Talk:Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test

Same Test

Our teacher was discussing the Mathematics test today and stated that MOST TESTS ARE NOT THE SAME! Some are but some aren't. 72.188.49.77 (talk) 20:31, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Back in high school, my class test-piloted the FCAT exam. However, we still had to pass the High School Competency Test, or HSCT. However I've never heard of the CTBS or Terra Nova exams, as mentioned in the article.

Anyone know if those tests were given statewide? I don't think they were ever given in my district. TrbleClef 02:35, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

HSCT was for high school and Terra Nova and CTBS were mostly for elementary school. Terra Nova, I believe, was also for middle school. Mike H 22:57, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Of these three, only the HSCT was a state mandate. The CTBS, Terra Nova, SAT 9s, were all selected by districts, who could pick whichever test they wanted for self-evaluation. Additionally, districts could pick the ITBS (Iowas), CAT (California Achievement Test), or others. Districts routinely (well, I should say, Duval County, anyway, where I taught) routinely would switch tests every five years or so to make it difficult to ascertain long-range trends in student achievement; this worked because most of these tests were just different enough that one could say it was invalid to compare this year's CTBS scores with last year's SAT 9 scores. Unschool 22:17, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

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This information just isn't correct. Three through ten? That implies that the tests are given every school year when they're not. The Florida Writes exam is also given in NINTH grade. I'd know; I took it. Mike H 03:27, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Florida Writes! is given for assessment purposes in 4th, 8th, and 10th grade. See [1]. TrbleClef 06:03, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That makes no sense, though. I'm almost 100% sure we did not have our regular FCAT exams AND Florida Writes! in the same year. We had our practice exam in eighth grade and the real thing in ninth. Maybe they changed it since I did it (1999, 2000). Mike H 06:58, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not positive, but I think they might have FCAT Writing now too (which may be the same thing.) But when I was in school (c/o 2001) we definitely took the Writes for assessment in 4th, 8th, and 10th. It may be administered at other times but I believe it only counts towards student success in those grades. TrbleClef 22:13, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We have FCAT Reading and Math every year from third grade and up. They are now implementing FCAT Science, which I think we are taking this year (I'm an eighth grader, sup) but we didn't take it last year in 7th. FCAT Writes is 4th, 8th, and 10th grade. In fact, i'm taking FCAT Writing tomorrow, which is not only an essay now. There are two parts now: Multiple choice questions and the essay. XHyperYoshimi 23:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Fcat Must Go

I think Fcat effect students to past this test in order to graduate from High School. It's very struggling for students to retake fcat over and over again. It really hurting students to graduate and (the school grading rate of reading and math.) Students be dropping out and can't get a diploma cause they can't past the fcat. Also students can't go to college to past the Fcat.

Let me guess... you didn't pass? -- Non-user; 2:38 PM 1/11/06

Hey, I even passed, gotten a nearperfect score for a few years, and I still think it SUCKS. --'Nother non user.

Look, the FCAT is the best thing to ever happen to students in Florida. It interrupts weeks of class and pushes lunchtimes up. The only people that fail it deserve to fail.

Yeah, I loved the F-THAT (as nearly everyone in the class called it) for that reason. Nothing like a couple days off of school (thus wasting millions of tax dollars state-wide) to take some multiple-choice tests that don't inidicate shi'ite. 71.106.45.211 04:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, jokers, this is not craiglist's political forum. Take your black and white slogan matches elsewhere, please. --Mark 2000 17:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that the FCAT is too easy, actually. The kids who fail or the ones who deserve to. 216.79.193.84 (talk) 15:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Try focusing on the FCAT when you are living in a foster home, while being raped by one of your foster parents. Try focusing on the FCAT when you have to become an emancipated minor at the age of 15 so that your family doesn't starve and your brothers and sisters will have clothes to wear. Try focusing on the FCAT when you live in the hood and have developed PTSD from drive-by shootings and the best you can do is stay out of gangs and avoid smoking crack. You don't get to say who "deserves" to fail at anything until you know what a struggle is. There are variables in life that can determine your academic performance that have nothing to do with how smart you actually are. 97.102.3.150 (talk) 13:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Logo?

Considering adding the FCAT logo to the page. (It's the coolest logo I've seen on a test in several years.) Any suggestions?

--ElementC 14:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, go ahead, this year's FCAT book design is pretty shiny. 71.0.242.38 03:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Missing Logo

As mentioned above, a logo was added to this article, but now it has been removed. I am not sure why it is gone now, but it couldn't have been for copyright reasons because it was made by the government.

It's a state logo, not a federal logo. The government works rule only applies to federal logos. However, I agree that there was no reason for it to be removed, it's fair use. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 01:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• I was the one who uploaded the logo but the admin said that the copyright was invalid —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darylquban (talk • contribs) 17:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Overzealous admins

Full protection until September? Okay, full protection for a few weeks (especially since this is FCAT season) I can see. Partial protection until September? Maaaaaaaybe. But full protection for six months is irresponsible. On an historically static topic like Roman Law or Chinese Emperors I could understand it, but this is the worst use of the protection power I have ever seen in my nearly six months on Wikipedia. 68.17.232.72 (talk) 18:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

People get theirs scores and get pissed. It's fully reasonable. Therequiembellishere (talk) 23:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

And I don't know what you mean since it expires in one month. Therequiembellishere (talk) 23:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

If you look here, you will see that when that comment was written, all indications were that it expired in September. It's been changed since. And no, that would not be reasonable. This isn't an article about the President, for pete's sake. 68.17.232.72 (talk) 23:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, so what's the big deal? Therequiembellishere (talk) 03:28, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

And again, the indication were for April. Darylquban didn't protect the page. Therequiembellishere (talk) 03:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

About the test

Okay, the article explains how the test is required for graduation from HS and who is required to pass the FCAT, but it would probably make the article a lot more encyclopedic if this article were to provide more explaination of the sections, and better expain the scoring of the test, other than the fact that part of it is automaticly scored and part of it is manually scored. It may even improve the article to explain the strict policies of the handling of the test and how someone's test can easily be invalidated. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 01:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

On that level I don’t really know too much because I decided not to go into education, but this much I recall from various classes and teaching. Some of this is a few years old though (that is, from 2005), so you might want to verify it to see if any of it’s changed, especially about the school grades

• There are fairly well defined rubrics for grading the hand scored portions
• For the longer problems only what’s inside the box are counted: even if there is the correct work outside the box, it’s worth nothing.
• School grades come from a 600 point scale, with numerical divisions for the letters
• 300 of those points come from how well students achieve
• 300 of those points come from how students improve (thus meaning if nobody improves, they get 0 points here and are at most a D school, if they get all 300 achievement points)
• If the bottom X% (25%?) doesn’t show adequate improvement, the grade is automatically lowered one letter. GromXXVII (talk) 12:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Passing

I noticed several edits recently about what it means to “pass” the FCAT. I thought this reference (pdf) for grade 10 might be useful. http://fcat.fldoe.org/pdf/fcatpass.pdf. As for grade 3, I beleive level 2 or higher is needed – although exemptions can be made. GromXXVII (talk) 11:00, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The 10th grade situation is difficult to clarify in the article. They still list 10th grade scores as being a "1", "2", "5" or whatever, but that's not what determines passage. A "1" is a guaranteed failure and a "3" is a guaranteed pass, but a "2" can be a pass or fail, depending on the student's "scale score", which is not always the same from year to year. It's almost pointless to try to explain in the article without a graph (which would either violate WP:OR or WP:COPY, if you used theirs. Unschool (talk) 03:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Alterations to the FCAT test due to 2008 Budget cuts by the Florida Legislature:

1. The Florida NRT test was eliminated.

2. The Florida Writing + exam did not require passage with a 3 or better until 2012.

3. The Summer retake of the FCAT was eliminated. The reduces the number of opportunities to retake the test after Grade 10.

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—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.82.9.79 (talk) 22:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah -- the article is sketchy about FCAT grades -- are these what you're calling Levels? -- can you get a "Level" zero? what is the highest grade(s) you can achieve? And, lastly, what are the passing grades?

And what is the point of all this extraneous SAT/ACT stuff? I would love to see some graphs of the ranges of achievement over the years, across grades. The FL DOE sites were impenetrable in this regard.70.197.182.182 (talk) 23:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

What I know:

• No, 0 is not possible; Level 1 is the lowest for all tests.
• 5 is the highest for all tests, except for the 4th grade writing test, for which a 6 is the highest possible.
• Level 3 represents "grade level performance" for all tests, but "passing" (as far as the state is concerned; some counties have their own standards) is only relevant at grades 3 (reading only) and 10 (language arts and math). In 3rd grade, "passing" on the reading exam is now a "2", which is lowered from the original requirement of "3". For 10th grade, it is far more complicated. Making a Level 3 will guarantee that you pass, but you can actually pass with a "high" Level 2.

Clear as mud, eh?

FCAT Explorer

I merged this article here, which avoids duplication DGG ( talk ) 05:31, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

FCAT's future

Hasn't the test been ended, effective 2015 and after? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.177.92.102 (talk) 16:46, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

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But what is it?

There was a 2008 comment that asked the same question. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia, and I as European just want to know what it tested- what form of assessment is used- so I can compare. I am sure that it would be easy for a Florida teacher to give a synopsis of the requirements.--ClemRutter (talk) 11:35, 30 December 2018 (UTC)