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Are you smarter than a third-grader? Try your hand at new state exam

Online practice drill shows new world of student achievement exams

The PARCC exam, new in the world of student standardized assessments, is a far cry from the standardized testing adults are used to — even those whose elementary school memories are relatively recent.

So what are these new online exams like?

• They have drag-and-drop menus for multipart answers.

• Readers can highlight text in different colors.

• Text input fields allow writers to choose bold, italics or bullet points for portions of their essays.

• Reading passages have colorful, cartoonish illustrations, and those are fair game for questions.

• Online math practice tests have interactive graphs for students to plot points and computerized measuring tools for geometry problems.

Can you handle the math questions soon to be faced by fourth-graders? Or the English/language arts exam third-graders will be taking?

Here are a couple of questions:

Grade 7 literacy: Read this paragraph from “The Count of Monte Cristo” and answer the question that follows.“The day passed away in utter silence — night came without recurrence of the noise.”

What is the meaning of recurrence as it is used in this paragraph?

A. a desire for something hard to obtain

B. an instance of something happening again

C. a way of thinking about something important

D. an understanding of something previously known

Grade 4 mathematics: Which statement about angles is true?A. An angle is formed by two rays that do not have the same endpoint.

B. An angle that turns through 1/360 of a circle has a measure of 360 degrees.

C. An angle that turns through five 1-degree angles has a measure of 5 degrees.

D. An angle measure is equal to the total length of the two rays that form the angle.

Want to know the answers or test your knowledge further? You can take the practice test at parcconline.org/take-the-test.

Or follow the links and directions below to find out.

Third-grade English/language arts; 13 questions: http://parcc.pearson.com/practice-tests/english/ (Click “Grade 3.” Under the “PBA Practice Tests” heading, choose “Computer-Based Practice Test.” Enter your name, or any name — the system doesn't care, and it doesn't ask for an email address or a password — and you're ready to test your reading skills.

Answer key: http://www.parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/Grade%203%20Online%20PBA%20Practice%20Set%20Answer%20and%20Alignment%20Document.pdf

Fourth-grade math; 36 questions: www.parcconline.org/take-the-test (Scroll down to heading 2 “Take the Test.” Under “Mathematics Practice Tests,” choose “Grade 4 online practice tests.” Enter your name, or any name — the system doesn't know the difference, and it doesn't ask for an email address or a password — and you're ready to test your math skills.

Answer key: http://parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/Grade4PracticeTestAnswerandAlignmentDocumentMathematicsFinal.pdf

New critical-thinking state tests cause angst

  Students at Marlowe Middle School in Lake in the Hills take the state's new standardized test, PARCC, on Tuesday. Nearly 1 million students statewide are expected to take the test this spring. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com
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