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Standardised testing oops


Ausmumof3
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So ds7 took a standardised reading test and got a result that surprised me as he’s a pretty good reader for age.  I went through the questions with him to figure out what happened.

He said “what?  I didn’t know we were meant to read the paragraphs”

lol... no it’s called a reading test because you don’t have to read it!  I think his reading is fine but we might need to do a bit more logic!

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I finally discovered that my kid was doing this when he was in 5th grade, after his reading scores had dropped for the second year in a row.  The next year, I made him read the entire test aloud (passages, questions, and answers) and lo and behold, his score jumped right back where it was supposed to be.  Apparently, he didn't read the passages because he didn't feel like it.

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DS13 pretended he couldn’t read aloud when he was 5 but didn’t want to end up with pull out remedial English lessons in public school so he read fluently (DH was flabbergasted when he watched the testing from the side) .

DS14 was given a reading comprehension passage about NASA when he was 6 and he answered all the questions without reading the passage. The public school teacher told me after the testing that it was obvious DS14 was answering from prior knowledge. The teacher did make him read the passage to assess his reading aloud ability. 

DS13 read the questions before the reading comprehension passages most of the time so that he knows where to hunt for answers. 

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When my older ones were younger and I was newish to homeschooling. I made them all do one of those standardised math tests. The oldest tried to hard to get every answer perfect and checked every answer 3 times that he ran out of time to complete the test. The next just did a rushed job as he didn’t care at all about it. The next son told me afterwards he just coloured the dots on the answer sheet in a pattern and didn’t even look at the question sheet, Guess what. The third son that just coloured random dots in patterns got a very high score, way above his brothers.

it was then I realised that firstly the test was silly and secondly why schools spend so many months on test taking practice before they do a standardised test.

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My oldest boy did this when he was about 3rd grade. It was the year we did an online test, and I had to stand right beside him while he was doing it because something was wrong with the monitor and he needed help scrolling. I could tell he wasn't reading the passages. I didn't say anything, because I wasn't sure if I was allowed to.

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Ha!   My own kids did stuff like this with their early testing attempts.  Don’t get too invested in test scores.   They really may mean nothing.  Your kid can also be really awesome at a particular testing skill and have plenty to learn too.  

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When one of my dds was about that age, I worried some about what her test results would be if she had to be tested. But it was because of the way she thought--rather unconventionally and creatively, I thought, but she wouldn't be able to explain her thought processes on a standardized test. Thankfully, it wasn't really a problem later. I really wish I could remember an example of it, because it's the kind of thing that you all would appreciate. Kind of like, "Hm, I never thought of it that way before, but technically you are right, even though I know it isn't what they are looking for."

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1 minute ago, Jaybee said:

 I really wish I could remember an example of it, because it's the kind of thing that you all would appreciate. Kind of like, "Hm, I never thought of it that way before, but technically you are right, even though I know it isn't what they are looking for."

 

When DS13 was 8, one verbal question that was asked of him was “what is the library use for?” (Not exact words) and he answered “for the homeless to have free restroom, WiFi, electricity and water”. That wasn’t the expected answer but the tester did give him credit for the question.

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1 minute ago, Jaybee said:

When one of my dds was about that age, I worried some about what her test results would be if she had to be tested. But it was because of the way she thought--rather unconventionally and creatively, I thought, but she wouldn't be able to explain her thought processes on a standardized test. Thankfully, it wasn't really a problem later. I really wish I could remember an example of it, because it's the kind of thing that you all would appreciate. Kind of like, "Hm, I never thought of it that way before, but technically you are right, even though I know it isn't what they are looking for."

Yes - this was my kids!  It was me too!

I can think of an example.  My kid did an oral open ended test at some point in early elementary.  Testing once a year at age 7+ is required in our state.  Like this was a 2nd grader reading at a high school level, cranking through math, etc.  

The question that puzzled him?  Name a fairytale.  LOL.  He just looked completely perplexed.  And said "Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare?".  He couldn't imagine saying something like Three Bears or Cinderella would be an acceptable answer.  I knew the tester was not going to get the best out of him and at that point I knew the scores weren't really reflective of much.  He had all sorts of crazy out of the box answers for questions about what things were used for.  It's like some brains want to make it more interesting and complex than it really is.

My younger kid is even worse and gets all wound up even in high school now!  I always think we know our kids better than these tests!  

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On 9/5/2019 at 9:31 PM, Jaybee said:

When one of my dds was about that age, I worried some about what her test results would be if she had to be tested. But it was because of the way she thought--rather unconventionally and creatively, I thought, but she wouldn't be able to explain her thought processes on a standardized test. Thankfully, it wasn't really a problem later. I really wish I could remember an example of it, because it's the kind of thing that you all would appreciate. Kind of like, "Hm, I never thought of it that way before, but technically you are right, even though I know it isn't what they are looking for."

I wish I could remember where I read this example from an IQ test administrator. She was testing the vocabulary of a little girl about 5. "What is a diamond?" she asked the child.

"A diamond is like a dog," the girl replied.

The tester looked at her a moment, as she seemed like she had an idea, but this was not the "shiny stone"/"kite shape"/"baseball field" kind of answer expected.

"You know, a dog is a man's best friend...."

Credit for diamond. And the test continued.

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8 minutes ago, whitehawk said:

"A diamond is like a dog," the girl said.

The tester looked at her a moment, as she seemed like she had an idea, but this was not the "shiny stone" kind of answer expected.

"You know, a dog is a man's best friend...."

Credit for diamond. And the test continued.

 

That makes me think of the song "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" sung by Madonna, though the original singer was Marilyn Monroe.

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