More than half of the 1,800 candidates for teaching jobs flunked Massachusetts' certification exam this year. About a third could not pass the reading or writing portions of the test; the rest failed their subject specialties. About 63 percent of would-be math teachers failed the math test.
The following questions and answers, supplied by the Massachusetts Department of Education, are not taken directly from the test, which is still in use, but are described by department officials as "representative" of or "similar" to test items.
------------
Reading subtest: Uses passages of up to 750 words, comparable in difficulty to college texts and reflecting a variety of subject areas. One seven-paragraph reading was about archaeology, taken from "Images of the Past," by T. Douglas Price and Gary M. Feinman. Four possible outlines of the passage were supplied, and the test taker was asked to choose the best.
Short-answer items asked for written definitions of given words. One of these words was "abolish." One wrong answer was "a law about something." A right answer was "to do away with completely, to put an end to."
Writing subtest: Grammar and usage.
* Rewrite the sentence in proper grammatical form.
A distinguished scholar and a great teacher, Professor Smith's famous lecture on the pyramids are not to be missed.
Incorrect: A distinguished scholar and great teacher, the famous lecture on the pyramids given by Professor Smith is not to be missed.
Correct: Because Professor Smith is a distinguished scholar and a great teacher, his famous lecture on the pyramids is not to be missed.
* What is a preposition? Incorrect: A description of what is taking place in a sentence. Correct: A word used to show the relationship of a noun to another word in a sentence.
* An error in paragraph organization has been purposely included in the second paragraph of the following passage:
(1) Martha Graham's innovative dancing and choreography have had a profound influence on the development of modern dance in America. (2) Her concept of dance as an expression of the inner self led to the creation of a highly athletic disciplined, and passionate dance technique.
(3) Graham was born in 1893. (4) Her professional dancing career began when, as a teen-ager, she trained and performed with the Denishawn dance company, where she remained for seven years. (5) Her use of violent movement and discordant music in those original works was disturbing to many people, and her creations were not well received at first. (6) The company's traditional emphasis on grace and lyricism, however, was ultimately too confining for her, and in the mid-1920s she began to choreograph, or design, her own dances. (7) She pursued her own course, however, and during the 1940s created some of her most acclaimed works, including "Letter to the World," based on the life of poet Emily Dickinson, and the joyous "Appalachian Spring," for which Aaron Copland composed the score.
Which of the following changes would make the sequence of ideas in the second paragraph clearer?
A. Reverse the order of Parts 3 and 4.
B. Place Part 7 before Part 3.
C. Reverse the order of Parts 5 and 6.
D. Delete Part 7.
(Answer: C)
Which of the following changes is needed in the above passage?
A. Part 1: Add a comma after "choreography."
B. Part 2: Add a comma after "athletic."
C. Part 7: Replace the comma after "Dickinson" with a semicolon.
D. Part 6: Change "confining" to "confined."
(Answer: B)
Writing mechanics: A passage of 200 words, a lyrical description of the sea, is played on audiotape at dictation speed, and test takers are asked to copy it. In addition to numerous punctuation errors, misspellings include "a rest" (for "unrest"), "heavaly," "reseeded" (for "receded"), "teaming" (for "teeming"), "lays" (for "lies"), "barnicles," "alludes" (for "eludes") and "it's self."
MASSACHUSETTS' CERTIFICATION EXAM
The Meaning of the Constitution: The Written Summary includes a passage of about 750 words, titled "The Meaning of the Constitution," on the difficulty of understanding the Founding Fathers' intentions. Test takers were asked to summarize it. A sample response:
In the selection entitled, The Meaning of the Constitution. Interperting the Constitution rases many questons. What did the Founding Fathers mean to do. These are questions we all ask ourselfs, even today.
The major problem with this passage is that, there was no documentary of the debat, so the delegates kept them secret. We can only find out about the convention, in todays newspaper. There are three accounts. One was just a list and one could'nt be trusted.
James Madison was the Father of the Constitution. But he was no good at notes. He wrote a lot of notes on the debats. But also left some stuff out. What we will never know. In the convention, delegats had to debat and compermise. 42 people did not sign and thanks to James Madison we will never know, why?
Assessment: In addition to the obvious errors, the passage said that 3 - not all 42 - of the delegates present at the final session declined to sign the Constitution.
MASSACHUSETTS' CERTIFICATION EXAM
Written composition: Should the federal tax on gasoline be raised significantly to help pay for public transportation and road improvements? Opponents argue that significantly higher gas taxes will hurt business by raising costs and will decrease the freedom of mobility of the general public. Proponents say that we need the additional revenues to finance public work projects XTC and that U.S. citizens pay less for gasoline than do citizens in other industrial nations.
Write a composition in which you indicate whether you agree or disagree that the federal tax on gasoline should be raised significantly to help pay for public transportation and road improvements.
Gasoline is not cheap. It cost $15 for me to fill up my gas tank, that is with gas at $1.25 a gallon. You try to be very carefull about running you're car but the next thing you know you're out of gas. Ask anyone, running out of gas especially at night when on a highway when its dark is horibal. It is dangerous to so that is why you try to stay filled up. Gas is not the only expens. $15 would not be that much. But what about cloths, and you need some money to go out. Gas is all ready to expensive, why make it more. Added to all the other things it can mount up. For example, school books and fees. You have to make up a budtget and stick to it. Give yourself room for one fillup a week, that's it. You have to save money aside for books, food, ect. If you need to go somewhere else, tough. That's all ready the way it is, if they make gas cost more it will be worst.
Sometimes I don't think our Representives don't listen to the people. They get of up their and forget who got them where they are. The voters who voted them in. May be they only come back 2 or 3 times per year. To them may be they get their expenses payed for by the goverment. Call somebody and have their car filled up and wash it. It is not a big deal. But ask anybody, it really is some thing to think about. You go out for lunch, that is 5 or 6 dollars, and you need the gas to get their which makes it even worse.
Do not make gas price any more. Less people could afford it, the way it is now. It all ready cost enough. If you want to raise some thing really some one should take a look at the way the goverment waists money, that would be a good way to save money and not put it on gas. We put them up their, we can put them back.
Pub Date: 7/08/98