Benchmark questions for 3rd grader have me questioning my sanity
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Anonymous
I am totally willing to believe this is my own and my kid's own problem-- if you can "show evidence from the text" that's the case. 
This is very TL;DR, so be forewarned. My bright kid, who tests extremely well in reading comprehension, is becoming so frustrated with the paragraph prompts from her Benchmark reading (literature and social studies). I looked at them, and I'm right there with her. A good percentage of the questions are just... so esoteric or poorly-written or... seemingly just plain silly? Nearly tautological? I am a 43-year-old writer, and I find them really challenging to answer, or to know what the writers are looking for in response. "Why is it important to understand how a character's actions affect the events of a story?" How would you, commenter on DCUM, answer that question? I mean, I can come up with an answer, though I think the question is nearly word salad. It's the kind of thing that seems like a fine question, I understand all of the words in it, but an answer is... what? There are so many dependencies, it's like a nested equation of generic literary terms. It feels like AI wrote it. "It is important to understand how a character's actions affect the events of a story because understanding that gives you a window into their motivations, thoughts, feelings...?" No, that doesn't exactly answer the question, does it? The question is about how a character's actions affect the events of the story. Perhaps we can call that "plot." So how do the character's actions affect the plot? Well, mostly (not always) they... cause events in the plot. Or they react to them, but that doesn't necessarily "affect" those events. Or the character's actions are the events in the plot. (Note this question is not about one specific character! It's a general question!) So, okay, "why is it important to understand" that? Um, I guess... it's important to understand that actions cause or are events so that... we understand... characters drive a plot? And why is that... important? So we can pay more attention to characters? For... reasons? Ummm... Maybe the answer is obvious to you! I find it challenging. I could even say, "Well, I think what they're trying to ask is [something more comprehensible]" but that requires me to figure out what I think they meant to ask, and not answer the question they actually asked. Other questions seem hastily pasted together, like this one: "Write a paragraph explaining what were [sic] the sequential text connections in 'African Americans Win the Right to Vote?' [sic-- it's titled differently] How did these text connections help you understand how African Americans won the right to vote?" I assume this started out as a simple "What were the sequential text connections..." but they decided to slap on a "Write a paragraph explaining," which challenged my kid to come up with at least 2 more sentences answering the second part of the question, which seems to be asking, "How did words like 'so' and 'then' and 'after that,' help you understand... how African Americans won the right to vote?" She did answer that those words show order and cause and effect, but it was challenging because those answers seemed "too obvious" and "stupid" to her. The ambiguity of the word "how" is also challenging here because the words in question help you know "how it went down" in history, kind of, but they do NOT necessarily tell you "how they achieved the thing," which is more like "they boycotted and marched and so on," which is where I think a kid's mind would go, rendering the question even more confusing... Sigh. If these questions are cobbled together, that might explain why some of them ask pretty esoteric questions that require inference (fine!) but then say "Illustrate your answer with 2-3 examples from the text" of which there either aren't any examples, or they're only implied, which seems like a challenging request of 8-year-olds to "find in the text." I'm starting to suspect they just slap "Write a paragraph explaining" and "show evidence from the text" on every question, even when it's not helpful or applicable. I searched DCUM and only found one comment decrying these questions as baffling-- obviously I concur. Some were frustrated that they don't have "one right answer," and that is definitely not my complaint. I think the idea behind these (?) questions promotes deeper thinking, but they... kinda suck. Are your kids acing them? Maybe it's just us? And if so, please share your secrets on how to break these down! |
Anonymous
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Ha, I remember this from my DC's virtual year. It's all just jargon--meant, I assume, to convey the appearance of rigor. (Without actually, y'know, any actual rigor.)
Why not just: What are the effects of [character A's] actions? Why do you think character A took these actions? What parts of the story support your ideas about character A? (Please circle sentences.) |
Anonymous
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We've encountered esoteric questions on Eureka math word problems as well and yes they're annoying and seemingly pointless. For example, a second grade math question: why did person A choose to count in this manner? (?)
What we do is take a stab at it, get feedback from the teacher if that was not the answer they were looking for. From there we recalibrate to give the teacher the type of answers they want, if that makes any sense. |
Anonymous
| Thank you, OP, for articulating all of this. I also found this maddening when we did 3rd grade in Spring 2020 at the start of virtual learning. We were lucky/happy to escape to the CES curriculum for 4th grade. It is like night and day. |
Anonymous
| Benchmark is absolutely awful. I cannot fathom why MCPS chose this awful curriculum, especially since it wasn't actually recommended by external experts. I wish they would invest in a decent ELA curriculum. |
Anonymous
| OP, I think you're overthinking it. |
Anonymous
Your questions are so much better! |
Anonymous
| I could not agree with you more. |
Anonymous
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OP here.
THANK YOU for the validation! The person who said "What we do is take a stab at it, get feedback from the teacher if that was not the answer they were looking for. From there we recalibrate to give the teacher the type of answers they want, if that makes any sense"-- Yes, it makes sense! That's where we landed, but it did take some talking my kid down. I could not possibly care less about her grade, I told her sometimes you just have to take a guess and have the teacher explain where you can improve or modify. It just really bugged her that she couldn't understand the questions, or why they were being asked. I think she internalized this as there being something wrong with her (DD). That's a separate issue, and probably the main one here! You can maybe see where she gets it from. :/ To the person telling me I'm overthinking it... yes? Sure? Again, IDGAF about how or even if she answers these questions. I don't even normally help her at all with her homework, not even to act as a sounding board. But I did want to confirm the problem is not ours. It really helps to know it's not. (And if anyone is rolling their eyes and thinking "OF COURSE it's a problem with Benchmark, and not you"-- I am sometimes quite sincerely unsure. It's probably insecurity based on my ADHD brain. It sometimes can't seem to wrap itself around solutions that seem clear to others. So, I check.) Unless you meant, "You're overthinking it, the answers to those questions are obvious," in which case, do share with the class. Even if she doesn't attend the CES, her home school has some sort of "enhanced" literary curriculum in 4th/5th. Will that be better, or is it still Benchmark? |
Anonymous
I agree!! And sometimes you do see something more sensical like this. But like 1/3 of the questions are total jargon (that's definitely the word for it, PP). -OP |
Anonymous
OP I'm with you, at least on your quoted question. To be fair, the teachers would give some of the kids guidance on what they are looking for in an answer. But on the whole it's disappointing. Wait till your kid gets to 5th grade and one of the consumables is completely devoted to - I kid you not - corn... |
Anonymous
+1 My kid is in 4th now and I agree. PP, your questions are much better. |
Anonymous
Yeah true but had these been the actual questions from the benchmark reading and not from an anonymous poster, you and the other posters would be complaining that these questions are too easy, no rigor not challenging and it is proof that the curriculum is watered down and MCPS is going down the toilet. MCPS just cannot win |
Anonymous
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I remember that from my kids elementary days. So frustrating. Many prompts were grammatically incorrect or confounding nonsense. There were often multiple ways to interpret a question if you have a strong vocabulary. I think several things are going on: 1) some teachers/worksheet creators have a terrible grasp of language, especially the ones writing math word problems, 2) some try to change a question copied from somewhere else to "make it their own" and end up creating a confusing mess with their changes, and 3) the question writer assumes you only know of one way to think about the topic, which is the way that was taught in class.
I told my kid to think back to class, and based on what the teacher has been talking about, what do you think the teacher wants you to write about? How would the teacher answer this question? That usually works. Otherwise, we say, answer based on your best guess about what is being asked and that is good enough. If the kid is freaking out, we say, put a question mark and note that the question doesn't make sense to you, and we initial it, so they know we tried. |
Anonymous
DH and I always laugh at the objections lawyers would raise to these kinds of questions. We are tempted to instruct our little witnesses not to answer, lol. |