Practice Exam Part 2

I marked the multiple choice section of the second practice exam, just to gauge where the students are and identify students who will need some extra sessions for the next 4 weeks in order to have any chance of passing the exam with a 65 or better. Let's just say the panic I mentioned in the previous post is pretty well justified. I walked around during the exam and noted that students were struggling with the written response questions, so I decided not to mark those sections directly - I don't want to dash their hopes! Instead, I will have students work with each other in discussing and revising those sections next week. We will then go over together using Annie Chien's Regents Review Community.

I can't get over the fact that in one class I could have a student score 32 out of 35 multiple choice questions correct and another student score 8 out of 35 questions. The average was around 20. Keep in mind that using scaled scoring, for the whole exam a raw score of 39 out of 85 is passing with a 65 - that's only 46%. Using that same percentage, 16 out of 35 on the multiple choice section would be a passing score. Of course I realize that the multiple choice questions may be a little easier, especially for my writing-challenged students, but still I have some hope that a high percentage will pass the thing.

I've scheduled three days per week after school, for about 30-40 students (out of 90!) who need help, some more than others. My colleague who teaches one section will take one day, I will take the other two. I don't expect all students to show up for all three days, and there will probably be some overlap in the review topics. We will break them into smaller groups of 10-12 students.

I thought January 2005 was a particularly difficult version of the exam, certainly harder than the practice exam we did for midterms (June 2004 exam). Are the January exams intentionally more difficult?