Worried about MISA testing (Biology, 9th) and cant find any prep materials

[Anonymous]

DC's Biology class is not being taught by a "student teacher" and his grade went from A last semeter to barely a B now. Part of it is probably him, but part of it is also the teacher. Per DC, she has a very strong accent and while she presumably knows the material (has PhD in microbiology), she does not explain it well.
Anyway, I was trying to find any prep materials for 9th grade MISA but besides small booklet with 2019 test I cant find anything online. The online prep test advertised on MCAP/MISA site is the same as booklet. Does anyone have a recommendation for a book or even a collection of sample test questions? Not looking to score 100%, but would like to get DC at least better prepared since he doesnt test well to begin with. MISA practices they are doing in school are from the same one prep test available on MCAP site.

[Anonymous]

The test isn’t content knowledge. It’s a reading, applying, and writing test. You have found all of the publically available practice. If you look at those you will see that there is information provided in the form of readings, charts, tables, and graphs, and then students have to make sense of it.

If you want to fill in content knowledge gaps, watch Crash Course Biology and the Amoeba Sisters on YouTube.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC's Biology class is not being taught by a "student teacher" and his grade went from A last semeter to barely a B now. Part of it is probably him, but part of it is also the teacher. Per DC, she has a very strong accent and while she presumably knows the material (has PhD in microbiology), she does not explain it well.
Anyway, I was trying to find any prep materials for 9th grade MISA but besides small booklet with 2019 test I cant find anything online. The online prep test advertised on MCAP/MISA site is the same as booklet. Does anyone have a recommendation for a book or even a collection of sample test questions? Not looking to score 100%, but would like to get DC at least better prepared since he doesnt test well to begin with. MISA practices they are doing in school are from the same one prep test available on MCAP site.

Are you the same woman who complained about the "Asian" teacher and your child's grade falling? WTH does the "very strong accent" have to do with anything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC's Biology class is not being taught by a "student teacher" and his grade went from A last semeter to barely a B now. Part of it is probably him, but part of it is also the teacher. Per DC, she has a very strong accent and while she presumably knows the material (has PhD in microbiology), she does not explain it well.
Anyway, I was trying to find any prep materials for 9th grade MISA but besides small booklet with 2019 test I cant find anything online. The online prep test advertised on MCAP/MISA site is the same as booklet. Does anyone have a recommendation for a book or even a collection of sample test questions? Not looking to score 100%, but would like to get DC at least better prepared since he doesnt test well to begin with. MISA practices they are doing in school are from the same one prep test available on MCAP site.

Are you the same woman who complained about the "Asian" teacher and your child's grade falling? WTH does the "very strong accent" have to do with anything?

Do you not understand that someone speaking with a different accent makes word harder to hear and understand?

[Anonymous]

I guess it's you then.

[Anonymous]

Why do you care about MISA?

[Anonymous]

The MISA is 20% of the semester B grade. Why would you not care about the MISA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The test isn’t content knowledge. It’s a reading, applying, and writing test. You have found all of the publically available practice. If you look at those you will see that there is information provided in the form of readings, charts, tables, and graphs, and then students have to make sense of it.

If you want to fill in content knowledge gaps, watch Crash Course Biology and the Amoeba Sisters on YouTube.

This is accurate (science teacher here). This test isn't about rote knowledge. It's more focused on how well students can read scientific passages, pull evidence from that text, and apply it to a situation or question. The goal is that they should have been prepared from previous classes to be comfortable finding answers on their own from text. You can look at it as a snapshot of how well they can interpret data essentially; the 9th-grade test is life science-based as that's a science all students are required to take in high school.

If you haven't seen this yet, there are practice sets here. Again, plan for a lot of reading.

https://itempra.org/public/coll-science-life-science-misa

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The MISA is 20% of the semester B grade. Why would you not care about the MISA?

Isn’t it 20% if the year grade, or 40% of the semester B grade?

[Anonymous]

How does the score on the test translate to the class grade? Eg is a 4 an A, 3 B, 2C?

[Anonymous]

Would practicing for the ACT science section help? Is that the sort of questioning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does the score on the test translate to the class grade? Eg is a 4 an A, 3 B, 2C?

“The Semester B final grade for these aligned courses will be made up of the marking period 3 grade (40%), the marking period 4 grade (40%) and the MCAP End of Course (EOC) exam grade (20%). ”
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/curriculum/eoc/mcps_eoc_studentflyerwfaqs.pdf

It’s not clear yet how the county will roll in the data (% or letter grade), or if they will do a true averaging on percentages or on letter grade quality points (which is how they used to do semester exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The test isn’t content knowledge. It’s a reading, applying, and writing test. You have found all of the publically available practice. If you look at those you will see that there is information provided in the form of readings, charts, tables, and graphs, and then students have to make sense of it.

If you want to fill in content knowledge gaps, watch Crash Course Biology and the Amoeba Sisters on YouTube.

This is accurate (science teacher here). This test isn't about rote knowledge. It's more focused on how well students can read scientific passages, pull evidence from that text, and apply it to a situation or question. The goal is that they should have been prepared from previous classes to be comfortable finding answers on their own from text. You can look at it as a snapshot of how well they can interpret data essentially; the 9th-grade test is life science-based as that's a science all students are required to take in high school.

If you haven't seen this yet, there are practice sets here. Again, plan for a lot of reading.

https://itempra.org/public/coll-science-life-science-misa

OP here. Thank you! Very helpful!
No, I am not the same person complaining about "Asian" teacher. FWIW, English is not my first language either, so I do have an accent myself. The teacher in question is from EU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does the score on the test translate to the class grade? Eg is a 4 an A, 3 B, 2C?

Our teacher released the table link with conversions
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CyVo3XgTAE0-Ku9D5EtFqozQ1NfqfaGS9yxOb2Ia-no/edit#gid=0
I was trying to post a snip, but cant get the picture to load

[Anonymous]

Thanks to PP for posting that snippet.

I'm still wondering if the l 4 will transfer to a A, 3 will transfer to a B, level 2 will be a C, etc. If so, that sounds like a lot of C's and a fair amount of D's, considering how kids have performed on these MCAP tests in the past...