Hey all, so for those who live in the super fantastic state of New York you probably know about the regents exams. For those who don't they are incredibly flawed state tests that make up a percentage of your overall final grade. Well I just took the biology regents and if asked how I thought I did, all I can say is I haven't any idea. I could have gotten a one hundred, I could have gotten a six. I have no idea at all. The questions were so oddly worded that I was confused as to the question was actually asking. Simply because the questions were really basic most of the time but some all I could think in my head was "wtf is this?? I don't have the slightest idea what this is, and I certainly don't know to make it less resistant to one thing or another" and it certainly wasn't as though I had a bad teacher. My teacher Mr. Gordon Bonnet of Skeptophilia.blogspot.com was without a doubt the very best teacher I've ever had. Sorry that was my regents testing rant for the day. Have a good day all.
FWIW, I just finished grading the exams, and your criticisms are spot-on. In many cases, the brighter students got answers wrong because they gave too MUCH information (i.e. tried to demonstrate some actual knowledge) and got some piece of it incorrect, while students with two-word simplistic answers met the rubric and got it right. This exam does NOT test what you know about scientific processes.
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