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Reporter: Joshua Jung
Editor: Svar Patel
Advanced math students in seventh grade have been taking a separate NJSLA math exam. This separate test tackles questions that have not yet been taught to the advanced math kids in class.
Regular math students take a test on a 7th grade level compared to the advanced math students who take a geometry level test. Mrs. Scrudato the Monroe George Washington Middle School guidance counselor believes this gauge in test level is necessary,
“To me, if you’re in a more vigorous math class then it does make sense to have a more vigorous test.”
After the tests concluded students like Derin Sezgin a Monroe GWMS student taking the advanced course were unsatisfied by the exam.
Derin states, “I think that it's kind of annoying that they make us do a higher level of NJSLA than what they made us do in 6th, 5th, etc.”
He also says that he didn’t understand some of the questions as they were something he had never seen before.
For a few years now GWMS has been teaching geometry before algebra. But the test has the expectation that advanced math students have learned algebra before geometry. Mr. Litvak, the geometry teacher for 7th grade, says,
“The way the test is written is written for students who have taken algebra before geometry… The ideas that are on that test consider the fact that the students have taken algebra, however, our seventh graders have not had algebra therefore they can not do as well as they could.”
There were practice tests and study materials given by Mr. Litvak to prepare for the NJSLA.
As 7th grade advanced math students continue to learn geometry before algebra, the NJSLA math tests will continue to have problems with concepts that students may have not learned in class.
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