{"id":313,"date":"2007-11-07T07:18:55","date_gmt":"2007-11-07T11:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=313"},"modified":"2008-08-05T20:08:01","modified_gmt":"2008-08-06T00:08:01","slug":"take-the-science-fcat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=313","title":{"rendered":"Take the science FCAT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you taken the science FCAT yet? You can take the eighth grade exam<\/a> posted by the Fl Dept. of Education to get a feel for what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like. I took the 45-question test and only stumbled over one answer because I had forgotten some things concerning potential and kinetic energy. Hey, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been two decades since the eighth grade for me; cut me some slack.<\/p>\n

There were only two questions that required doing math. There were four questions requiring writing. The rest were multiple choice. It seemed to me that many questions practically had the answer in the question itself, but I freely admit that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a teacher or an eighth grader. There was a lot of reasoning required, though, and I like how several questions addressed the very nature of science itself.<\/p>\n

In the answer key, the percentage of students who selected the various multiple-choice answers is given. Question 5 surprised me, as it seems students didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know the difference between a galaxy and a constellation. A lever in question 7 really stumped students, which is disappointing. Somehow, students knew more about muscle cells (question 8 ), which I had to actually stop and think about, than they did simple machines.<\/p>\n

Question 27 required a written answer and was about how an experiment should be done. Unfortunately, a full 50 percent of the students completely missed it. Also of note were the two questions requiring calculating, questions 33 and 34. Students bombed them with only 34 and 23 percent, respectively, getting them right.<\/p>\n

I wonder why so many students thought that gene replication happens in the cell membrane (question 41).<\/p>\n

Take the test and let us know how you did. Is this test a good way to assess eighth graders\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 science knowledge or not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you taken the science FCAT yet? You can take the eighth grade exam posted by the Fl Dept. of Education to get a feel for what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like. I took the 45-question test and only stumbled over one answer … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-53","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1345,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1345","url_meta":{"origin":313,"position":0},"title":"Science FCAT 2011","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Results for Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual science exams taken by 3rd, 8th, and 11th graders were released today. The good news? Scores overall improved since last year. The bad news? The rise in scores is small, and 50 percent of our state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s students aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t proficient in science. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m tired of being a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "FCAT"","block_context":{"text":"FCAT","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=22"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":213,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=213","url_meta":{"origin":313,"position":1},"title":"2007 science FCAT scores","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s science FCAT scores were released today. For those who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know, the FCAT is the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test given annually to all Florida public school children in grades 3 through 11. The FCAT is supposed to measure what students have learned about reading, writing, mathematics and science. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1049,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1049","url_meta":{"origin":313,"position":2},"title":"2009 Science FCAT","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Science FCAT scores are out. The bottom line: fifth and eighth graders had gains, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re small; whereas 11th-graders dropped a bit. Fifth graders have been slowly making gains over the years, which is, of course, what everyone wants to see. According to this sheet (pdf), they went from 43%\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1049#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2147,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2147","url_meta":{"origin":313,"position":3},"title":"It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been downhill ever since …","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida State University physics professor Paul Cottle has an opinion piece in today's Tallahassee Democrat: Science education takes a downward slide. It might give some state Department of Education folks a bit of heartburn. A series of decisions at the state and district levels has eroded the dream of universal\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2147#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1201,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1201","url_meta":{"origin":313,"position":4},"title":"2010 Science FCAT and beyond","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The annual Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test results are finally released. These are exams that students across the state in specific grade levels must take in core subjects. These scores can influence students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 promotion to the next grade, and dictate what the student can or cannot take the next school year,\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1201#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":891,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=891","url_meta":{"origin":313,"position":5},"title":"Insights into Florida science testing","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"David Campbell is a Florida Citizens for Science board member and was featured in a New York TImes article about the teaching of evolution. Here on this blog I've been posting about a movement to eliminate the 11th grade science FCAT and replace it with end-of-course tests. (see here, here\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=891#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}