CRCT Test Prep
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GGeorgiaeorgia CRCT Test Prep Georgia and the American Experience by Vicki Wood CLAIRMONT PRESS Atlanta, Georgia i AUTHOR Vicki Wood earned a B.A. degree in Social Studies and Spanish and a M.A. in history from Marshall University. She has completed post-graduate work in history, curriculum, and administration. She is the author of two United States history textbooks and a West Virginia history textbook and has published numerous articles and teacher materials. She has conducted teacher workshops on integrated strategies, thinking skills, and GEMS. She is a retired curriculum specialist from Kanawha County Schools, West Virginia. Editorial Director: Kathleen K. Conway Design: Cherry Bishop Copyright © 2005 by Clairmont Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to Clairmont Press, Inc., 2740 Grove Street, Atlanta, GA 30319. ISBN: 1-56733-106-8 ii CONTENT To the Teacher iv To the Student 1 Content 1 CONTENTS Pacing 1 Completing Answer Sheets 2 Format 2 True and False 3 Matching 4 Constructed Response 5 Essay 6 Selected Response 8 Reading a Long Passage 9 Analyzing a Political Cartoon 10 Using a Map 12 Interpreting a Graph 13 Reading a Chart or Table 15 Final Thoughts 17 Preparing for the Georgia CRCT Test 19 Domain: Geography 20 Domain: History and Economics 31 Domain: Civics and Economics 158 Georgia CRCT Test Prep Answers 192 Practice Test 194 Practice Test Answers 203 iii TO THE TEACHER On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) into law. The new law changes the federal role in education by requiring the nation’s schools to describe their success in terms of what each student accomplishes. The accomplishment will be demonstrated through assessments based on state standards. By 2014, NCLB requires assessment and accountability for all students to ensure that schools make adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward attaining reading and mathematics proficiency. According to NCLB, too many children have been locked into underachieving schools where TO THE TEACHER they have not had the opportunity to develop their educational potential. Under NCLB guidelines, states must develop clear and high standards describing what students in each grade level should know and be able to do. States will measure each student’s progress with tests aligned toward these standards. Every student should make substantial progress every year in every class to meet national goals. With the emphasis NCLB places on testing and accountability, it is more important than ever that students become better test takers. Students should prepare themselves physically as well as mentally to take tests. To that end, there are a number of things that students can do to improve scores on all types of tests. To become a better test taker, a student should • become familiar with the content of the test, • become familiar with the format of the test questions, • determine if the test is timed, and • know if there is a penalty for wrong answers. Clairmont Press’s Georgia Test Prep addresses all of these critical issues. More specifically, this book provides suggestions for • reviewing content and objectives, • pacing during a test, • completing answer sheets, and • analyzing various test formats. You may want to duplicate pages 1-18 and work through these suggestions with your students. Once students become familiar with test-taking strategies, it is important to practice these strategies. Practicing will make students more comfortable when they are taking “real” tests. Practice tests provide a way to review content and objectives, adjust pacing, learn techniques for marking answer sheets, become familiar with various types of questions, and lessen test anxiety. There is one practice test in the back of this book. You may also want to develop additional practice tests using some of the 1,000 questions in this book. iv Name: Date: TO THE STUDENT All of us want to do well on tests. This book will teach you some techniques to better prepare for tests. After you learn these techniques, you will have the opportunity to practice them as you get ready for the Georgia CRCT Test. To become a better test taker, you need to • Become familiar with the content of the test, • Become familiar with the format of the test questions, • Determine if the test is timed, and TO THE STUDENT • Know if there is a penalty for wrong answers. CONTENT Tests are given to find out what you know. To be successful on any test, it is necessary to know what will be tested. Suggestions for preparing for the content of the test include: • Predict what questions will be asked. Look over notes or assignments or talk with classmates. Think about the information that the teacher emphasized or wrote on the chalkboard or overhead projector. The questions, people, concepts, and so on that are covered in class assignments generally are the things that are tested. Make a list of the important facts and concepts that might be tested. • Take notes carefully if there is a test review. Note any comments by your teacher such as “This will be on the test,” “These are the important people you should know,” or “Remember these two points.” • Complete any test review sheet that the teacher might provide. You can use the review sheet as a practice test, or you can make a practice test using the review sheet as a guide. • Devise methods to study for the test. For example, ° Make a set of flashcards. Do this by writing a name, date, event, place, vocabulary word, or question on one side of the card. On the other side, write the answer or some information to describe what is listed on the front side of the card. ° Make an outline of the information. Include major headings, people, events, dates, and so on. ° Use memory strategies such as mnemonics or graphic organizers (such as concept diagrams, cause and effect charts, Venn diagrams, maps, or timelines) to organize information. ° Recite the information. Some students are auditory learners and hearing the content helps them to remember. ° Find a study buddy. Study with a friend or group of fiends. Make practice tests for each other or orally ask one another questions. PACING It is important to know if a test is timed. Two considerations associated with timed tests are using allotted time effectively and avoiding text anxiety. Many students do not perform well on timed tests. However, there are a number of strategies to help students budget time and, as a result, lessen their anxiety and increase their performance. One of the biggest problems with timed tests is using the allotted time efficiently. Some students move numerically — from the first question to the last question — on a test. However, the progression of questions often does not move from easy questions at the beginning of the test to more difficult 1 Name: Date: ones at the end. Rather, the degree of difficulty of questions may be random. As a result, when you encounter a difficult question, you may spend too much time trying to determine the answer. As a result, the allocated time for the test may elapse before you have completed all the questions. Through ongoing testing, you can learn to answer the easier questions first. You should skip the harder ones and go back to them at the end of your time. When beginning a test, it is wise to look at the number of items on the test and then figure out how much time you have to answer each one. Following this model ensures that you will answer all the questions you believe you know before time runs out. Try to increase the total number of questions you can complete in a given amount of time. If the test is not timed, you should work carefully and deliberately. Do not spend an inordinate TO THE STUDENT amount of time on difficult questions, but rather return to those questions later. Do not make random guesses, unless there is no penalty for wrong answers. If there is no penalty, then try to answer all the questions, even if you have not read all of them. When there is a penalty for a wrong answer, answer those questions you know as well as those you can narrow down to two choices. If you have no idea of the answer, do not attempt to answer the question. Later you will learn methods to help you eliminate obviously wrong answers. Many students have test anxiety, which can increase when the test is timed. The more experience you have with taking tests, the more the anxiety level will decrease. As you feel more comfortable with the content, pacing, and format, you will feel less anxious about the unknown. COMPLETING ANSWER SHEETS Many tests require students to bubble in an answer sheet to record their responses. Sometimes, however, students do not clearly understand how to do this simple mechanical process; this lack of understanding can have a bearing on test performance. Bubbling in an answer sheet requires students to darken a space for their selected response. Many students believe they must fill in the entire space, making it as dark as possible. They spend lots of time, sometimes too much time, darkening in these spaces. In reality, the entire space does not need to be darkened and it also does not need to be as dark as students sometimes make it.