By Abby Cianciolo
Staff Writer
This year’s MCAS testing has quickly approached Westford Academy students. Tenth grade students started off the testing by taking ELA sessions.
The ELA long composition section of the test took place on Tuesday March 22nd. During March 23-24, the students took three ELA sessions consisting of multiple choice, short answer and open response questions. Last year’s scores for these examinations were very high for the whole state. Westford Academy was tied for 4th out of the entire state with 98% out of 398 students scoring proficient or advanced.
The tenth grade English teachers came together a few summers ago to come up with ways to coordinate curriculum and preparation for MCAS. They compiled these new ideas and activities and have continued to work on these during the school year.
With the large amounts of snow, there was an increased number of snow days this year. These days significantly impacted the amount of preparation time for students and teachers.
English teacher Janet Fonden said that the amount of snow days would not directly affect the scores for this year. However, Fonden believes the snow days have cut into the preparation time the teachers were planning on. There was not as much time as she would have liked, but she believes that it was ample.
Even though it may be a challenge, she also believes the students have the ability to match last year’s high scores.
On May 17-18, there will be the math MCAS test for the sophomores. The math examination consists of five sections. These include number sense and operations, patterns relations and algebra, geometry, measurement, data analysis statistics and probability.
Sophomores at WA are either taking geometry or Algebra 2. Those who are in geometry will be focusing on MCAS preparation in their classes. Those who are taking Algebra 2 will have MCAS preparation during long block classes. Students placed 11th out of state for Math MCAS with 97% out of 400 students scoring in the proficient or advanced category.
“I don’t think the snow is going to affect the math as much as it is going to affect the English. So I think with the math we have plenty of time to realize what the students know, and we can rearrange some of the topics to make sure we cover enough,” said math coordinator, Cathy Coughlin.
Coughlin added that she believes that this year’s scores will live up to those high ones of last year. She hopes that with a little more preparation with open-ended questions, more students will be able to earn full points to help those scores.
The freshman will finish off the testing with their science examination consisting of science, biology, technology, and engineering. Last year the freshman placed 9th out of the state for this test. This test is scheduled for June 1-2.