Recently, all sophomores at WJ and at many schools around the country were required to take the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC test, for English. The test ran for the first two periods of the school day for the first part of the test, which was the literary analysis portion. The second portion of the test, which was originally set to be the following day  but was postponed due to snow days, was two parts and lasted from first through most of fourth period. By the end of all the snow days, the English 10 PARCC ended up being given on Mar 4 and 9, and the algebra 1 and 2 test, which was through fourth period, was given on Mar 11.

The test was different then most exams because students took them on the Chromebooks, with which which many students and teachers are still unfamiliar getting used to. The use of the Chromebooks made taking the actual test even more difficult- in my class, it took almost all of first period just to get everyone set up for the test. Aside from the frequent Chromebook malfunctions, the actual test was difficult too. Both I and many others found the questions, which each had two parts to it, to be very vague. This caused further annoyance, adding to the fact that we already felt that the tests were already a waste of our time. Class time is extremely important, especially when we are only a couple weeks from the end of the quarter, and missing any class really stresses me out. Personally, my first four classes are also my hardest classes, and catching up on missed work is never easy. Classes don’t stop or postpone just because a couple of kids were absent because of they were taking the PARCC, and tests and quizzes were still given as usual. Since the PARCC does not count for anything this year, and all I got out of it was a load of missed classes and mountain of homework to make up, I found the test to be an extremely pointless experience.