New York students can score in Level 2 — good enough for promotion to the next grade — by guessing on the end-of-year exam, claims Diane Ravitch.
Is this really true? The guess pass works, concludes Diane Senechal on Gotham Schools. She answered randomly on the multiple-choice question on the sixth-grade English test. She filled in A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D and so on. She left the written portions of the test blank, earning a zero for that section. Final score: Level 2.
She tried the seventh grade math test using her A, B, C, D method. Final score: Level 2.
While this approach does not result in a 2 for all the tests, it comes a bit too close for comfort, and another guessing system might work. A fifth grader told me that his father had told him, “Just mark ‘C’ for all of the answers, and you will pass.” On the fifth grade ELA test, this would indeed have resulted in a 2.
Via Core Knowledge Blog, which is back in action after a long lay-off due to technical problems.
Update: Dan Botteron used a random-number generator to take the two tests multiple times. On average, half the all-guess tries were scored Level 1 and half reached Level 2. In real life, only .1 percent of students scored at Level 1, he writes.