Oh Joy... This is EXACTLY What I Wanted to do

Well then, anyone that is in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade and living in NY state has had the great pleasure of taking the ELAs this week. We also get the joy of the NYS math test next week.

I am in 7th grade, but I would still like to know your opinions.

#1 If you took one of the tests, what did you think of the test itself?

#2 If you've taken one of these lovely tests before, what do you think of NYS tests in general?

#3 And, if you don't live in NY, do you have any tests that the entire state has to take?

#4 To everyone in general: what do you think of standarized testing? Good, bad, waste of time, inacurrate?

To be fair, I will answer my questions.

I thought the test was annoying, and that there were several questions that were worded horribly. That and it was boring, I don't want to read about you making a map of Washington out of cans.

I think NYS is notorious for horrible wording of questions. And, really? You WANT us to go back in the reading and copy straight from the story? That's called plagerism. You don't want us to be creative in our writing, and ask us to explain why someone is amazing. What if we don't think they're amazing? You're forcing us to compromise our own opinion.

Skipping #3

I think standardized testing is a waste of time, and inaccurate as well. Not everyone is the same. When you ask us these questions, we might have a different way of thinking about the question/ answer. If we weren't all having to learn the way NYS wants us to answer questions in COMPLETE SENTENCES, we could have learned creativee writing, or article writing, not learning how to take notes.

Maybe I'm wrong. You want to know how stupid NYS kids are. Wonderful. But do you ever consider that all the time teachers spend on the difference between lay and laid they could be spent teaching a more prodictive lesson?

I don't know... just my opinion.