Sunday, April 06, 2008

Testing dreams

I guess this video is making the rounds, but I saw it first at Konkadu.

It gives me a perfect excuse to reminisce about my boy's first testing experience, about a year ago:

Yesterday my boy took his state-mandated standardized test. This test is due in August, and most people take it in May or June, but he has seasonal allergies (aka hay fever) and is either doped up or miserable during those months. Rather than add more torture, I decided to spread it around and have him take the test a little early.

He had never been tested before so we went over test-taking strategies. I periodically have him do test prep workbooks so he was familiar with filling in the little bubble. He thinks they are kind of fun. We had also done a practice test so he understood the concept of having a time limit. That is something I'm not good at working on in our daily table work.


The night before the test he went to sleep right away, which struck me as odd because usually before a big event he has trouble sleeping. The morning of the test he woke up in good spirits but admitted to being a little nervous. He told me he'd had a dream that "paper airplanes made of test papers were attacking me!" Then he went on with a big grin: "But I shot them all down, all except the math ones!"

Turns out he was right to feel that way about math. His computation score was pretty low, but was raised quite by a bit by his problem-solving skills. Whew! His results will probably be similar this time, too. But I don't think he'll have any bad dreams.

3 comments:

Konkadoo said...

Math computation drove down the scores of my older two a LOT. If it wasn't timed they'd have done better but still not great.

I'm glad he shot them down. My boy is due to have his first testing done next year. Thankfully, math is not as hard for him.

Mrs. Darling said...

Tink has to test in May. I have no idea how it will go. Im praying.

Anonymous said...

I used to loathe math, but was so dang good at it. Strange that I never used to know what it would be used for, and then I took logic in college — wow! That blew my mind away — math in a practical situations. And now, working in interactive media, we use it every day.

But, a good cure to getting that side of the brain is simple. Put a guitar in his room. He'll eventually figure it out on his own.