How would you answer this test question? From a 1st grade Common Core test.

[laundry_queen]

86. +1

Plus, it's important to remember this is for first graders. The other day my 7 year old in second grade asked me what the word related meant. And she gets perfect marks at school. (We are in Canada though so our system is different, and she is in French Immersion so they don't concentrate on English vocabulary in Kindergarten and 1st grade, she just started it this year.) So not only is it not a straightforward question, it also poses it with words that a first grader may not recognize.

In university, our profs told us that we were to pick the BEST answer (ie if an answer is too vague or the question to convoluted, pick the BEST answer, even if it might seem not quite right). I doubt first graders are able to figure THAT out. I was the type of kid who always asked myself the question, "What are THEY (the test designer/teacher) looking for?" because what they are looking for is not always what I think is the right answer and that has always served me well on tests because what the teacher wants is more important than what you think. I think that needs to be taught (it came naturally to me as I had narcissistic parents who thought I should be able to read their minds...)


Anyway, I've always been against tests that aren't straightforward. At that point, you aren't testing the material, you are testing a child's thought process (and ability to work under stress) and every child has a different thought process. You can't teach it and there is no right or wrong answer. In this case, a child (like me) may decide they must be looking for C. Another child might decide that all the above are wrong because it is not a subtraction question and may answer something else. It doesn't mean child A is smarter than child B, it means their thought process is different.

I definitely agree it's a travesty.