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Friday, December 05, 2008

This Test Has All The Answers!

I had a super great class of 4th graders today. The only glitch came during the math assessment test today.

Everyone had their anti-cheating privacy folders up and ready to go for the test. I handed out the test and sat back anticipating a quiet half hour when one hand went up almost immediately. The boy said he must have gotten the teachers answer copy because all the right answers were already circled.

I picked up his test paper and didn’t immediately see any circled answers. While I was trying to figure out just what this kid was talking about, a couple more kids held up their tests and said the same thing.

“We see the answers!”

I picked up those tests and after close examination and angling the exam juuussst right, I could indeed see a faint blue circled outline around the multiple choice answers on the front page. Checking page two of the test, I could make out about half of the answers there also.

Nothing much I could do now but note on my end of day report the problem. I suggested that the kids pretend the answers weren’t already there and “show work” in getting the answer they chose.

It seems that while copier technology is getting better at picking up even the slightest color shades that didn’t show with older machines, the testing standards books haven’t changed with them to make sure the answer sheet isn’t visible when copied.

P.S. One of the girls drew a portrait of me in class holding my clipboard. I thought it was close enough for me use as my blogger “About Me” profile picture. Check it out and tell me what you think.

5 comments:

Sladed said...

If that had happened to those kids when they were a year or so older they would be ready to KILL the kid who spoke up about seeing the answers!

Sladed said...

Very nice drawing of you. I'm envious that I don't have a portrait of me. Such realism!

ms-teacher said...

very cute illustration. I think it's great that you added it to your blog.

.bethany. said...

Excellent portrait! Don't know how you do elementary school, though...my middle schools are enough to drive me bonkers (in a good way, though). The greatest bit of endearment I've gotten so far was "Miss Creme Brulee" (the tasty dessert rhymes with my last name...which I only took as a compliment because I love custard with flambeed sugar more than most things in the world.

The Vegas Art Guy said...

I love the drawing!