SUMMER 2015
News
Testing the Test: 2016 vs. ‘the Core’
PAGE 7
Mikayla Knight
Managing Editor
This year, the class
of 2016 became
guinea pigs for the
Smarter Balance
exams, better known
as Common Core.
The computer-based
exam is progressive,
altering its difficulty
level depending on
the student’s responses. Multiple choice
questions have been
replaced with fill in
the blanks; provided
answers have been
eliminated in favor of
pulling straight from
the student’s knowledge base.
Despite a few
classroom discussions
about the new exams, many students
at OCSA feel in the
dark, and have very
limited knowledge
about what the test
will do for them.
In schools across
California, 260 of the
roughly 460 juniors
at Palos Verdes High
School are skipping
the tests, and half the
Palo Alto High School
juniors are opting out,
as well.
“Because students
have no motivation to perform well
on the new tests it
makes sense that
they wouldn’t want
to take it because it
takes time away from
their actual academic schedule,” said junior Gabe Meacham
(IM).
According to Principal Dr. Benjamin
Wolf, “There’s no con
to taking [the test].
It can’t possibly hurt
anyone in any way.
The main pro of taking any test, whether
it’s the old test or
the new test, is that
the student—nevermind the school or
the parents, but the
student—has another means to know
how they stack up
against their competition, and see where
they