Pilot testing met with mixed reactions

Samo recently conducted a pilot Test, which was intended to pinpoint any glitches with the testing material and the format and phrasing of questions.According to Abbie Elian (’15), the questions on the pilot were awkwardly worked and were a drastic departure from the questions on the California Standardized Test (CST).“On the math section it was more challenging than usual, [as was] some of the English,” Elian said. “On the previous tests, I felt that the questions were more straight-forward and easier to understand.”According to Erica Tejada (’15), the computerized format of the test was more efficient, but it wasn’t too comfortable.“I didn’t like staring at a screen so long,” Tejada said. “I almost always had headaches for the remainder of the day.”The only technical difficulties occurred when logging onto the laptops, according to Elian.“It took a while to log on and there were a few glitches, but overall, I feel that it was much more efficient than the handouts,” Elian said.According to Tejada, the questions weren’t more difficult  but they required skills that hadn’t been assessed before, especially with the newly added section that introduced a scenario about measuring a coffee cup and its contents.“The coffee cup section began with one math question requiring a certain formula and if you were unfamiliar with the process, every other question was nearly impossible,” Tejada said.According to Caterina Kachadoorian (’15), memorization would not be useful for the new exam.“[The questions] make you think more in depth,” Kachadoorian said. “Sometimes I found it slightly confusing what they were asking in the math section. The questions were more vague and it was less memorization and more logically based.”bgonzalez@thesamohi.com