My thoughts on the ITEDs... or whatever they are.

As everyone that reads this knows, (because I doubt anyone outside of Kennedy or even outside of AP Lang at this school reads my blog) us Kennedy students had to take our standardized tests this week. (Actually, I seriously doubt anyone reads this except for you, Dr. Ayers. I'll pretend I'm not aware of this though for my blog posts though.) The tests basically are to assure that our school is keeping up with national and state education standards. Kennedy already has a reputation for being fine school, so there isn't really a lot of stress associated with the tests.

Weird coincidence: last night I was watching the episode of King of the Hill on Adult Swim last about standardized testing. Basically the administration of the school that one of the main characters (Bobby Hill) goes to is scared about the upcoming standardized test because the students are low-performing and they don't want to lose their funding. To alter the results of the test, the majority of low performing students are deemed "special education" students and are put in a room to sit and wait while the rest of the school prepares for the test. I thought it was a really funny episode and it was kind of weird that it was playing during the week of ITEDs (or whatever they are)


The reading comprehension section was much more interesting than previously. This is usually my favorite section because I've always been good at reading and have always scored around 99% for this particular section. The reading sections are usually about interesting, random subjects. The questions are easy, you just have to read the section carefully at times. My favorite question from the reading comprehension section was
"Look at this picture of a cheetah, what is it doing?
A) about to attack
B) eating
C) yawning and stretching
D) cannot be determined

The picture was obviously of a cheetah that was yawning and stretching, attached to a reading section all about yawning and the human brain. Another question on the test was asking for how we would find more books on a certain author. The obvious answer choice was: do an internet search on the author. These kind of questions really make me think that the people who write the test questions are out of touch to how much teenagers my age know. My entire generation grew up using computers, we have no problem finding what we need on the internet. Questions about finding info are almost irrelevant in a world where the answer to any question is "just google it".