Sats Test

[vulcan42]

Recently there has been a debate about the Sats tests being too difficult for the children. Today the BBC have listed three of the questions. The first is a paragraph about bats and the child has to pick out the word closest to 'eat'. There are two words, consume and feeding and the teacher said consume was right but some children could have written feeding. However it goes on to say that either word was acceptable. So where's the problem here?
The third question, in another paragraph, about a bridge in Austin asked in which American state the bridge is located. The teacher thought that the children might not know American geography but the article stated the bridge was in the state of Texas, it actually gave them the answer.
if the teaching staff are having problems, quote " Staff had to really think about how they would answer these questions ... " then I suggest the exams aren't the problem.
What does anybody else think?

[jno]

hm

///She wriggled back inside the tent...

What does this tell you about how Priya got inside the tent? Tick one.

She ran quickly inside.
She jumped through the flap.
She had to squeeze in.
She crept in quietly.

Answer: The answer was that she had to squeeze in, but the teacher believed many children would have chosen crept in.///

You can squeeze in without wriggling, you can wriggle in without squeezing.

[roopower]

I read somewhere that the children had 34 seconds for each question which, in exam conditions with stress added, is not long. It's about time that putting stress on the children stopped, SATs are to test the teaching, not the children. One question I saw was about subordinate clauses or some such, I failed there as I haven't got a clue what they are. Just done an English paper and didn't get a high enough mark to pass, failed on types of clauses etc

[jno]

SATs are to test the teaching, not the children

spot on.

[bobbinwales]

of course they are to test the teaching. The sats scores dont go on the pupils gcse certificates years later or get published individually, sevcondary schools pay little attention to them and do there own tests (CAT scores my neice says) to help them decide with any streaming or do there own tests to help with setting/streaming later in secondary school.
I'm not sure why pupils... or is it more parents???.... pay so much attention to them

[bednobs]

i asked my 11 yo about it. she rememered the answers she gave, which were correct for those 3. however, she told me she only got less than half way thru ine th time

[jourdain2]

As bobinwales says, SATS are assessments, that's all. They are to measure the progress of children in Primary/Junior schools in order to facilitate the appropriate level of settings in Secondary education. These are easy to alter, if found to be faulty. Tests are tests, they are supposed to be challenging, otherwise all children would end up in the middle set.
I don't know why parents get so worked up about them. One of my daughters was badly mis-setted aged 13, but the staff soon realised that this was the case and she was shunted up appropriately before the month was out.
I would, actually, argue with the examiners about the use of the colon/semi-colon in one question - but it's not that important at that stage.

[youngmafbog]

I'd hate to see one of these 'upset' kids (or some of the teachers for that matter) take an entrance exam. Now they are hard and your future depends on it!