Students Finish MAP Testing as School Year Comes to a Close

By: Sherry Tang

7th and 8th graders finish their final round of map testing for the current school year this week, and many students are breathing a sigh of relief as it gets done.

MAP testing, for those who are somehow unaware, is an adaptive test that PV, as well as most of Iowa, uses to measure a student’s aptitude in a subject. Jean Flemming, a writer for the NWEA website, stated, “By the end of the test, most students will have answered about half the questions correctly, as is common on adaptive tests. The purpose of MAP Growth is to determine what the student knows and is ready to learn next.”

The junior high had many thoughts regarding these tests, and here are some of the interviews conducted after the first round of Science MAP testing. Mrs. Beausoliel, an eight-grade science teacher, says, “I think it’s a good tool for students and teachers to see where their current understanding is and the concepts they’re supposed to be taught before this year.” However, she later adds on and says, “the only thing that’s weird is that like our map tests, (science) we’re not all the way done with our standards, so you get (on the test) some of the standards we haven’t taught.”

The student consensus, however, greatly varied between some saying the test was bearable to others outright bashing the very idea of it. Nishita Gudipati, an eighth-grader, simply said she “hated it. I might do good in my classes and just suck at testing; it’s not good at measuring anything really,” she said. Another Student, Ellie Ziegelbein, reiterated what Nishita said.

“I think that it doesn’t accurately portray a kid’s abilities. Everyone tests differently.”

Whether or not this test truly tests a student’s capabilities, what’s done is done, and students are seeing off their last couple of weeks of school with a smile after overcoming this hurdle.