MAP-M - what's on the test?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids went to school abroad but will be going to MCPS in the Fall. What is on the MAP-M test? It is more quantitive reasoning or it covers some advanced math?

The oldest kid went to local school and followed their math curriculum. They have some algebra in 7th, and they had some geometry. But they haven't done (and won't do) quadratic equations and functions this year, for example.

To return to the original poster’s question. MAP is a 42 question test that adjusts the questions according to the responder’s patterns of answering previous questions. If your child does well on grade level math, they will see some challenge questions which will test the limits of their ability. Most questions are presented in a word problem context and all have multiple choice answers. There are no trick questions.

You can do the MAP tests ahead of time on your own through Homeschool Boss. MCPS accepts those scores and they can be helpful in doing placement for your students in their classes.

MAP-M is usually a 40-some question test. It's adaptive and can vary in the number of questions.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:can someone explain how do your kids get to learn trigonometry in fifth grade? why are they doing it?

Parents who sign their children up for things like aops or RSM. There's a reason a bus takes kids to after school prep from the same ES that offers AIM to 5th graders. Their kids from that same school who are taking honor's geometry in 6th. Some families really value education and push their kids. I'm fine with it personally. In fact, why not let kids go at their own pace?

which elementary is this?

Btw we value education, and we value math, but trigonometry in middle school doesn't make sense for 99.9999% children. I've known several medalists from math olympiads and none of them did trig in elementary school. There are many, many difficult math problems to master before you move on to the next concept.

Cold Spring is the one most often mentioned here. (If you ignore the posts about fictitious schools intended to foster consternation.)

The school's administration apparently has facilitated ongoing family requests for this for years. Other elementaries may have interested students, but families can run into variable opposition from school admin; making this happen can be logistically difficult. Presumably, CSES has a large group of families requesting it to go along with the ingrained pattern. From some of what MCPS has said, I'd think it's more Algebra in 6th than Geometry, but it's possible some outliers among this outlier situation do that, and there are reported to be a handful of students getting that kind of fourth-tier extra acceleration in one-off situations outside of CSES.

All good if:

The pull came from student interest/well identified capability and not just family push, and

Families and students fully understood the downstream effects (e.g., super-advanced classes that would need to be taken in high school), and

The differential cost of providing the class was minimal/didn't interfere significantly with other programming needs of higher priority, and

MCPS acknowledged it openly instead of effectively hiding it, making sure that similar accommodation was available to students anywhere else in the system (as a PP noted, there really are kids who just love Math; I know an ES student who since at least 3rd grade has gravitated to Math texts -- the adult kind -- when they went to the library), and

MCPS didn't use criteria for magnet eligibility or selection that are directly affected by this exposure (less of a concern, of course, if there were to be equivalent awareness/access across the system).

That's actually not true. I remember when DC was 8 and scoring over 250 on their MAP-M, I asked our principal if there were any acceleration available and they said absolutely not. They were bored silly during compacted math. They only offer these options at the wealthy schools.

Yes, this has been discussed many times and enrichment in math is mostly only available at the wealthy Potomac schools.

I don't have access to any real data, but all the 6th graders DC knows from TPMS this past year that are in Algebra+ came from WPES, where they had classes like AIM offered to entire groups of students in 4th or 5th grade. Sure, I guess there may be one or maybe two exceptions whose parents somehow bullied their school admin into allowing acceleration elsewhere but we haven't seen that so it is far less common if it exists at all.

Just stop with this ridiculous acronym. There is no such WPES and you (and only you) repeatedly using that acronym won’t make it a thing.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure that the poster (possibly posters?) who incessantly mention the fictional "WPES" or "Wealthy Potomac" in their posts about anything related to Math acceleration are simply trying to undercut any sensible equity argument by casting it in the most polarized light, even when they know that is incorrect.

Candidate agendas:

The Central Administrator -- This person would not want to have to make the effort to change things towards broader equity, either from a preference for narrow equity goals, from being in the pocket of special interests that want a continuation of established regional bias, or from laziness.

The We-Got-Ours Striving Parent -- This person would want to keep as much confusion going as possible to delay any change that would tend to provide broader benefit than currently exists, as their kids attend Cold Spring (or another elementary school that hides its facilitation of large-group extra acceleration) and the noted outside enrichment programs.

The Potomac-Area Real Estate Agent -- Unlikely as it might be, given the clearly snooty tone that is aimed to rile and keep folks from sympathy, it's always possible, I suppose, that there's someone in that industry this tone deaf, hoping to push a valuation or two.

Mrs. Peacock

Professor Plum

and Donald Sutherland as The Clumsy Waiter!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does WPES stand for?

Wealty Potomac Elementary School. A mythical place where they offer Algebra in 5th grade to jumpstart the math curriculum.

Not so mythical since there are 2-3 kids from WPES 6th graders currently at TPMS who had Algebra in 5th and are in DC's magnet geometry class.

That was true when my kids were there a couple of years ago, too. I'm not sure why a few want to cover this up either, but it's not a well-kept secret.