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For me, the taas experience was a waste of time. I feel I learned nothing from the preparation for this test. We became robots that were programed to write in TAAS format and no other format. There was no such thing as a different style of writing. After we took them, we were quite puzzled. Was that really the test we prepared for two years for? Seriously? Once we learned of the results, it was win, lose, or draw. You really never knew how you were going to do. Overall, I think it was a horrible educational experience.
For me, the TAAS was a big joke. I didn’t really take it seriously. In fact, I don’t even remember preparing for it. We might have done a couple pre-writes or something of that nature, or maybe we did some vocabulary set-ups. To be honest, I can’t really recall. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I just know that it exempted me from taking the TASP. I don’t like standardized testing, but I know they won’t get rid of it. I even thought that the SAT’s were pointless.
For me, the week of TAAS testing was just a week to relax. By this I mean that I never found it a difficult exam.
During the week of TAAS our teachers gave us a big break. They felt that we had so much stress with having to test all day that they would not add to it. We hardly had any work to do, and we were never assigned any papers or had any tests to take.
In English classes we were not assigned any reading or writing. Many times our English classes tries to prepare us for the writing prompts on TAAS. I personally always felt that they prepared us a little too well and the test was never as hard as they made it seem.
During the exam week I pretty much kept my same schedule. I ate the same and relaxed, but I did try to go to bed a little earlier so I wouldn’t be so tired. I really didn’t prepare much because it is not as if we know exactly what will be on it. It was like a weight lifted because I didn’t have a lot of homework like I usually did. Once I got started taking the tests, I just tried to get through as quickly as possible. I usually felt a little drained because it took so long to get through it. Once I got the results back I was usually pretty satisfied because I normally did fairly well.
I felt overall the TAAS was a good educational experience for me. The test was not extremely hard, but it did assure me that I knew at least the basics of what I needed to know. I didn’t feel that the test was as hard as the teachers made it seem, but it wasn’t super easy either. I think it is a good test to show who knows what they need to know.
These are basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. I also think it is good that students cannot get into college without having passed it, because if a person can’t pass TAAS, they will not survive college. This is how I felt about TAAS in high school, and also how I think many other people feel.
For the SAT I did a lot of preparation. I used a computer program my junior year in order to get ready. My senior year I took an SAT prep course with my school that counted as a math credit. This course helped me a little with the vocabulary, but not a lot with the math section.
For the TAAS test I think that it is very stupid but also good for you. The schools I went to in [my town] lived, breathed and ate TAAS. That was all we would do. When I got to High School my first two English classes that is all we did was TAAS. I didnt learn anything else like we should have those two years because all we did was work work work on TAAS. I personally dont feel like I learned anything from this expirence or the hundred and fourty nine others in my class. I think it is a wast of time.
Going into my freshman year of high school my family and I moved to [X], Texas which is just outside of Houston. When I registered for school I was told that in my sophomore year I would have to take a nation wide test for Texas known as the TAAS. I had never heard about the test before, but I later learned that teachers in school start preparing their students for this test well in advance. I never was given much preparation for it so when it came time to take the test I was somewhat nervous and felt a little unprepared compared to everyone else. In the end I really did all the worrying and stressing about the test for nothing.
I believe that the test itself was very easy, and for this test to be the determining factor of whether we can graduate or not I think is a little ridiculous. The writing section and the English sections of this test were very simple for the sophomore level of high school. We as students spend a lot of our time working on our writing and grammar skills in class, and then are put through the stress of taking tests to see what we have learned and how well we have mastered these ideas, and it is somewhat disgracing that passing this test is all the state believes is necessary to graduate. In some way I believe too much preparation is given to the test and too much time is spent reviewing for it that could be spent learning other required material.
When I received my results I was not at all surprised to see that I had done well on most parts and average on some. The test was not hard at all and I believe that in the future it should be made somewhat harder if it is going to remain as the factor that determines whether someone graduates or not. I also think it should be made harder for the sake of the students to understand that college is going to be harder then high school and that tests that get you into college are not nearly that easy. I think that it is somewhat misleading to students and it would help everyone if it were made a little harder.
Having the TAAS test did in some ways help but its purpose was to see if you could master writing, reading, and math. I believe that taking it was not essiential due to the fact that you only study for it for a certain amount of time. Yes, studying would help me in my English classes but not really cause I already knew it and teachers would stress over it and I would blow it off cause I already knew what the test was about and I know I could achieve it and I did. I took the TAAS test my 6th grade and Sophomore year in high school. I also think that it is stupid becuase you are making students take the TAAS test but then the state has these performance standards in the classes. You have to pass the performance standards in order to pass that class and graduate. I believe that it is the same thing and that the state of Texas should at least eliminate one of them because the students and I know I did see it terrible because you are making it harder for the student to pass a test to please them. Are these test essential to life in college they are not. I see that the performance standards help more than the TAAS becuase you have to pass those standards to pass class and that is what they want. You want to make sure a student is getting an education. Well, if you are going to be giving students test give the students performance standards cause that is what truly helped me not the TAAS.nda there, as something that had to get done, so I just did it and got it over with.
The TAAS experience for me wasn’t all that bad, it was the TASP test that killed me. I usually did good on the reading & writing parts, but the math gave me some trouble. I took and past the TAAS test on my 1st try. I took it in my brand new school and since we were new people thought that the state gave us an easy TAAS test. I don’t know if they did or not but the test, especially the writing was very easy. I don’t remember what the prompt was, but it was surprisingly easy! Teachers were preparing us for the test way back in the 5th grade, when I 1st moved down here. In middle school, they really took the TAAS testing seriously, even though it was only practice. My freshman year we spent quite a bit of time reviewing and things like that, but we didn’t spend all year on it. I really loved my freshman English teacher and I think she helped me a lot during my 1st year of high school. We also spent a lot of time preparing for the test when I was a sophomore. I think the six weeks before the test, all we did was review everyday basically. I didn’t like it at the time and it was boring, but I past the test, so that’s what I’m thankful for! I don’t remember specifically what we did as in terms of preparing for it since it was a long time ago. The only thing I remember is we would be given worksheets and we’d have to do what the directions told us to do. When I took the test, the prompt was so easy, it helped me in my confidence and I think I wrote a pretty damn good paper. What I learned from this whole testing experience, is that even though teachers review for a long time, it’s good because it’ll stick with you. At the time it was boring and I didn’t care, but I should have realized that my teacher cared about us and wanted us to pass. Overall, the experience wasn’t bad. I passed the TAAS and TASP test on my 1st try. (I didn’t pass the math portion of the TASP though on my 1st attempt.) I’m just glad to be done with it and hopefully I won’t have to take anything like that again, except my BAR exam.
Hmmm... My experiences with the TAAS... I’m not sure how to respond to that because I have a biased point of view. So, because I have a biased point of view I’ll keep it short. My mother is a teacher and I can tell you that she hates it. I didn’t care if all we ever did was practice for what was supposed to be on the TAAS in English class, because that was easy. What made the class easy also made the class a lot harder and generally more stressful. Its not that the test itself is hard, but rather all the extra work associated with it. Not only did we have to keep up with our regular class load but also we had to do all the pointless writing exercises to help us prepare for the TAAS. The test was stupid. Sorry, it was. I could have taken it in Spanish and got the same grade I did in English. That’s how easy it was. I think it was designed to give a nice bell shaped curve for the whole state. What I mean is that it was easy enough for someone who was not gifted with intelligence to pass and hard enough for someone who is moderately intelligent to be challenged. See what I mean. Good. I think we would be better off without it. Let the teachers teach.
Honestly I can and will say that TAAS was overdone in high school. A learning experience it was not, a waste of time, sure… yeah… we can say that. I remember everyday of my sophomore year getting out of bed and knowing I had that third period TAAS review which I hated with the passion. Usually for me it was either nap or study time maybe even catch up on a little homework I didn’t do the night before. Sitting in class, all that was going through my head was “Why is this stupid class taking sooo long?” and why she had to repeat the same thing over and over again. I mean come on after the first hundred times and the first couple of years I think we pretty much caught on. Although I did not mind all the little bribes like the pizza, candy and, cokes I still wished I could take the test six months early and get it over with. I remember when February finally came around so we could take that stupid test and get it over with. They told us … “Eat a good dinner” … “Go to bed early!” …and “Eat a healthy breakfast”. I’m sorry but honestly I don’t think that effected anybody’s scores especially the way they fed us during the test. I knew I would pass the test that was not even my concern. My goal was to hit those exemption scores so I would not have to take the TASP to get into college. I breezed through those tests so fast I really didn’t know why they had reviewed us so much for THAT!! I got my scores in and sure enough I got high enough scores on the reading, writing and math to be exempt from the TASP. Overall I strongly believe that TAAS is extremely overdone in high school and really just a waste of time and money. As much as the teachers emphasize the TAAS students start to get to the point where they really don’t care and will put anything down just to get it out of their way.
I always hated the TAAS test because all during my education all they did was teach us how to pass the TAAS. That was a huge portion of the curriculum, and it was such a waste of time. If a person couldn’t pass the TAAS there is no way that they could exit high school. There shouldn’t be a TAAS because if you can graduate from High School then in all logic you should be able to pass the TAAS with no problem.
I had always passed the TAAS and mastered portions of it in some years. Schools would waste so much time teaching the TAAS they would not have time teaching the real curriculum.
How do I feel about the TAAS. I HATE IT.
I always thought of the taas test as a week or two of relaxation in English class. The classes I was in detoured from regular class for about a year to prepare for the taas test and this was everyone’s favorite time. Everything on taas is so simple, The prep time for taas only meant classes could take it easy for a couple of days, and we would get a chance to raise our averages in the class a point or two. On the whole, I guess the taas test is important so you can measure how much students are learning, and make sure education is equal everywhere. I don’t know that the taas test ever did me any good at all. I always scored very well on this test, and never really even thought twice about preparing for it. I do know that there are a lot of people out there who struggle with taas, and I believe it is a good test for some of the students, but I don’t think it’s necessary for many of them. I believe it’s probably just a waste of money for the state, or whoever ends up paying for it. As far as the results of taas I never really even thought twice about those either. I remember once or twice when my mom had the results lying on the table for me to see. They always were in the top 1 percent in the state or whatever, and my mom would say I did X and that would be that. When it comes down to it, I believe the taas test probably just took two weeks of my time each year that I could have been learning something well, and that I didn’t already know.
I am a graduate from [X] High School, a small 3A school in [Y]. We were the only 3A school in [Y], and we took the TAAS when we were sophomores. At [X] teachers started students studying for the TAAS when they became freshmen.
We were given TAAS problems at the beginning of all of our classes from previous TAAS tests. At the start of my sophomore year more of the pressure was applied because our principals wanted [X] to become a recognized school. Sophomores and other students, who had not passed the TAAS, were constantly being pulled out to take practice TAAS tests. Not only would we send our tests to be graded, but our teachers would use those grades for our participation grades. As students we were growing bored with the TAAS, many of us felt as if our intelligence was being insulted.
Two months before the actual TAAS test, those taking it were pulled out of their regular math and English classes and placed into a special TAAS program. This meant that instead of being in our regular classes we were in a class where we did nothing but study for the TAAS. The first month we studied the math section of the test, and at the end of the grading period we switched over to the writing and reading sections of the test. Our teachers told us that they wanted to save those two sections for last because sometimes students found those more difficult to remember. According to the scores from the previous classes, the writing and reading sections were the lowest scores.
We went over all the rules of punctuation, sentence structure, capitalization, misspelling, and revising. At the end of the week we would take a small quiz over the subjects that were covered earlier during the week. My fellow students were complaining of how the TAAS was drilled into our heads so much that we were not going to be able to forget the things we were taught for the rest of our lives.
We took our real TAAS test, and the whole student body was happy that it was finally over. That year everybody passed the test, and we became a recognized school for the first time. The process is still the same as far as getting ready for the test at [X]. My fellow graduating class is grateful after all the hard work that the teachers went through to make us remember the little details of the TAAS; we never knew how valuable the information would be in the future.
I am aware that a research is being held about how we felt at the time of taking the TAAS test when we were in high school. To tell you the truth I feel that it is a good test and should continue to be taken. I really feel that the TAAS test prepared me for the TASP test and helped me understand the requirements for college English. In high school the teachers prepared us very well. I can remember to this day having to go over writing skills in every class the whole week before taking the TAAS test. The night before the TAAS test I remember going to bed really early and waking up rested and ready to eat my breakfast fruits. As I approached school I got butterflies all in my stomach because I was just so nervous. After taking the test I felt pretty good about the whole test. We then got our results about 2 months later and I had scored really well on the test. Overall, I feel that this is a good test to take in high school to help prepare students for college.
I am coming for a background of being the son of two parents who are teachers in the elementary level. I found the test extremely pointless. The TAAS, test is designed so that the only way to really do well on it is to teach the test. From my experience a test designed to test general knowledge skills should not need instruction to prepare for the test. I myself have almost always mastered all sections of the TAAS. My parents dread the test because they loose valuable time preparing for it and administering it. It currently takes about a full week to give the test. That takes out a large piece of instructional time, not including the practice it takes. Most teachers and students dislike the test because it is designed to flunk students, in my opinion.
In my pre-AP English class we had to write practice essays to improve our TAAS writing skill to pass and make a good grade. The writing style that they use on TAAS is not the writing style that is useful in a sophomore level class or the real world. The idea of writing is to convey a point across. TAAS idea of writing is to have as much detail one can write about, with very little emphasis put on the quality on the point. We took practice test in all areas the TAAS test covered. I think of the twelve years I was in grade school I probably spent about half a year preparing and taking this stupid test. Think how much more I would have learned during that half year. My parents and other teachers find that the TAAS hinders there ability to teach what the students need to know, but instead what people in Austin, who haven’t taught in a few years, think they should know. The TEKS are hard enough to complete without the preparation time required teaching the TAAS. This test is more of a hassle than a helper. It is given way too often and written way too badly. It should only be given two or three times during the whole grade school time frame instead of 8 times, like it was originally intended.
I am probably the one whom have a special experience on TAAS test. I came to United States on second semister, and spent only two months for freshman year. Then I started to work on my TAAS exam sophmore year. At that time I did not have enough ability to take TAAS, however, I worked hard as much as I could. In my reading class I worked the practice TAAS questions everyday. And the teacher and student discussed over the concept on the passage we read together. Also we discussed about taking exam techniche. That helped me to accelerate reading the passage. It was good experience for me because it taugh me the skills that is applied not only TAAS test, but also other important exams, SAT, TASP…etc. Finally, I passed TAAS test on my sophmore year without fail. I am glad that I was able to participate reading class.
I attended high school in Indiana and our standardize test in order to graduate from high school was the ISTEP. I am sure it was very similar to the TAAS. When we had to take the test, we had to start it our freshmen year so if we didn’t pass then we had the rest of our high school career to pass it. In my school we never really took any classes to prepare us for it, it basically an accumulation of what you had thus far. However in each category you were tested on advance mathematics and English and as long as you remained within the state average you passed. I don’t think I would consider it to be good education experience because it took so long.
I believe that I did pretty well on the TAAS test. Throughout probably ten out of the twelve years in school, I probably spent a quarter to two-thirds of that time going over TAAS practice tests and reviews. I honestly think that I could have taken the test while I was in the eighth grade and probably have made just as good of a grade while I was in the tenth grade. The studying and reviewing turned out to be tedious and a waste of time after a while. It would have been better if a simple review would have been done once a year for a shorter time period rather than a few weeks.
I can honestly say that the educational experience was not exactly great. I do not think that I really learned much after a couple of years of practicing. It was pretty much review over the same thing for eight years. The only things that probably changed were my vocabulary and my point of view on different topics due to the fact that I had been writing essays since I was in the second grade for competition.
Although I do not believe that I learned much out of it, there are some people out there that did and probably still do need the review and study time to do well on the TAAS test. It might have helped others do well on the test and in the future. I am glad that the test is required here in Texas because it sets a standard as to what a person should know at their level of education. If they have not learned or do not understand it for some reason or another, they should review it and comprehend it.
I believe that TAAS is emphasized excessively. I personally, was given so much assistance from my English teachers. However, I have always felt that TAAS keeps students from keeping an open mind to the deep knowledge found in more important material to be covered, rather than keeping yourself focused and chained to TAAS. To be honest, I never passed the TAAS when I was in Elementary School. However, one very important teacher in my life helped me tremendously and surprisingly, I was able to master the TAAS. However, at an early age in elementary I knew that TAAS was not that important. I always felt and still do that there is much more to learn than to just limit our students to learning TAAS and then once they pass it and find the time to move on to the next level of education, they feel lost. I do believe that TAAS does help students keep a record of their current knowledge, but this is to a certain limit. This is, there is no need for TAAS to be enforced all through high school as a hassle for many students. I believe that it would be best to teach with a wide view rather than just a point that must given a lot of attention to create it into a confusing hole that many cannot understand.
I believe that the TAAS is a waste of time. We spend a lot of our middle school years and high school years learning such irrelevant information when we could be learning more on how to write more elegantly. In the math sections of the TAAS it is basic math which we learned in alegebra. In order to get into college, every student must take either the SAT or the ACT and may also be required to write an essay. I think we should do away with the TAAS becasue I dont think it tests are knowledge. If you do make us take the TAAS, it should only be in middle school so that we don’t have to waste valuable time when we can be learning things that are IMPORTANT! We have so many tests to take as it is to get into college that test our knowledge. Many kids stress out over these stupid tests that do nothing for us but waste time.