What happened when 3 PhDs decided to take a 3rd grade practice test

[proud2BlibKansan]

Dear Governor: Lobby to Save a Love of Reading

<skip>



“Tikki eyed Mista, her little brother,” it began. ” ‘You sure don’t say much,’ she said.”

In the course of the story Tikki gets annoyed with her little brother because he can’t talk yet, attempts to get him interested in looking for bugs, then joins him in tearing bark off a log.

She tries to instruct him in this task, but discovers to her surprise that he is better at it than she is.

The first question asked, “What is this story mostly about?” and offered four choices:

A) what tigers like to eat
B) how tigers tear bark off logs
C) how two tigers get along
D) what tigers like to do

more . . . http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/01/20/dear-governor-lobby-to-save-a-love-of-reading/

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. This is outrageous

"During curriculum night the teacher admonished that our children should under no circumstances read books either above or below their assigned level, because that would hamper their progress. She also frowned upon their reading a book more than once, presumably because it wastes valuable time children could be spending improving their reading strategies on new books. "

Are you fucking joking me right now?

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. That's probably a district policy

and the teachers were told to communicate it to parents on Curriculum Night.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[seabeyond]

23. both boys way above their grade level in reading. 4 or more years above. they were always encouraged

to read above grade level and given material that met their needs.

i hate hearing a child restricted in this

[Posteritatis]

28. I never got the whole "not allowed to read above the grade level" thing

I was on the receiving end of it a few times, and that was in the eighties.

[gkhouston]

38. As was I, in the sixties. My mom had some rather pointed words with one of my

teachers about it. After that, I still got stuck with "baby" books when we were doing assigned reading in class, but was no longer forbidden to check things out of the library that were "above my grade level".

[Posteritatis]

39. Thanks to my school system's stellar budgeting, checking out stuff above my level wasn't a problem

so there was that at least.

If I brought my own books to school and they weren't dumbed down to my grade level, I regularly got in trouble for it, though, like attempts at actual academic penalties trouble for it. I never understood the thought process behind that, and I still don't.

[Sirveri]

46. The thought is to obey authority.

That's one of the origins of our education system, which was based on the Prussian model, which was specifically designed to produce quality soldiers and craftsmen.

Obey your bosses and do work according to the instructions. The teachers are your boss, and you will obey them or be punished. Don't think about if their actions are wrong or right, just do what they say.

[Trillo]

75. "you will obey them or be punished"

In a post below, after reading that test question, I wrote, "I must be stupid". Imagine making a young child feel that way as a matter of routine. Imagine that deliberate creation of misery for 13 school years.

In a government establishment sense, that violates both the concepts of "liberty" and "pursuit of happiness". In a market sense, obey or be punished only works in relationships in which there is an exchange of money, such as employer/employee, or customer/business relationships.

Are the thoughts expressed in the Declaration of Independence now, simply, brazen lies?

[OriginalGeek]

77. My second grade teacher in Florence, KY was named Miss Ockerman

I am 48 years old and have no business remembering my second grade teacher's name but she made an impression. She took me to the front of the class and spanked my ass with a paddle ball paddle for the crime of writing in cursive because "we had not yet been taught cursive writing." My mom taught me to read and write very early and I was proud of what I had accomplished and we were never told NOT to write in cursive - just that we were to write our names on a piece of paper and hand it forward.

"You will follow directions in my class..."


I've had a healthy mistrust of authority ever since. More often than not, to my detriment. But occasionally I win.

[Igel]

42. Not so frequent.

What they do is give frequent reading assessments and then target the kid's readings to those 'assigned levels.'

They can be below or above grade level. They also adjust the level for whether they're reading independently or with supervision--independent reading is a level or two lower than with supervision or guidance.

One class can have a wide spread of reading levels.

The reason for this is simple. A lot of students lack resilience. If they try to read stuff to hard they give up. They become discouraged. The teachers are on guard for this. Even if the kids would rise to the challenge, they can't be sure. Better safe than sorry.

Most schools with decent staff give tests often enough and have enough feedback mechanisms that a kid can rise through the levels quickly when making great strides and then wallow for a while when he's recouping and getting ready for another developmental spurt.

This doesn't restrict the parents in the least.

There are teachers who have trouble with a really wide spread of reading levels in one class. There are districts that don't believe in having kids skip grades. Can't help you there.

As for the test, the tests are designed to evaluate certain skills and make sure kids are at a certain level. Yeah, even short children's stories can be subjected to Marxist/feminist critical theory to find what the story is *really* about by looking at silence. Deep semiotic stuff. But this is third grade, and the kids are taught what kinds of answers are correct for 3rd grade. What's appropriate for a seminar in PoMo criticism at the PhD level is something not typically accessible to 3rd graders.

[boppers]

49. Yes, this.

I first tried to read Ulysses in the 7th grade. I found it quite frustrating. I had to work my way up to it, in vocabulary, in memorizing and retaining large portions of narrative, in understanding the different devices and tropes employed... I didn't manage to get a decent read on it until my sophomore year in high school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)

Oh, and of course, there was the "Hite Report" incident in my childhood. Apparently, in the 6th grade, some books may be reading-level appropriate, but not choose-your-own-book-to-report appropriate. Great book though, for a 6th grader trying to figure out female sexuality in the 70's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shere_Hite

[XemaSab]

62. That's moronic

I find Russian novels very hard to follow. I find Harry Potter easy to follow.

I'm sure that if I dedicated myself to reading Russian novels, my comprehension of Russian novels would improve. If I just stick with Harry Potter, I will never be able to read Russian novels.

How do they expect students to learn and grow if they're never exposed to things that are difficult for them?

There's nothing more satisfying than attempting something difficult and succeeding. The sooner kids learn this, the better.

[JackRiddler]

61. That's ghastly! Such a policy is new to me.

It's like a dystopian novel. Operation Dumb-Down the Planet.

I suspect you won't find such a policy at the top private schools! What you'll find there is general education and encouragement to reach high, not this over-specialized fully-tracked-to-nowhere insanity of education deform.

[distantearlywarning]

74. Yeah, that's the part that made me really angry also.

Why does it seem like we have to reduce everything fun in this world to a pile of boring rules and regulations?

And seriously, fuck any teacher who jams children into little assigned reading boxes and forces them to stay there. I can tell you that I would have been a problem in that teacher's classroom from day 1 - reading at a 6th grade level in Kindergarten and never had much regard for other people's silly made-up "assigned levels", etc.

[justiceischeap]

2. What a bunch of elitist crap!

Wanting their kids to read for pleasure... pashaw! And allowing them to read beyond their years, who do these people think they are? Parents?

By the time I was in 3rd grade, I was reading at a 9th grade level. Instead of my teacher's discouraging me to "dumb down" to the rest of the class (which it seems the teacher in the article is doing), she allowed me to do special reports on what I was reading. I don't understand, other than the teacher not wanting to do the extra work, why they would discourage kids in that way.

[kestrel91316]

22. By the time I was in 3rd grade I was reading at 12th grade level. My teachers,

when told by my parents that they DIDN'T think I needed to skip grades, simply let me read whatever the hell I wanted to. As long as I got my homework and classwork done, they ignored what books were in my hands.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

31. I was the same way

In the 5th grade, I was reading college level material, but the teacher wanted me to stick with books at my own grade level. We had an assignment each quarter to read a book that had at least 100 pages and provide an oral report to the class on the book. But, we weren't limited to just one book. And, the more we read, the higher our grade.

Since I was limited to books at a 5th grade level, I was soon knocking them down four or five per day and providing reports to the class on them. After a quarter of 50,000 + pages and tons of reports every single damn day, the teacher realized that it would be better to just let me read whatever the hell I wanted. My grade in Reading that quarter was something like %10,000 because of all the extra credit. It was also not long after that they threw me in the gifted program with the other nerds.

[provis99]

55. that's no big deal. At the age of 5 I was reading double-PhD material.

I win.

[jberryhill]

59. I made it all the way to 24th grade!

[Prometheus Bound]

64. Do you remember how they determined what grade level you were at?

I remember taking such tests, which told us we were at X-grade level, but it's too far back for me to remember what kind of test it was. Short answer? M-C?

[justiceischeap]

67. I think it was noticed by my inattention to things.

When asked why I wasn't paying attention, I told them I was bored with "little kid" books. Then they asked what I was reading and I told them. It was a few grades later that I was tested and sent to a school for the gifted & talented (didn't stay there long, didn't fit in with the other kids and was miserable). I don't remember what kind of test I took, I'm 40ish now, so that was a while back. I think they may have given me several different books from advanced grades to see if I could read and comprehend them.

I do know that my mom was ALWAYS reading to me as a small child and my favorite books were The Wind and the Willows and Stuart Little. My mom read me those instead of typical books for small children. I also had a great-grandmother who worked on my reading levels in kindergarten/1st grade by making me read out loud from the KJV bible.

[annabanana]

3. What a terrible shame.. To take something

that can be such a joy.. such a mind expanding exercise, and turn it into a bloodless joyless grind. It comes close to child abuse.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

71. I can't comment on the story, but I think it's a great question.

It's got a clear right answer, but to get it right you need to think and understand, not just find the relevant paragraph and copy out.

[Trillo]

4. I read it as "Tikki-eyed Mista", sub-consciously inserting the missing hyphen.

Reading it that way meant the rest of the sentence was gibberish. It took me some time to realize it wasn't a typo. I must be stupid.

[Atman]

41. Me too -- and I'm naming my new rock band

Tikki Eyed Mista.

[yardwork]

44. Same here. Actually, the whole tiger story sounds like gibberish.

Who writes that somebody "eyed" somebody anymore, anyway? When was the last time somebody said that in conversation?

This is teaching children to love reading? I don't think so.

[Occulus]

54. Oh, idioms like that pop up all over the place

David Weber uses lots of very... particular language in his Honor Harrington novels.

"He gave her a very old-fashioned look, which became even more old-fashioned as Honor removed her uniform jacket and began to unbutton the cuff of her left sleeve."

"She eyed him as if he were a new and especially loathsome form of bacteria."

That sort of thing. If you're going for style, language out-of-place for the time period and setting (for example) is one way to do it.

[kentauros]

45. As I'm a much slower reader than probably 99% of y'all,

I read it exactly as written, no hyphen. However, it made no sense overall when I got to the question and answer part. I wasn't expecting something about tigers, partly because of the human-style thinking and speaking attributed to the two adolescents. It really threw me off!

[boppers]

52. Copy/paste thing

In the link at the Original Post, they are clearly introduced as tigers.

[kentauros]

56. As I said,

I'm a slower reader, so I didn't read the link. Seems to be a rather glaring omission in not copying it if the point is to show how bad the question really is...

[jberryhill]

60. Always skim the questions before reading the essay

I started doing that on standardized tests in third grade.

There were strategies I used to score in the 95+ percentile range on these things throughout childhood right on to the GRE and LSAT. I was never as good a reader as others I knew, but I have always loved standardized tests. They were one of my favorite things to do in school.

You'd have to realize that the essays and questions are intentionally written to work against a strategy of skipping to the questions first, and trying to skim for the answers. Once you figured that out, you could quickly eliminate wrong answers as "too obvious".

We were never expressly taught standardized test strategies and were always told "it doesn't matter how well you do - just do your best". Of course that was when we were aptitude tested in order to determine best educational strategies. Now, I understand that the tests are achievement oriented, and used to measure the educational system instead of the kids.

[n2doc]

5. Shows what happens when someone writes questions on something they know nothing about

These kind of "one and only one" choice questions, about a complex subject like literature, only show the ignorance of the test writer. And of those who choose such tests as indicators of learning.

[Yavin4]

13. These Are Typical Standardized Test Questions

Reading passages interpretations are on every type of tests including the SATs.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

70. No, this is a great question.

It has a clear right answer; to get it you have to understand the story, not merely read through it and copy out the relevant paragraph.

And getting it right would be a pretty good indicator of thinking/comprehending ability (not necessarily "learning&quot .

[Kalidurga]

6. What a stupid question.

Poorly written story followed by a stupid question. No wonder test scores are going down and children (mine anyway) were in tears over some of the tests they took (they did well somehow) I can't tell you how many times I was at a loss as to how to guide them through their school work. It was very different from the school work I had to do. So, my fall back position was to teach them how to think through a problem then if that didn't work give the answer the teacher wanted.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

8. yes

[Donald Ian Rankin]

72. No.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. There is no such thing as a perfect score on a standardized test

A 100% messes up the norms so they always include questions that can't be answered correctly.

And we think we can teach our children to do well on these tests, which were NEVER intended to be used to assess individual progress as they are being used under NCLB.

It's really ridiculous.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

69. No, it's a great question.

Despite what people are saying, it has a clear right answer, but to get it you actually have to understand the story, not just read through til you find the relevant paragraph and copy out the relevant detail.

[arely staircase]

10. i m a teacher and i see poorly worded test questions all the time

usually written by people who have never taught a class or left the classroom years ago.

[grntuscarora]

11. My Third Grader

will be taking the PA State Assessments, a three-day, fun-filled, fill-in-the-bubble extravaganza, this March. Her school started prepping her in September with classes in "Test-Taking Strategies" and practice tests. Her dad and I are seriously discussing opting out. Wasn't something going to be done about NCLB?

[Betsy Ross]

12. WHy is it about tigers anything?

I thought it was two young children.

[Fawke Em]

18. Me, too, because tigers don't talk.

???

[Marnie]

21. exactly

And they are not noted bug eaters or bark peelers either.

[eShirl]

66. grubs used to be a normal part of the typical human diet

in some places people still eat grubs and they are considered a delicacy

[Curmudgeoness]

19. Thanks for saying it.....

I had a moment myself.

[boppers]

47. Reading in context is everything.

If you had read the context (the link), it would have made more sense.

[riderinthestorm]

14. I wonder how that teacher would react to my kids who read two books at once

sometimes they'll even have 3 going at the same time and some of them are (gasp!) probably above or below their reading level at any time (the horror!)

My 15 year old daughter's been told more than a few times by various teachers that she's not "allowed" to read ahead on books the class is reading for an assignment. I've never understood that either. Sometimes she really loves the story and becomes engrossed and she'll actually feel guilty because she didn't stop at the assigned moment. I get so exasperated - "just read it dammit! So you're ahead, nobody has to know!"

It's almost like they are TRYING to dampen reading enthusiasm.

Great article by the way, thanks as always for the educational materials.

[Trillo]

15. Some of this could be due to TPTB wanting children to watch TV

instead of read.

[Solly Mack]

16. K&R

[Prometheus Bound]

17. They gave up after the first question?

I have gone through a number of those reading tests, at all levels from a number of states, and I find the questions are well written. I think it would only take a few practice tests to train the kids how to handle the questions, test-writer tricks, and so forth. There would be no reason to spend more than a few classes on that.

We don't see the context of this story, but I'm sure the answer would be obvious to any of us if it is from one of the past tests. If it is from a publisher's practice book though, it could indeed be a bad question. Some of them are awful, at least those for higher level tests. I haven't tried any primary or secondary level ones.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. I've worked with both practice and real tests at every grade level from K through 6.

ALL of the Reading tests SUCK. They ask for details that can''t be found in the story, they include non-fiction articles on boring topics, there is almost always a fantasy or folk tale entry that makes very little sense from a country that's either made up or no one has ever heard of, the cultural bias is staggering - and the kids HATE these tests.

My all time favorite was a non-fiction entry on a 4th grade test that described how the color of the water in the ocean changes as you go deeper under water. I'm an adult with a masters degree and I had to read it 4 times to answer the questions.

We are ruining education for our children by placing so much emphasis on stupid tests that don't really tell us anything other than how well our children can pass this one particular test. These Reading tests don't tell us how well our children read. Every year I see good readers fail and poor readers do well on these dumb tests.

We need to stop doing this to our children.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. I've come to believe that the PURPOSE of these tests is to make children hate learning

so that they will be disinclined to study anything that isn't immediately useful to their future jobs.

(cf. the conditioning of the Epsilons in Brave New World--If you haven't read the book or don't remember it, the Epsilons are the lowest caste in society, and early in their childhood, they are given electric shocks to make them averse to books and flowers.)

[proud2BlibKansan]

34. I really don't want to believe that

Really.

But it gets harder all the time NOT to believe that.

[coalition_unwilling]

53. Charles Dickens eerily foretold what we could expect in "Hard Times"

where Gradgrind (what a name) tells the students that what he wants is 'facts, just facts.' Dickens managed something of a happy ending for Cissy Jupe in HT, but I think even Dickens understood he was whistling past the graveyard.

When I was looking into possibly teaching for the Los Angeles School District, I observed a couple HS English classes and both teachers told me after the class was over that they spend an enormous amount of time "teaching to the tests" (this a legacy of NCLB). Neither teacher thought much of NCLB or of what its demands were forcing upon their conduct of their classes.

[Marnie]

26. The problem with all sort answer tests is that the person taking the test has to be

thinking along exactly the same lines as the person who wrote the question.

If the student is interpreting the question with a different emphasis on a word or a different meaning of a word with multiple meanings then the question and or answers can easily be "read" wrong.

And of course woe be to the student who knows more than the specific lesson teaches and uses that knowledge to answer the question correctly in a larger context but wrong for that specific limited source of info.

Short answer test do not test knowledge, of thinking, just short term memorization.

[Prometheus Bound]

63. These types of questions test understanding of the text, not knowledge.

And not short-term memorization.

[Loudmxr]

24. The right answer is Tiggers like to bounce!

BTW Tigger is a friend of mine... so is Pooh and so is Eeyore!!

The actors are just like their characters.. they really are!!!

[Starry Messenger]

27. k&r

[seabeyond]

29. my son took an all day test last week. he was telling me about the story and question

he said he thought the child whining about not getting what she wanted but that was not an option in the answers. he said he had to figure out what he thought the people wanted him to answer.

his problems with tests is he cant EVER do always and never questions. there are always exceptions.

[JI7]

30. wouldn't something like this lead to black/white thinking ?

it might be different if kids were asked what they thought and to write out their reasons. there is no one right answer. but kids can be graded on how they write from things like grammer to how they explain their position.

but something like this just makes it seem like there is ONE answer and that's all there is to it. no attempt to see things in a more complicated way.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

79. Hopefully.

Teaching children to work out answers, rather than just to waffle, is an excellent thing.

The idea that all answers are valid is a foolish one.

I think this is an excellent question - it requires the children to think and understand, not just to read and copy out the relevant passage.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

32. That's an excellent question, and the right answer is c), of course.

I rather hope that the author is being disingenuous when she says that many of her intelligent friends didn't get this.

At any rate, as examples of bad test questions go, this one fails. I think "work out which of the following true statements about this story is what it is mostly about, and which ones are merely incidental" is a good, thought-provoking approach to question-setting.

[proud2BlibKansan]

35. That's my first choice

But I can also justify B or D.

They never give us an answer key to these tests so we never know what the test writers pick as the correct answer. That makes it even harder to help the kids do well.

[Igel]

43. I looked at my kid's science test.

I was annoyed at many of the answers. Then I asked about them.

He said what they'd been taught. The answers required the context. No context, and some of the answers were gibberish. Some had their range of meaning reduced by what was taught. Many of the answers referred to things only partly covered. They "spiral in" a lot of stuff, so they teach things incomplete now but will be back again in May and then next fall to fill in the gaps. If the kids were to drop out of school mid-program they'd probably have some misconceptions. But they'll be fixed.

2nd grade, after all.

Me? When I read them I had no context. Hadn't looked at the curriculum. Hadn't adjusted the idea of energy and heat in sound, ocean waves, heat, EM radiation, or chemical energy to the intellectual background and scientific frameworks available to the general 2nd grade population. Or their teachers.

[boppers]

48. I got C too. I learned to do well on tests, because, well, my brain functions oddly.

As a result, I wind up trying to guess based on imagining somebody else's thought process, and using that to get the "correct" answer. The author's intelligent friends were Phd.'s, which may have blinded them to such a simple technique... being smart often makes one arrogant, and take their own thinking for granted.

Here's why C is the correct answer: The question is what is the story *mostly* about. That means that the answer would be in *most* of the story:

A) what tigers like to eat - Nope, bug hunting, bark tearing, talking... not eating.
B) how tigers tear bark off logs - Nope, bug hunting, talking... not bark tearing.
C) how two tigers get along - Yes, because all the activities were interactive between the two
D) what tigers like to do - No, because one did not like or dislike bug hunting, and could not yet talk

Sure, the Phd.'s could find "some truth" in all the statements, but that misses the point of the whole question, which was not "what features are in this story", but "what is the story MOSTLY about". I used to struggle a lot in school when I thought I was trying to get an accurate answer... that's not how teachers, and tests, work. The answer requested is the "correct" answer, the answer expected by somebody else, when given a limited set of parameters.

Here's an example: A one pound metal ball, and a ten pound metal ball, of equal density, are released at an equal height, above the the earth. Which one hits first?
a) They hit at the same time. (This is the "correct" answer, but mathematically improbable)
b) The ten pound weight hits first. (This is mathematically possible, but not the desired answer)
c) The one pound weight hits first. (This is also mathematically possible, but not the desired answer)

Somebody well versed in physics knows that the 10 pound ball has a greater gravitational pull than a one pound ball, so there is a greater attraction than the one pound ball has. It's incredibly tiny, but it's there (it hits about a second faster when dropped from a distance of the outer solar system) . Also, without a vacuum, (which wasn't mentioned in the question, which is a "trick question" trigger), the 10 pound ball may have greater wind resistance, slowing it up. ...and this entire paragraph, while true, doesn't mean shit, because testing isn't about thinking in new, different, and varied ways, it's about whether or not you can answer questions in a socially normalized way.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

51. Your one is a classic fallacy

If you release the balls at the same time, they'll hit at the same time.

But if you drop the heavy one and time it, and then the light one and time it, the heavy one will take a slightly shorter time. And if you drop both together and time it, the time will be even shorter (although the degree of accuracy needed to detect any of this is absurd).

[boppers]

57. There was no discussion of the positions when each was dropped. Only the height and time.

I assume from your statement "And if you drop both together and time it, the time will be even shorter" you are implying the two are dropped from the same position relative to the earth (and even in that case, there would still be a slight bias towards the heavier body)....

...but what if one was dropped 1 light year from the north pole, and another was dropped 1 light year from the south pole? Also, since earth's gravity is not uniform around the "sphere" (it's not perfect), is that being accounted for in various drop positions? And have we even started the discussions of gravity and speed warping time, as well, adding more complications to the precision? We haven't even started talking about the other masses in the solar system messing with speed and time....

Anyway, this delightful (for me) diversion only highlights (and extends) the problem. The questions are often not easy to answer, without making an incredibly large amount of assumptions, but then again, most human interactions are like that...

Answering "tests", standardized or not, often has very little to do with thinking things through, and is more about making sure you can give really dumbed down, standardized answers... be that a teacher's personal standard, a state standard, a national standard.

Where, sadly, I think this is helpful for our industrial worker drone society, in that you aren't supposed to think about and give a right answer, you're supposed to give your manager's, teacher's, politician's, correct answer.

[derby378]

33. Here's my version

Newt Gingrich is in a disabled spaceship that's floating towards a black hole. "Oh, shit," Newt told himself, "I'm floating towards a black hole! And Florida hasn't even had its primary yet!"

Newt tried to restart the spaceship's engines, but it was no use. The gravitational pull of the black hole pulled Newt and the spaceship closer and closer to the event horizon, from which there would be no escape.

The spaceship managed to survive the whirling clouds of gas, dust, and debris that were whirling around the black hole. Newt was starting to feel nauseous. And now the rising ambient temperature just outside the event horizon was making Newt break into a sweat. He vomited into the spaceship's vacuum toilet.

The gravitational pull of the black hole started to pull the spaceship apart. As he took the last sip of water he would ever take, Newt began to wonder if he would even live to find out what a black hole looked like within the event horizon.

What is this story mostly about?

A) Newt is fucked
B) Newt is so fucked
C) Newt has entered a new realm of fuckability
D) Is there room in that black hole for Fred Phelps' whiny ass?
E) Obama/Biden - Four More Years!

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. E

[JBoy]

40. I would like to read more stories from your "Newt is fucked" series.

[davsand]

58. BEST post I've seen in a very long time!

Kudos to you, derby378!






Laura

[derby378]

78. Aw, shucks...

[redqueen]

37. I've run into this same nonsense when going over homework with my kids.

I told them flat out the questions were at best ambiguously worded, and at worst just flat out stupid. They get good grades and love reading, I tell them just to worry about the ones that make sense and just guess at this kind of idiocy, because missing a question like that is meaningless.

I would consider boycotting the testing... I should look into that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

50. There is an opt out movement

http://unitedoptout.com/

[Donald Ian Rankin]

68. This one is a perfectly good question, not nonsense at all!

It's not asking "which of these statements about this story is true", it's asking "which of these true statements is the central motif of the story, and which are merely incidental to it".

It actually requires children to think and understand, not just read and parrot. I think it's a great question.

[redqueen]

76. I wasn't actually referring to this example...

I think the answer to this one is fairly straightforward.

I have seen some in my kids' homework that truly makes no sense. Even worse is when there are mistakes in the questions or other take-home materials.

[malthaussen]

65. Interesting breakdown of responses to this

I see that some people are outraged over the pointless banality of the question, while others are concerned to explain methods of getting the correct answer. There is a moral there, if I could just work out what it is.

-- Mal

[ieoeja]

73. "What did the tigers do together" is pointless banality. What was the story *really* about is not.