Comment: Re:RTFA - really, it's interesting! (Score 3, Informative) 845
On the FCAT, they are reading material they didn’t choose. They are given four possible answers and three out of the four are pretty good. One is the best answer but kids don’t get points for only a pretty good answer. They get zero points, the same for the absolute wrong answer. And then they are given an arbitrary time limit. Those are a number of reasons that I think the test has to be suspect.
This is true of standardized reading tests, and as an analytical-minded person with good math skills, this always troubled me about these tests. Many times there is more than 1 correct answer, and you have to somehow make a judgment as to which is most correct. Whether this comes from intuition, ability to weigh qualitative factors on the fly, or taking a lot of practice tests, it's not a skill that comes easily for many people. It's not just with reading comprehension but also in grammar questions, where there are no clear grammatical errors, but one choice of phrasing is supposed to be "better" than another option that can also be perfectly acceptable.