What Florida’s Next Standardized Test Will Look Like
J. Paxon Reyes / Flickr
The group developing Florida's next assessments has released some sample questions.
Fed up with FCAT? Well now you can get a peek at the test which will replace it.
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, has released the first batch of sample questions tied to the new exams.
Florida is starting the transition to the new Common Core standards and PARCC assessments this year, beginning with kindergarteners and first graders. The transition will take three years.
Common Core and PARCC are part of a national effort among states to standardized U.S. curriculum and assessments in order to make more accurate comparisons of state school performance. The new assessments will also allow the comparison of U.S. students to international students.
The new tests are intended to eliminate the concept of “teaching to the test” because the curriculum emphasizes problem solving and analytical thinking and not memorization of facts or lists.
The PARCC sample questions explain the question methodology and what it is designed to measure. For instance, this is from a 7th grade reading and writing exam:
“The Literature Task plays an important role in honing students’ ability to read complex text closely, a skill that research reveals as the most significant factor differentiating college-ready from non-college-ready readers. This task will ask students to carefully consider literature worthy of close study and compose an analytic essay.”
