> The focused test eliminates questions that would enable students to score A's,
> B's, and C's. All they get is another chance to score a D rather than an F.
> Implicit in the very concept of the focused test is the idea that a student who
> fails the standard MCAS test cannot be more than a D student. Such students
> will be accommodated with a special test on which they cannot score better than
> a D: MCAS for Dummies. The cynicism of the proposal is almost beyond belief ...
> The board is telling every 10th-grader in Massachusetts: "It's not important to
> pass the MCAS on the first try. Not only will we give you four more chances, we
> will offer you an easier test if you fail the first time. That's your prize for
> losing." The booby prize turns out to be first prize.
The focussed test isn't an entirely bad idea; it does allow a genuine D
student to avoid getting blown out of the water by questions intended to
discriminate between A and B students. However, it seems like a very
poor way to carry the idea out.
An obvious approach that would seem to give the advantages hoped for
from the focussed test without the disadvantages would be just to group
questions in the original test in roughly increasing order of
difficulty. One might (I'm not so sure that this would be a good idea)
put between each group a rubric along the lines of
===============================================================
PROGRESS CHECKPOINT 1
If you have got the right answers to 15 of the preceding 20 questions
you have already passed (50%).
If you have got the right answers to 18 of the preceding 20 questions
you have already got at least a C- (60%).
The questions below are mostly more advanced. Right answers to any of
them will raise your numerical mark further and may raise your letter
grade.
KEEP ON GOING!
===============================================================
Alternatively one could use icons - say Happy Faces - to identify a set
of recommended easier questions that nobody should quit without
attempting, if there was a reason to use the order to encode something
else.
-Robert Dawson
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