For those of you with children in the public school system in California, state testing is just around the corner (end of April for us). These days, at the middle school where I work, a student’s CST scores pretty much determines his/her classes for the upcoming year (low, average, or advanced!) – so an involved parent might want to know how to help their child succeed.
Every year CST releases 20% of their questions and publishes them cumulatively on the California Department of Education (CDE) website from kindergarten to twelve grade in all subject areas. I think these questions are invaluable for state testing preparation. The latest batch of questions were released just last month.
This is one of those times when Bella really, really wishes her mom weren’t a teacher – because we are going through all the 8th grade released test questions (Algebra, English Language Arts, science and history) together at home. And not to brag or anything, but she kicked butt on the Algebra! Still dragging her through the ELA questions though.
If you are interested in downloading these released test questions, they are available here. Remember, these tests are specifically testing for mastery of California Content Standards; you can see California’s English Language Arts standards (for all grade levels) here.
