Tryout Results

Post date: Sep 19, 2016 5:25:03 PM

The tryout selections for this year's Quick Recall team have wrapped up and the school will post the roster to the window of the library. By test results, this was the strongest group of students I've seen, which made narrowing the list down to the final students harder than ever. We had a number of students score very highly but just missed the team just because of the sheer volume of students that scored highly. I hope to see most of you later in the school year when we audition for Written Assessment!

If anyone has any questions, please shoot me an e-mail and I will do my best to answer them. I do not typically share specific test scores because a number of factors goes into selecting the team each year, which include: test scores, both aggregate and by subject; buzzer performance, looking at not only correct answers but energy level; student behavior; and team composition, by both grade level and subject area balance. I do try my best to offer insights and advice for students looking to try again in the future.

Every year I like to post some insights and highlights from the exam:

• Forty-one (41) students tried out for the team this year. This is similar to prior years
• Comparatively few 4th graders tried out this year (less than half as many as last year). We had as many 3rd graders as 4th graders, and they all did really well!

• For the first time since I've started coaching Quick Recall, we had more girls try out for the team than boys. This is mostly attributed to the 3rd graders, who the girls outnumbered the boys about 3:1
• I increased the tryout test this year from 50 questions to 65 questions. I did this for a number of reasons and the main one is that each of the five subjects has 13 sub-categories of questions, and I wanted to ensure that the tryout exam had one question from each of those categories
• The high score on the exam was a 52/65
• The average score was 30/65 and the median score was 29/65

• Last year, collectively our worst subject was Science, which is actually this year's highest average score. This year's worst subject was Language Arts. Language Arts is maybe the most difficult subject in that it is broadly divided into two types of questions: literature and grammar. While there is some overlap between these two groups, for the most part students will excel at one or the other, but not both

Thanks to all the students who tried out! For those who made the team, let's keep up this level of hard work and make the 2017 year a great one for Brandeis Elementary!