Scores for six students on the first math benchmark test
Sixth grader Melissa answered 10 of the 23 math questions correctly. She knew several answers that no other sixth graders knew, probably the result of her fifth grade in a public school where they used the Everyday Math textbooks upon which these tests are based.
Jonas answered 7 of 23, less than 1/3 of the questions correctly, despite the air of confidence he seemed to display throughout the math testing period. There were noticeable errors on math that had been directly addressed in last year’s instruction followed by apparent confidence in practice. Example: he whizzed through a workbook on the addition and subtraction of fractions including those with unlike denominators, but he was not able to compute problems of that kind on the test.
Fifth grader Louis aced the test, with only two reasoning errors and two minor calculation errors. Amanda was unable to answer test questions that required applications or problem solving. She answered 12 of 23 questions correctly.
Fourth grader Mason also answered 12 of 23 math questions correctly on the test, but errors were a combination of calculation and problem-solving. Rosalee was stumped! She was only able to answer 6 questions correctly, and a couple of those looked like good guesses. It was only clear that she knew the carrying algorithm for addition and could identify fraction values with visual representations.
As I read the written responses to test questions that probed thinking, I was reminded more than once that students often don’t know what they don’t know. One totally wrong series of answers was explained in the following words: “I just thought about it all until I finally figured out the right answer.” If students feel more confident than is warranted, if they don’t realize how far off the mark they are, then perhaps I am wrong to think that their confidence might be shaken. I will try to be objective as I observe the attitudes of these six students towards math over the next few weeks.
