school. There are so, so, so many reasons to homeschool. Not wanting to take a stupid test every two years is like, the least convincing reason to homeschool I can imagine. I don't make decisions out of fear. I make them out of joy.

 

The reason I initially wanted to HS was that I wanted to share my kids' learning journey with them. Well, personality issues made me re-think that, though I'm willing to go back to the idea. But it won't be for avoidance or fear. I'm going to deal with problems head-on and solve them, not run away. If I homeschool it will be out of love and joy, not avoidance of a stupid test, because no matter how hard anyone tries, life gets stupid sometimes. Nobody's perfect. You can't escape that. No, it will be because we want to read the Iliad and the Odyssey and AP lit was full and we LOVE those books. Homeschool because you love it, not because you're afraid or avoiding something.

 

[Lang Syne Boardie]

 

 

I was going to reply to part of your post, at least, but because you typed all your thoughts within a quote I can't quote any of it. I don't have time to cut and paste the long way but I promise I'll come back tomorrow. (Probably not until late; I'm driving a bunch of kids and young adults all over the world all day.)

[Barb_]

One of my kids pulled 800s on the PSAT reading/writing sections the same year she scored in the 60th-ish percentiles on the state test. I wasn't sure what to think about that back then. I'm still not.

[eternalsummer]

I found the answers to these questions (which I answered correctly) intuitive and obvious.  I suspect I would have done the same at 8.  It is not strictly a reading comprehension issue, as Bnip says - it's sort of an intuitive psychology; it is not a thinking/analysing kind of thing, as you might expect.  Some people just have it; the parlance in PS is that they "test well."  I "test well"; it is worth seeing if your kids "test well" or if they will need some training in this kind of test-taking (assuming you have a reason to care if your kids do well on these kinds of tests).  

[SparklyUnicorn]

I found the answers to these questions (which I answered correctly) intuitive and obvious.  I suspect I would have done the same at 8.  It is not strictly a reading comprehension issue, as Bnip says - it's sort of an intuitive psychology; it is not a thinking/analysing kind of thing, as you might expect.  Some people just have it; the parlance in PS is that they "test well."  I "test well"; it is worth seeing if your kids "test well" or if they will need some training in this kind of test-taking (assuming you have a reason to care if your kids do well on these kinds of tests).  

 

I've always done well on these tests.  Now I probably would not because I have learned there aren't too many absolutes in life.  If someone does not state exactly how they feel, I can only guess how they feel.  I cannot know for sure.  There might be signs, but you can't always go by that.  I still think these kinds of tests are rather pointless. 

 

I mean even assigning motivation and emotion to a dog in a random fake story is ridiculous.  I have no clue how dogs think about stuff.  I try to imagine how my cats feel about things.  Mostly I've concluded they don't love me so much as they love my warm body and that is really why they want to sleep on top of me at night.  I keep feeding them so they are cool with my presence. 

[eternalsummer]

 

I mean even assigning motivation and emotion to a dog in a random fake story is ridiculous.  I have no clue how dogs think about stuff.  I try to imagine how my cats feel about things.  Mostly I've concluded they don't love me so much as they love my warm body and that is really why they want to sleep on top of me at night.  I keep feeding them so they are cool with my presence. 

 

Lolol, so true in real life. 

[Ausmumof3]

Lolol, so true in real life.

Dogs are more social than cats but...

 

And this is a good point - a dog owning family would have a different interpretation than non dog people. If you came from a place where dog aren't nice friendly pets but potentially savage rabid half wild animals you probably would vote that the dog was mean.

[Sahamamama]

Wow. Was that really your son's test? What a waste of time.

[athomeontheprairie]

My fourth grader looks at me blankly. Then answered incorrectly. "This is not what the story is about"

[PeachyDoodle]

 

I don't agree with the implications that frustration with a single test company is a sufficient or necessary condition to pull children out of school. There are so, so, so many reasons to homeschool. Not wanting to take a stupid test every two years is like, the least convincing reason to homeschool I can imagine. I don't make decisions out of fear. I make them out of joy.

 

(Sorry, quote isn't working for some reason.)

 

We certainly don't homeschool out of fear or frustration with a test. I didn't mean to imply that. We homeschool because the tests are the driving factor in instruction, at least in our experience. Instruction has started to LOOK LIKE the test, because at the end of the day, the tests are what matter. You said you spent hours reading under your desk so you could learn new things about the world, instead of focusing on trying to figure out how to give the answer the teacher wanted. So did I. So did my dd. I wanted more for her, just like I wish I'd had more for myself.

 

FWIW, I've tested in the 97th+ percentile on every standardized test I've ever taken. We're required by law to test annually, and dd aces those. It's not about being afraid of the test. It's about wanting more than test prep day and in and day out. It's about wanting an actual education -- truth and beauty and logic and all those other wonderful things you mentioned.

 

If that is what's available to you in public education, that's great! Thank your lucky stars. It's not what's available to us, and so we're making our own way.

[pitterpatter]

I just keep thinking how horrible that story is. If SWB can pull excerpt after excerpt from quality literature to fill multiple levels of FLL and WWE, then why can't test writers find a single excerpt from level-appropriate literature that might actually be worth testing about? Why create horribly written, ambiguous crap when something way better is undoubtedly available.

 

If they wanted to test "what's the moral of the story," why not use a fable?

 

I mean, I can see that if a child doesn't come from an it's-the-thought-that-counts household, he/she might say the kids need to plan a little better next time. Honestly, that would be the message I would get if I left a present lying somewhere where the dog could get it.

[Jenny in Florida]

This is not what I was taught in school

When I was a kid, I was taught to read ALL the answers and choose the best one.  SOmetimes there will be answers like "Both A and C" or "All of the above"

 

This is the technique we teach at the study skills center where I work. We teach students to read the question, make a prediction, then look for the answer that matches the prediction.

 

When used correctly, this helps students answer questions more quickly -- because they don't have to read and consider every answer choice equally -- and also more accurately -- because they are not tempted to over-think or to try and talk themselves into each answer choice.

 

Obviously, if a student is making good predictions, he or she will notice if one of the answer choices seems incomplete and will look for the choice that covers all of the necessary elements (both A and C or all of the above).

[Jenny in Florida]

The answers are 1D and 2C.

 

Yes, I got those immediately, but I was always a good test taker. I was definitely not the little girl with pigtails and color-coordinated school supplies, but tests have always been easy for me. I can generally tell what the test writer wants me to say, even if I think that answer isn't actually correct.

 

It is a skill neither of my kids inherited. They both lean toward over-thinking.

[Jenny in Florida]

If they wanted to test "what's the moral of the story," why not use a fable?

 

Funny story: One of the exercises I work through with my test prep high school students is one that requires them to read four or five abbreviated versions of classic fables, then write a sentence to say what they think is the message of each story. The vast majority of the students get most of them wrong.

 

First of all, most don't know what the word "moral" means in this context. So, I have to explain that before we get started.

 

And even with that done, they often miss the point.

 

So, I'm not sure it's the choice of material that matters here.

[Reefgazer]

Except it's not just one-two days of testing, which would be OK.  It's weeks of test prep for each test taken (math, reading, writing, science, etc), and taking practice tests over and over and over, and no matter how good the child scores, they *still* have to do the inane practice tests over and over and over again (ask me how I know).  Then there's the little matter of the curriculum being narrowly written to teach the test facts and only the test facts, ma'am.  That nonsense was worth pulling out of school for.

 

 

[kiwik]

For me this would be the way to be sure and answer incorrectly. If I had decided on the answer before reading the choices then my answer would have been "none of the above" for both questions. Because to me the 'main message of the story' is find a way to work around your problem and 'what the picture tells you' is the reason the children couldn't find the hat is because the dog took it -- neither of which is even close to any of the given answers.

 

IMO the way to answer a test question correctly is to look at all the answers, rule out any incorrect answers and then pick the 'most correct' of the answers remaining. So for question 1, it is D because C is clearly wrong and none of the other answers apply to the whole passage so you pick D because it is an interpretation of the resolution of the story whereas the other answers are only supported by earlier parts of the story (even though I don't agree with it being a good interpretation of the resolution).

 

Similarly, for question 2 C is the only answer with anything close to support in the passage. This question is beyond bad though because the support is extraneous to the story and the wording of 'what does the picture tell you' is completely misleading. The picture lets you infer that the hat disappeared because the dog took it - which is nothing to do with helpful, hungry, fun or mean. I suppose they meant you to infer that the dog took it because he has fun taking things but that is not knowable from the few details given about the dog:

 

our dog Otis sniffed around next to her. Otis loved to know what was in every room and closet in the house.

Otis rolled happily in the pile of shoes, toys, and dresses.

[PIcture of a dog walking with a hat in his mouth]

I admit it is a method that only works when the questions are well written. If your answer isn't there then you do the delete stupid answers and pick the most likely. Multi choice isn't used that much in NZ. Over thinking is a major problem though - go fast and don't think too much.

[Tsuga]

(Sorry, quote isn't working for some reason.)

 

We certainly don't homeschool out of fear or frustration with a test. I didn't mean to imply that. We homeschool because the tests are the driving factor in instruction, at least in our experience. Instruction has started to LOOK LIKE the test, because at the end of the day, the tests are what matter. You said you spent hours reading under your desk so you could learn new things about the world, instead of focusing on trying to figure out how to give the answer the teacher wanted. So did I. So did my dd. I wanted more for her, just like I wish I'd had more for myself.

 

FWIW, I've tested in the 97th+ percentile on every standardized test I've ever taken. We're required by law to test annually, and dd aces those. It's not about being afraid of the test. It's about wanting more than test prep day and in and day out. It's about wanting an actual education -- truth and beauty and logic and all those other wonderful things you mentioned.

 

If that is what's available to you in public education, that's great! Thank your lucky stars. It's not what's available to us, and so we're making our own way.

 

Well, we moved to this district for the school. We worked hard to be part of a community where schools are valued. And I totally agree with you that you have to make your own way, whatever that looks like. I don't disagree with your choices but with the choice of words. Thank you for clarifying.

[Pen]

1.d 2.c

 

They are not especially good questions/answers IMO, but are the only answers that have justification in the passage.