40% of 3rd graders in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Schools failed the state mandated “end of grade” reading proficiency test.
Here is a sample Section
Imagine for a second that you live in an apartment complex or public housing and you are trying to understand this example of fiction, and you have no idea what a hummingbird or a crane is.
I find the selection is amazing. Third graders are what – 8 yrs old? The subject matter as well as the questions seem more like 6th grade level. Maybe it’s just me. I have been out of school for many years.
What is the best answer to the last question?
The answers are at the end.
I struggle with these types of tests as I get distracted (which is the purpose) by obviously untrue information. Cranes and hummingbirds do not have different habitats because of a fictional race.
This is testing your ability to repeat untruthful information coming from an authority figure – not vocabulary, meaning of words and understanding context.
Here is the list of all the sample questions for all grades / areas
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/testing/eog/sampleitems/reading
Agreed – disinformation for the sake of obfuscation. Tests that test: SAT, AP, etc. Tests that test your ability to take tests: GMAT and possibly this little gem 🙂
Fred, you’ve touched upon something that struck me when reading this piece… a focus on the words ‘race’ and ‘superior’. My answer for question #3 was A, based on paragraph 5… and I would argue that perhaps answers given by children may have been correct, and the test creator is warped. Besides, they plagiarized The Tortoise and the Hare.
Multiple choice favors some and confuses others, too subtle/subjective for 3rd grade.
The eighth grade non-fiction item is about the history of chocolate. It is heavily loaded with white European hegemony over the natives of the Western Hemisphere, and too many microaggressions to count. The swiss added milk to chocolate so lactose intolerant people of color woukd not steal the treat intended for royalty.
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/accountability/testing/eog/reading/20080417gr8set3.pdf
Among the more challenging words and idioms…
Stimulating, unpromising, treasure trove, regal importance, concoction, aristocracy, agreeable, acclaimed, mass production, hastened, mechanized, fondant, tropical, cultivation, equator, etc…
The word “husbandry” had an asterisk and explanation in the event children might think the term was related to heterosexual patriarchy oppression.
The original was written in 2008 or earlier. Here is the update in 2017
http://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/about-cocoa/history-of-cocoa/
Today’s website is full of buzzwords like sustainability, stakeholder, collective intent, public-private action
Gall – lots of it. Today’s bunch of bedwetters is just about to make my head explode (homage to the old Glenn Beck). Could someone stop these morons from rewriting history? Last I checked, this isn’t the Eastern Bloc.
> “The swiss added milk to chocolate so lactose intolerant people of color woukd not steal the treat intended for royalty.”
Maybe next year we will see a hurrucane Irma story of how decedents of white European hegemony in Miami had put bars over their windows so that people of color would not steal from them ?