Monday, January 26, 2009

Goodness

Ms. Weaver doesn't teach you all by merely printing out worksheets. She attempts to find (based on data/research) the best ways to get the information stuck in your brains while still keeping pace with the AP course. In the same way, she doesn't test you by merely printing out some random book-published test. She attempts to analyze the test to make sure there is a variety of difficulty present. Every test you take is analyzed before you even receive it. Ask, she'll show you. The tests have all the questions categorized according to Bloom's Taxonomy and then tallied. She even figures out the percentage of the various levels in each test.
Your midterm was created in the same fashion. Second Period's test was marginally simpler. But, only in accordance to the fewer days of studying the class received. In turn, Sixth Period's was marginally more difficult. The study guides were identical. The questions were just different phrasings and a different balance of the various Taxonomy levels. 2 students from Second tried their hand (with only a 1 day study time) at the Sixth test. The results were almost exactly the same.
Some of in Second have complained about the points added to Sixth Period's test. First, all students received 5 points for no other reason than Ms. Weaver is a softy. Sixth received 5 more due to construction that disrupted the test. Again with the dorkiness, Ms. Weaver reviewed her test analysis and calculated the approximate time the noise started in order to remove the higher level thinking questions made more difficult by the racket. If the question asked you to simply recall a fact, it stayed while those that required application of knowledge were waived.

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