browniegate

October 18, 2006 11:50 AM

Browniegate! Incensed by confusing essay questions in the New York City 4th grade ELA (English Language Assessment) test, a group of parents have created browniethecow.org. Could you answer the question for "Why the Rooster Crows at Dawn" or "The Stolen Moon"?
posted by Armitage Shanks (72 comments total)

But if the point is to "get them writing," doesn't asking a nonsensical question risk undermining that goal?

Well, yes. "The smart kids and the analytical kids have problems with these questions," the state official said. "They drive themselves crazy looking for the right answer."

Exhibit A in why public education is a mess.
posted by empath at 12:00 PM on October 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

that site is as loopy as that test.
posted by milarepa at 12:07 PM on October 18, 2006

What's loopy about it? It seemed completely rational to me.
posted by empath at 12:11 PM on October 18, 2006

The "smart" kids who need to think there is a right answer to everything are just going to have a wonderful time growing up.
posted by xmutex at 12:14 PM on October 18, 2006

"I didn't think the test made that much sense. I felt good and confident when I was going to take the test. I listened to the story about the rooster (I couldn't look at it). They read it twice,

WTF, the kids don't even get to read the passage?
posted by sciurus at 12:18 PM on October 18, 2006

I vaguely recall things like this (the IOWA test, maybe?) from going to grade school in the 70s. It was common to get a short passage, and then get a few questions that were baldly misleading, wrong or else not were not quite what they seemed.

You could either (1) assume that the question was phrased incorrectly, and answer the question you though the examiner was really trying to ask, or (2) you could answer the presented question directly and berate the examiner for being so stupid.

I don't know if it was a good tactic or not, but I always chose the latter to somewhat good effect.

I always assumed in such cases that the standardized test was written to determine not analytical ability, but whether the student was actually paying attention to both the story and the question.
posted by psmealey at 12:18 PM on October 18, 2006

Personally I think that question is great preparation for life in which there are never correct answers and you are generally lacking in most of the info needed to 'properly' respond. Kids obsessed with being correct rather than with finding a solution that is acceptable and moving on generally end up as adults screaming at each other in MetaTalk.
posted by spicynuts at 12:20 PM on October 18, 2006

An oral "reading" comprehension test might make sense for young kids, but 4th Grade? Wow. Nevertheless, the answer seemed pretty cut and dry to me, but maybe it's less obvious in the original. Shrug. Nevertheless, I'm not particularly surprised that they found lots of adults that couldn't grok the 4th Grade comprehension test. TV news copy is written at an elementary school level for a reason.

Mark this up to overzealous parents. You'd think they'd have bigger fish to fry, or they could, you know, spend this time volunteering in the classroom.
posted by Skwirl at 12:30 PM on October 18, 2006

Err, on reread, the parents' website makes some good points, but they're kinda dumb pinning their point on the Brownie question.
posted by Skwirl at 12:31 PM on October 18, 2006

I think the Brownie the Cow question is fine, and not nonsensical at all. BtC was a prominent character in the story and a major driver of the plot. Just because the kids expect the question to be about the rooster doesn't mean it's nonsensical to not ask about the rooster.
posted by effwerd at 12:33 PM on October 18, 2006

Personally I think that question is great preparation for life in which there are never correct answers and you are generally lacking in most of the info needed to 'properly' respond. Kids obsessed with being correct rather than with finding a solution that is acceptable and moving on generally end up as adults screaming at each other in MetaTalk.

But this isn't just some random test that might teach them an important lesson about life.

This is a test that's used for placement in schools. Without a certain score on this test the student won't even be considered for admission. Maybe life doesn't often have right answers, but a shitty test that will have a profound impact on a child's future isn't the right place to make that point.
posted by bshort at 12:37 PM on October 18, 2006

Personally I think that question is great preparation for life in which there are never correct answers and you are generally lacking in most of the info needed to 'properly' respond. Kids obsessed with being correct rather than with finding a solution that is acceptable and moving on generally end up as adults screaming at each other in MetaTalk.

While I agree somewhat with your position, it's important to note that kids aren't born expecting a "right answer" for everything - that's something taught by parents and schools.

Furthermore, it's important to note that, for the Brownie question, the kids didn't have the question before hearing the story. One kid said that he or she took a notes on what he or she thought was important to the story, but that the cows just didn't seem like the main characters.

Also, can it really be said that the cows changed? It seems to me like they were Metafilterian at the beginning and Metafilterian at the end, which is the "wrong" answer according to the one test administrator they interviewed.
posted by muddgirl at 12:37 PM on October 18, 2006

spicynuts, oh you are so going to get it, i will see you in metatalk for that quip mister.

J/K :)
posted by nola at 12:50 PM on October 18, 2006

I don't think it was a terrible question. Not Standardized Test Hall of Fame material, but not terrible. It's funny that these parents have a kid in 4th grade and they seem to have only just noticed that crappy standardized tests have completely taken over the U.S. public school system.

In theory at least, the state tests all these questions to make sure that kids can actually answer them. And if all the kids had to take the same test, doesn't that kind of even things out? Or are the parents just worried that the smart kids who overthink everything won't get as far as some of their dimmer peers? Because that actually would be good practice for real life.
posted by 912 Greens at 12:53 PM on October 18, 2006

A long time ago in a small school in rural Tennessee, I remember taking one of these tests and the reading bit was about the Battle for the Alamo. One of the questions concerned whether the rebels should have stayed and fought or tried to retreat before the overwhelming forces of Gen. Santa Anna. As the good red-blooded American child I was, I said they should have stayed and fought. I remember very clearly the teacher telling me that I had given the wrong answer, and from that point on I viewed my public education with a jaundiced eye. A very important lesson, even if it was not the one they had intended me to learn. (I'm not going to stoop to give them credit for challenging me on purpose.)

So to all those kids taking these horrible tests I say, "Here you have your first proof that adults are just as stupid and idiotic as you are. Feel free to ignore them and find your own way."
posted by 1f2frfbf at 1:02 PM on October 18, 2006

and then a man with a truck came and put brownie the cow and the rooster in it ... five days later, brownie the cow was in mcdonalds' and the rooster was in kfc

the end
posted by pyramid termite at 1:03 PM on October 18, 2006

I said they should have stayed and fought. I remember very clearly the teacher telling me that I had given the wrong answer

good thing she wasn't teaching in texas ... i can just imagine the furor over that ...
posted by pyramid termite at 1:05 PM on October 18, 2006

Here's one way of reasoning through it. We have a story here where a cow is said to be kind, and then plays a joke on a rooster who is brash and arrogant. All the story says is "a joke" not "a mean joke" or anything leading the child to believe it's at all not kind hearted.

In fact, the kids are going to probably notice that Brownie's joke was meant to keep the rooster safe, and keep its arrogance down (or, at least, make its arrogance tolerable by turning it into amusement). As such, the joke would not be concieved of as "mean". Brownie (the "kindest of all cows") at the end of the story is still the same story at the beginning. So, the question can be seen as a trick question.

The trouble, of course, comes from a fifth grader's lack of introspection. They aren't going to be able to say "hey, that joke could really be a way of keeping it safe and, plus, the rooster is an asshole". All they are going to be able to say is "the joke doesn't make me feel bad for the rooster" without being able to say why ("well, he's a prick and Brownie's just trying to keep him safe")

And now they are being asked what's different! Now they have to figure out what's wrong with their reasoning by finding some magic turn of language used in the story! The smart kids will dig deep into their understanding of vocabulary and meaning but, limited by their own lack of introspection (that which we normally say is the difference between immaturity and maturity), they will be unable to see the falsehood contained in the question!

Who expects a trick question on a standardized test? And who few fifth grader's could see one for what it is?

Warm and fuzzy, we feel for Brownie. Cold, and sharp for the rooster. And confused and sad for the students.
posted by jmhodges at 1:11 PM on October 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

Heck of a job on the Brownie question.
posted by caddis at 1:12 PM on October 18, 2006

They're waiting for the one kid who doesn't believe in "no-win situations" to hack the system and change the scoring so that it is possible to win the question. Then we can send him to Starfleet Academy, and everything will be fine.

KHAAAAANNNN!!!!!!
posted by yhbc at 1:21 PM on October 18, 2006

jmhodges, Don't forget, the kids were only READ the Brownie question. There's no question of going back and puzzling over the exact wording.

That's what makes it such an insane question. No kid is going to make more than the most cursory note on Brownie and his mindset because he doesn't seem to be THAT important to the story.

Of course, this could lead into a rant about making kids read stories solely to pick up obscure facts in the text, but that's another matter. (it involves my wife reading "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" to a bunch of elementary kids)
posted by InnocentBystander at 1:26 PM on October 18, 2006

Oh, yeah. This totally Ender's Game, redux.
posted by jmhodges at 1:31 PM on October 18, 2006

This *is*..
posted by jmhodges at 1:31 PM on October 18, 2006

Here's a relevant passage from the third link:

The state's testing contractor, CTB/McGraw Hill, developed two sets of questions about the "Rooster" passage, we're told. The first set asked students to write about how the rooster changed. But the "test development team" convened by the Department of Education rejected those questions. The Education official told us that the teachers on this panel felt that the questions about the rooster required students to analyze changes in the rooster's thinking, rather than "outward" changes in the rooster's behavior, and that this was too complex or ambiguous. So the panel rejected CTB/McGraw Hill's questions about the rooster, and instead selected the back-up questions about the cow.

In other words, the Department of Education not only tried to "dumb down" the question's content, but they failed miserably in the attempt. On some level, I can't believe we're arguing about this. Except for George Orwell's Animal Farm, any story about anthropomorphic cows and roosters is going to be infantile, asinine twaddle. That's the real scandal. You could put in some quality writers, such as Toni Morrison or Kurt Vonnegut, but that would just get the fundamentalist book banners riled up.
posted by jonp72 at 1:34 PM on October 18, 2006

Q: What's stick and brownie?
A: A brown!

Bonus riddle:
Q: Who's Berowne stuck on?
A: Rosaline!
posted by pracowity at 1:43 PM on October 18, 2006

InnocentBystander: Yes! I totally forgot about that. Even worse, the "right" answer is apparently not that "Brownie doesn't change and the question is a trick question". We are somehow supposed to conclude that Brownie was acting "mean", when I think both a superficial and a deep reading would say that Brownie was doing right the whole way through! (Unless, we talk deconstruction, but then I just want to club people's heads in.)

jonp72: Charlott'es Web is asinine twaddle? Aesop's fables, too? The latter I might give you, but there's a lot of good stuff involving anthropomorphic animals.

(Oh, and "still the same story at the beginning" should be "still the nice Brownie at the beginning of the story". Actually, there's typos all through it. My bad.)
posted by jmhodges at 1:44 PM on October 18, 2006

It's a terrible question, but who cares? If all the students take the same test, then they're all on the same curve for middle school admissions. These parents are setting a pretty bad example for the kids -- and their kids will be the ones who grow up to argue with their college professors about how they "deserve" an A.
posted by footnote at 1:48 PM on October 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

It's a terrible question, but who cares? If all the students take the same test, then they're all on the same curve for middle school admissions.

By this logic, here is my submission for a question:

"Yankee Doodle went to town,
Riding on a pony,
Put a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.

Which town did Yankee Doodle go to? Support your answer with details from the story."

Sure, it's a terrible question, but who cares? All the students have to answer it, right? Or what about this one?

"gnakjdabuohbafdslnba. Discuss."

Come on, footnote. Surely the fact that all students take the same test is not a reason to not worry about the legitimacy of the questions on said test.
posted by Kwine at 1:59 PM on October 18, 2006

There are so many problems with public education it's hard to know where to begin. But here's a start -- reform the MA and PHD system for Education majors. Any good teacher will tell you that getting accredited for public school is mostly a joke, and the people who teach the courses don't actually teach kids, they write really tedious papers that wouldn't pass must in Psychology departments.

I'm happy to see the parents doing something about this, but it takes so much of their time and energy to fight an infrastructure that is hopefully inept.

And while I guess this puts me in line with right wingers always ranting about teachers' unions and the need for home-schooling, well, I do think they have a point. I'd like to see us save public education rather than scrap it though (a huge difference).
posted by bardic at 2:04 PM on October 18, 2006

I just looked up how old children are in the fourth grade, and am now completely gobsmacked. The text in the reading comprehension section of my secondary school entrance exam was an excerpt from the Merchant of sodding Venice - I'd've killed for an ambiguous question about a cow!
posted by jack_mo at 2:07 PM on October 18, 2006

I think the Brownie the Cow question is fine, and not nonsensical at all. BtC was a prominent character in the story and a major driver of the plot.

The character of Brownie stands quite by itself. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Brownie is as little of the hero as a cow can well be : but she is a young and princely bovine, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility - the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on her own feelings, and forced from the natural bias of her disposition by the strangeness of her situation. She seems incapable of deliberate action, and is only hurried into extremities on the spur of the occasion, when she has no time to reflect. At other times, when she is most bound to act, she remains puzzled, undecided, and sceptical, dallies with her purposes, till the occasion is lost, and finds out some pretence to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again. For this reason she tells the rooster a false tale, and by a refinement in malice, which is in truth only an excuse for her own want of resolution, joins the other cows in malicious laughter.

--Hazlitt on Brownie the Cow
posted by languagehat at 2:09 PM on October 18, 2006 [2 favorites]

I attended Chicago public schools, and always aced the standardized (IOWA et al) tests with no difficulty. I'm now in my mid-thirties, and can only see one "correct" answer to the Brownie question: in the beginning, Brownie was inclined to protect the Rooster, but the Rooster rebuffed Brownie's attempt to protect him, so Brownie became less inclined to protect him and more inclined to exploit his arrogance for the personal amusement of the cows. I'll tell you what, though; I still had to go back and read it again to draw that conclusion, because (like the 4th grader quoted), it didn't occur to me that the cow might be the subject of the question.

So, in my (possibly poorly) educated opinion:

Asking a question about a lesser character? Fine.

Preventing students from listening to the story again after reading the question? Fine.

Both combined, at the 4th grade level? Sketchy.

Using the results to determine who does and doesn't get into the better schools? Really sketchy.

Small note: when you set up a testing situation like this, where advance knowledge of the question strongly impacts your ability to answer it correctly -- even when you don't know the answer itself -- is going to benefit kids who have siblings who took the test first, and came home to complain about the question.
posted by davejay at 2:11 PM on October 18, 2006

To clarify: I think the question is terrible and irritating, but I'm guessing that the main reason the parents are upset is not because their little Suzie was forced to take an illogical test. Their up in arms because little snookums got a low score which they think is going to keep their precious genius from getting admitted to an elite NYC middle school she DESERVES to get into!

But I don't understand why it matters -- if everyone takes the same test, then everyone is equally hurt by the poorly designed questions, and nobody has an advantage in the middle school admissions.
posted by footnote at 2:11 PM on October 18, 2006

er, it's, not is.
posted by davejay at 2:12 PM on October 18, 2006

In retaliation for being mean to the Rooster, Brownie felt it necessary to make it up to him. One obvious way for a female to make it up to a male is.........

Heckuva Job, Brownie.
posted by Sk4n at 2:14 PM on October 18, 2006

jack_mo: Yes, and you walked uphill both ways, right? What was the asked about the Merchant of Venice? Was it just an excerpt or the whole thing? What excerpt? I'm betting it was easier than you remember it. Most things are.

footnote: Asking non-sensical questions on a test is bad by the very definion of "test", even one properly statistically weighted. See Kwine's comment above. It's just bad pedagogy.
posted by jmhodges at 2:17 PM on October 18, 2006

But I don't understand why it matters -- if everyone takes the same test, then everyone is equally hurt by the poorly designed questions, and nobody has an advantage in the middle school admissions.

More importantly, by publicizing this question, they're doing a good job of rendering it moot; if every parent of a 4th grader in New York warns their children about this question, all of the kids will have no difficulty with it, and it will need to be changed.

Or they'll need to wait until the publicity stops and people have forgotten about it, for it to have an impact again.

So I guess this publicity ensures that the next few years' worth of children raised by active, aware, socially-networked parents will have an advantage over those raised by other parents, especially those that moved to New York recently (and so have no social connections.)
posted by davejay at 2:17 PM on October 18, 2006

Hey, why don't we just give them completely abstract questions so there's NO chance of their brains engaging?


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought

1)At what time is this story set?
2)What best describes the borogoves?
3)Why should the Bandersnatch be shunned?

See, it's easy! ANYONE can answer these questions - so long as they make no attempt whatsoever to comprehend the story.

Just like with Brownie the Cow.
posted by InnocentBystander at 2:18 PM on October 18, 2006

jack_mo: Bonus, secondary schools in the US are 8th-12th grade (sometimes 6th or 7th to 12th grade, if you want to include middle school). Fourth graders are 10 or 11 years old. Not 12 or 13 or 14 or higher. Those few years are huge differences in ability.
posted by jmhodges at 2:21 PM on October 18, 2006

Reading my own comment, I realized there's a specific set of parents whose children will have difficulty with this question even with all the publicity -- that is, the publicity that ensures the next few years' worth of kids will be expecting the question, and so won't have their scores negatively impacted by it: poor immigrants.

If they're poor, they might not have computers and internet access, and might not have the time to do the kind of research that turns up stuff like this.

If they're immigrants, they might not speak the language very well -- and neither might their kids, which already puts them at a disadvantage with the question -- and they're certainly not going to be as well-networked socially at first.

So well done! This question, and the publicity surrounding it, will inadvertently help keep poor immigrant kids out of the best schools for a few (more) years!

Heckuvablahblahblah.
posted by davejay at 2:22 PM on October 18, 2006

Gold star for languagehat! Why couldn't the 4th graders be so insightful? It's all there in the story.
posted by effwerd at 2:27 PM on October 18, 2006

jmhodges: Fourth graders are 10 or 11 years old.

I always thought 4th graders were closer to 9-10, not 10-11. I know that's how old I was in 4th grade.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 2:46 PM on October 18, 2006

This is a test that's used for placement in schools. Without a certain score on this test the student won't even be considered for admission. Maybe life doesn't often have right answers, but a shitty test that will have a profound impact on a child's future isn't the right place to make that point.

Isn't that an argument against any selection whatsoever, rather than an argument against one particular test then?

And while I don't recall anything as advanced as The Merchant of Venice when I sat the eleven plus, I do recall that it was all a damn sight more advanced than Brownie The Cow and her rooster pal. We left that level of stuff behind when we moved from Infants to Junior school at seven or eight.

Last point: isn't the clue to the fact that the story is about Brownie that she's important enough to be given a name, whereas the rooster is just a rooster?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:51 PM on October 18, 2006

You're right, Hal. You may now laugh at the guy with the B.S. in Physics who apparently can't check himself against simple math.
posted by jmhodges at 2:52 PM on October 18, 2006

On re-reading jackmo's point, I see that he got a question on the Merchant of Venice in a school entrance exam. No doubt for some posh selective school. In which case, such a question would be absolutely typical, and yes, the kids that they'd be aimed at would be eleven as well -- but those kids would be the brightest and the best -- at least, they would be if they wanted to go for free.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:55 PM on October 18, 2006

But I don't understand why it matters -- if everyone takes the same test, then everyone is equally hurt by the poorly designed questions, and nobody has an advantage in the middle school admissions.

Everyone is not equally hurt by having the same questions. Make the test in Spanish, and kids who can't read it are hurt more than kids who can. Make the test in ridiculously small print, and kids with better eyesight have an advantage. Make a question unanswerable without resorting to crap answers, and the test favors kids who are good at bullshitting, not kids who are good at writing, which is what the test is designed to test.
posted by 23skidoo at 3:00 PM on October 18, 2006

A few points to consider:

1. Schools and school districts use these results for a variety of purposes, one of which is grading the teachers and the level of instruction at particular elementary schools. If, for example, this year's fourth graders perform worse on the exams than last year's fourth graders, every parent in town starts to question whether the teachers have gone downhill. They start to talk about what needs to change, and all of this results in a snowball effect of teachers teaching the tests rather than the subjects.

Most superintendents or educational experts will tell you that you should only judge within a particular cohort -- that is, one group of students -- but in reality New Yorkers have taken these tests as serious indicators of instruction. Local newspapers publish these test results every year, alongside test results from the previous four years, and leave parents and other community members to draw their own conclusions. Brownie the cow is important for that reason alone. If nothing else, the community needs to be aware that the test is imperfect and cannot be used as a clear indicator of the quality of instruction or of how much children are learning.

2. The main problem with the Brownie question, in my mind, is that this is an essay question. There is a clear difference between listening comprehension questions (How many dogs bark at the beginning of the story? Why does Brownie warn the rooster to leave the field?) and essay questions, which should be more open-ended. Is it even a good idea to combine listening comprehension and essay writing? Should these not be two separate sections? If the point is to find out how well the students write, why ask this sort of question?

(Smaller nitpicky points: The test questions generally change from year to year, and fourth graders are usually either nine or 10 rather than 10 or 11.)
posted by brina at 3:04 PM on October 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

Make a question unanswerable without resorting to crap answers, and the test favors kids who are good at bullshitting, not kids who are good at writing, which is what the test is designed to test.
posted by 23skidoo at 6:00 PM EST on October 18 [+] [!]

Eh, I think that basic test taking and critical thinking and writing skills include *making up a plausible answer* even when the question makes no sense to you.

I'm not at all saying that I think this particular test is a good idea, or that testing is a good way to decide who gets into sought-after schools. I'm only saying that the extent to which a test can be an objective evaluation instrument, one bad question shouldn't make a difference. If you start to take into account factors like "that question favors kids who can bullshit!" then you're just questioning the entire premise of objective testing.
posted by footnote at 3:10 PM on October 18, 2006

I don't find these questions bad at all. Is there something wrong with me?
posted by sunshinesky at 3:32 PM on October 18, 2006

For some reason I can't get the nagging thought out of my head that, the reason the parents are angry is because the answer is not simple as right and wrong. It is a test that their kids cannot study for; they are simply supposed to answer the questions. No amount of studying will help. The kids are pretty much on their own. (Unless they have been clued in by an older student)
Or I can be entirely wrong...
posted by hexxed at 3:36 PM on October 18, 2006

Make a question unanswerable without resorting to crap answers, and the test favors kids who are good at bullshitting

Bullshitting is a very valuable life skill, and an strong indicator of success in later life. Look, for example, at the political classes and their bullshitting skills.

A good writer may do OK, but a good bullshitter may grow up to be president.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:47 PM on October 18, 2006

#Kwine:

"Yankee Doodle went to town,
Riding on a pony,
Put a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.

Which town did Yankee Doodle go to? Support your answer with details from the story."

Easy. In revolutinary America, macaroni, was the code word for "Italian" which was considered the hight of fashion. Thus Mr. Doodle was declaring himself a "fop" which in these days we might call "gay". Of all the towns in revolutionary America, he was probably going to the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. Of course if he thought macaroni just signified stylish, he may have been going to the style capital, New York. The story does not provide enough information to distinguish these answers.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 4:01 PM on October 18, 2006

For the students who are logically minded, they will spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make sense of the question. This question is a crock. This was not the only question on the test, so suppose that the student spent 15 minutes trying to parse and write the answer to this question, which took time from other questions. A bad question undermines the student's confidence, which could lead to problems in trying to answer other questions.

Also, the claim that it was only worth 1.8 points out of 43 is BS, too. Getting no points on this question could certainly have dropped a student from Level 4 to Level 3 if other questions were also missed. Maybe the student was still obsessing about this question, and failed to hear another reading and blew that one too?
posted by Xoc at 4:10 PM on October 18, 2006

jmhodges writes 'Yes, and you walked uphill both ways, right?

Walk uphill? I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our Mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah. ;-)

What was the asked about the Merchant of Venice? Was it just an excerpt or the whole thing? What excerpt? I'm betting it was easier than you remember it. Most things are.'

Well, it was 18 years ago, so I don't remember too well, but the questions seemed easy enough - seeing if we could work out from the context what a bit of Shakespearean vocab meant, how Brownie the Cow Shylock the Jew changed his view over the course of the scene, &c.. My point was that the language used in the ELA test seemed very simple indeed compared to the tests I took age 10 or 11, more like what you'd get at primary school.

But then some of my mock A-Level exams (taken at 17/18) were set from 1970s-vintage O-Levels (15/16), so I suppose by now the UK tests at 11 are probably more Brownie-like than they were when I was wee. Kids today, eh?

PeterMcDermott writes 'On re-reading jackmo's point, I see that he got a question on the Merchant of Venice in a school entrance exam. No doubt for some posh selective school.'

Yeah, it was either for some posh private school or the 11 plus for a slightly-less-posh grammar school, probably the former - I'd wrongly assumed that since these ELA tests have an impact on which school a kid got into it that was the same sort of selective deal.
posted by jack_mo at 4:21 PM on October 18, 2006

Not bad, MonkeySaltedNuts, but I noticed that you didn't attempt this one:

"gnakjdabuohbafdslnba. Discuss."

Any good answer would have to reference ejktnku, but your more perceptive fourth graders will notice that the enbdib doesn't univce the qndim at all. So a truly top notch essay will ,nbght and conclude with baiovn.
posted by Kwine at 4:58 PM on October 18, 2006

Sorry, typo there. qndim should, of course, be qndir
posted by Kwine at 5:00 PM on October 18, 2006

I teach 4th graders for a living. I think a few of them would get a "correct" answer to this question, but they'd do it by spinning their wheels and bullshitting. Some kids just have a feel for what test writers want to hear, or at least the outward form. If you think that's something worth rewarding, then this is a great test.

Standardized tests are generally horrible, often incomprehensible to adults and full of bureaucratese. Yes, so is education overall. The standardized-test boom, however, has caused the revolting brainsludginess of general education to increase at an increasing rate. Schools are in a panic to align to the most offensive sorts of nonsense and so they subject students to year after year of pointless, confusing desk work.

I don't know anyone who likes meetings as a part of their job; they like actually doing something. Think of 12 years in a row of going to meetings, all day long.
posted by argybarg at 5:27 PM on October 18, 2006

#Kwine: Not bad, MonkeySaltedNuts (#)

I wasn't kidding. Everybody brings implicit background knowledge to a test. Such as "cows are big and slow compared to roosters". And also "macaroni = Italian which is the best of style."

Your question also gave away the fact that there should be enough information to come to a definite answer. This is why the only choices were limited to NYC and Philadelphia. However I think you misworded your question. You said:

... put a feather in his hat ...

instead of the traditional giveaway phrase:

...stuck a feather in his hat ...

which is why I said there was not enough information to definitly pick Philadelphia.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 5:51 PM on October 18, 2006

And while I guess this puts me in line with right wingers always ranting about teachers' unions and the need for home-schooling, well, I do think they have a point. I'd like to see us save public education rather than scrap it though (a huge difference).

No, bardic, it puts you in with the kids who were confused. The problem here at hand is not teachers unions or with MA/PhD programs in Ed departments. The problem here is with mandated tests that are outsourced to corporate developers, and tests that are then reviewed by citizen-boards (talk about a need for education reforem!) who decide by god-knows-what criteria that a question is inadequate.

Start your own thread if you want to blame teachers for this. Teachers have to put up with this sort of crap and then hear from you that they are failing the kids. No Child Left Behind, yeah, that's the answer. More testing until the kids can rapid fire the answer back the way we want it.
posted by beelzbubba at 6:05 PM on October 18, 2006

My favorite satirical novel about standardized testing.
posted by bigbigdog at 6:58 PM on October 18, 2006

I taught fourth grade last year at a public school in Brooklyn. I watched as my students took this test, and was furious that they had to answer such bad questions (the Brownie question is bad, but no worse than the sun and moon one, in my opinion). What that website doesn't tell you is that I was directed (in the statewide teacher-read directions) to tell my students not to infer, only to use what was clearly stated in the story. Well, NOTHING is clearly stated in the story. In what world can we assume someone (or somecow) *changed* because they played a harmless joke? In that light, to say, as the state does, that Brownie was "kind at the beginning and mean at the end" is INSANE. My students (almost all of whom were 9 when they took the test last January, by the way), were baffled by this question because they know it's alright to play a harmless joke on a friend. It doesn't indicate change to them or to adults (When's the last time you were accused of being changed person or mean for playing a harmless joke on a friend or co-worker?). And remember, they were told not to infer. Brownie was a secondary character, but there were only a few more lines about her than the cat who meowed at the beginning of the story, or the horse that neighed. My class had all kinds of answers on this test, most of which were "wrong". Don't infer? But the answer is an inference. They never had a chance to do well on this test.

I'm lucky that I work at a school in which teachers are directed not to teach to the test. Many of my colleagues in other schools have to do test prep all year. I taught (and will always) teach my students to be free thinkers, analytical and independent. I did teach them a few ways to answer essay questions (this is not learned by osmosis...for many of them, this was their first essay test ever). None of that mattered on this test. The question was just crap. I want to keep an open mind, but I just can't understand how some of you think the question was fine (I have to remind myself that there are people on Metafilter who would argue in favor of beating puppies and tripping grandmothers just to start a good argument).

This is not an issue about rich kids wanting to get into great middle schools. ALL kids will be affected (and there are no guarantees about middle schools adjusting curves). My students range from affluent to well below the poverty line. And they were all screwed by this test.
posted by horseradish at 8:37 PM on October 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

What kind of crimethink is this? We've always been at war with EastasiaBrownie the Cow. Next up, the math exam. Remember, the state has proclaimed that 2+2=5.
posted by eritain at 9:46 PM on October 18, 2006

Who's to say Brownie the Cow is even a Cow?
posted by flippant at 6:14 AM on October 19, 2006

ALL kids will be affected (and there are no guarantees about middle schools adjusting curves).

I'm sorry to keep on beating a dead cow, but if all students applying for middle school have to take the same test, then none are harmed by one bad question (at least as far as admissions go).
posted by footnote at 7:25 AM on October 19, 2006

footnote, you don't seem to have read this. It harms students in the same way including a question that could only be properly answered by (say) Episcopalians would; yeah, everybody takes the same test, but it's unfairly weighted in favor of a particular class of students, in this case those who, as argybarg puts it, "just have a feel for what test writers want to hear"; it penalizes students who actually want to give a good answer.
posted by languagehat at 7:32 AM on October 19, 2006

I did read and respond to that, and my response was that if you're going to argue that a bad question favors students who know how to bullshit to meet the testmaker's apparent explanations...well, then, you're just arguing that all standardized tests are inherently unfair, and that they shouldn't be used for admissions purposes. Standardized tests are by nature weighted towards that class of students who can bullshit.
posted by footnote at 7:40 AM on October 19, 2006

Standardized tests are by nature weighted towards that class of students who can bullshit.

That's simply not true; it's a question of an inherent danger that can be largely avoided by doing things right, which the test makers in this case have not even bothered to attempt.
posted by languagehat at 7:46 AM on October 19, 2006

footnote,

If schools set up admission guidelines based on previous years' tests (for instance, only admitting students who receive a 4), and this year's scores are significantly lower due to the confusing essay questions (70% fewer 4's, according to the website), then yes, the students in this particular class will be penalized unfairly, unless the middle schools adjust their admission policies.
posted by designbot at 7:47 AM on October 19, 2006

footnote writes "Standardized tests are by nature weighted towards that class of students who can bullshit."

Even standardized multiple choice tests, which make up the vast majority of standardized tests?
posted by Bugbread at 8:00 AM on October 19, 2006

Designbot - I just assumed that the middle schools have a specific number of kids they let in, and adjust the required entry scores accordingly. If they're actually going to admit a smaller class because of the lower scores, then that's a different matter entirely. But I have a hard time believing that the NYC middle schools are going to admit a 70% smaller class.

And yes, I stand by my view that standardized tests (any test, really) are inherently geared towards the bullshitters. It's all about figuring out what they're trying to ask you, even if what they're asking makes no sense to you -- either because you lack the knowledge, or because the question itself is bad. It's called an "educated guess" for a reason.
posted by footnote at 8:08 AM on October 19, 2006

And yes, I stand by my view that standardized tests (any test, really) are inherently geared towards the bullshitters.

Non-rhetorically speaking, how is the question "How did the rooster change over the course of the story?" geared towards bullshitters more than students who have mastered the skills of note-taking and essay writing?
posted by 23skidoo at 9:13 AM on October 19, 2006

In April, Animal Farm was proclaimed a Republic, and it became necessary to elect a President. There was only one candidate, Napoleon, who was elected unanimously. On the same day it was given out that fresh documents had been discovered which revealed further details about Snowball's complicity with Jones. It now appeared that Snowball had not, as the animals had previously imagined, merely attempted to lose the Battle of the Cowshed by means of a stratagem, but had been openly fighting on Jones's side. In fact, it was he who had actually been the leader of the human forces, and had charged into battle with the words "Long live Humanity!" on his lips. The wounds on Snowball's back, which a few of the animals still remembered to have seen, had been inflicted by Napoleon's teeth.

1. Why did Snowball hate the other animals?

2. How did the animals' lives improve after Napoleon defeated Farmer Jones?

3. Why was Napoleon the best choice to be president of Animal Farm?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:40 PM on October 19, 2006