Students will be taking EOG Benchmarks in English I next week. As a former SAT and ACT tutor I am extremely qualified to coach students in test-taking strategies. Today, we practiced multiple-choice strategies on a real test passage. See the passage and the questions here: Art in America EOG
1. Students read “Art in America,” by Maggie Anderson. Students annotated the passage as they read.
2. Students answered six multiple-choice questions about the passage.
3. We reviewed answers as a group. As we reviewed, students created an “EOC Tip Sheet” which they will continue to add to throughout the year.
Tip Sheet:
- Read the directions for hints about what’s important in the passage.
- Annotate the passage as you read.
- To find theme, look at the end of the passage.
- Beware of “bittersweet”: this choice is frequently used by the test-makers. Don’t pick it unless the tone is very bitter and also a little sweet.
- If it’s not in the passage, it’s not an answer! Don’t let the test-makers trick you into thinking you didn’t understand the passage–because you did! They put in answers about things that were not in the passage to trip you up.
- Avoid overly insulting answers. Multiple-choice tests are politically correct.
- If you don’t know what a word means, figure it out by looking at the word in the context of the passage.
4. In some classes we resumed Bingo.
5. Students received a reading calendar for To Kill a Mockingbird: calendar tkam 10. Follow this calendar to see when chapters and visual journal entries are due.
HW: Read TKAM through Ch. 4 by tomorrow. Do entries in your visual journal (but not for chapter 1). All late work is due tomorrow unless I have told you otherwise!
Prepare for the EOG Benchmark by taking practice sets here:
Textual Analysis (Reading) Practice
Composition (Grammar) Practice
Absentees: Complete the practice questions for “Art in America” by clicking the link above. Print out the TKAM reading calendar and put either the Honors or Standard calendar in your binder.
ALEXA GARVOILLE 