Anonymous wrote:It is my understanding that the experimental questions are scattered throughout. There is no indication as to which questions are real and which are experimental. If they put them all at the end, kids just wouldn’t do them.

Anonymous wrote:More and more these standardized tests feel like nothing but a money grab and data mining opportunity for testing companies. I don’t like it one bit!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s bad enough they changed to digital midyear, now the practices don’t reflect the test?!

I think this guy has some good theories on why kids were surprised on Saturday. I definitely didn't know that the test included experimental questions that don't even count. I wonder how many kids know that. I do think he had a point that kids get a false sense of security using hacks b/c they aren't learning how to solve all questions, just specific ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emM1Qt1YQzI

The "experimental" questions is interesting: two questions about that:

1) do the blue book practice tests have fewer total questions? By that, I mean if the actual test has more total questions (including a few questions that don't count) but the total amount of time is the same as the practice tests, the time pressure would feel worse with the actual test....

2) do the experimental questions come at the end? If so, that's a bad way to test them (at least some kids would know this and not bother to answer)...but if if they are sprinkled throughout, it seems unfair because kids waste time on "untested" questions that don't count and may not get to all of the questions that have been validated and that do count.