Posted by alexandra_k on December 13, 2020, at 15:20:29
In reply to standardised testing, posted by alexandra_k on December 13, 2020, at 15:11:24
You see how much of the curriculum you can guess your way through.
And you think about whether study (spending time studying) would be something that would help your performance ... Or whether the kinds of questions the people make up for the tests are questions that don't do such a great job of getting at the knowledge.
Like the thumbellina question... That's just about guessing the likely attitudes and values of the person who wrote the test. Whether they would *like you* and *think you are a good student* for agreeing with their social or political or whatever views.
Rather than a test of your ability to distinguish between the content of the text and other things.
Quite a lot of the reading comprehension tasks are like that on standardised tests. I know they think they have constructed 'high end distinguisher' questions -- but they haven't.
I hate that. When you are at the place of 'sigh. what does the test writer want me to say?'
That's where the training exercises / practice questions come into their own. They tell you about what the test writers have to say in the times when they go over and above and beyond what is in the text. The kinds of attitudes and values and so on they want you to display.
I hate it how they pass it off as a test of reading comprehension. Or whatever.
I guess that's why people retreat to the sciences. Especially if they have quality instruction / teaching. Then it feels like work pays off. Like there is a return on the investment of time / work. And you get genuinely better with progress etc. I guess it's a way of encouraging people with the ability to do that to do that in fact.
Maybe that's the real sub-text. I don't know.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1112946
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20200805/msgs/1112947.html