MCAS Diagnostic – 3/21-26, 2010

During the week of March 21st through 26th, students will be taking an MCAS diagnostic at Mathnasium.

  • The main center will be transformed into an examination room. Noise level will be minimal.
  • Students who will not be taking the MCAS (private school, 1st/2nd graders) will take a Mathnasium assessment instead of the MCAS.
  • Please be aware that your child may take more than an hour.  The MCAS is not a timed test, so we will allow your child to take as long as he needs.  Please wait quietly.
  • If your child needs homework or quiz prep help during that week, please let us know; there will be instructors to work with your child in the smaller rooms in lieu of taking the diagnostic.

Our MCAS diagnostic contain actual MCAS questions but they are from multiple years, and they are grouped by the 5 strands (Number Sense & Operations, Geometry, Data Analysis, Algebra/Patterns/Relations, Measurement) so weaknesses can be identified easily.  This means, if your child has taken a past year’s MCAS test, no problem, it will not be a repeat.

In fact, we strongly encourage that your child takes a full past year MCAS test before 3/21.

I like to think of the MCAS as a driving test.  And preparing for it is like trying out the car over and over again before your driving test.  The more familiar your child is with the format and structure of the test, the more he can focus on the problem-solving aspect, the more accurately his/her MCAS test results will reflect his math skills. Steps:

  1. Download the MCAS tests from the past 5 year by clicking here: MCAS Tests.
  2. Score the test by using the answer key provided on the last page of the test. Review his results with him.  If you notice any glaring gaps, talk to his school teacher or Mathnasium instructor.  Please don’t bring the test in unscored.  We will be very busy scoring the MCAS Diagnostic so we cannot score additional MCAS Tests.
  3. Open-Response questions - For many kids, they lose the most points in the open-response questions because each question is 4 points.  See student samples, the good and the bad so you and your child understand what constitutes a full score open-response: Student MCAS Samples

Thanks for your support.  — Myrtha