Yeah! Another test!!!!!!!!!
I know we all love tests - the bubble sheets, the no. 2 pencils, what's not to love??
The English I EOC is primarily a reading test. It will test reading comprehension and grammar editing skills. Even in the grammar editing sections they will have a reading passage. The good news is that the state tells us, "The selections chosen are ones that would generally be read by students, would be interesting to the students, and have appropriate content for a reading comprehension test at grade 9."
HA! I'm here to tell you that they pick the most boring selection that they can. Even if they pick something cool, they'll suck all the coolness right out of it until there is nothing left. So to combat it, we will need to follow some strategies:
1. READ THE PASSAGE - it is plain and simple. Many of you did not read the eighth grade EOG and you didn't get the grade you wanted. Now it is more important than ever to get the grade, so READ THE PASSAGE!!!!
2. Mark out answers you know are wrong - this simple strategy helps to focus your thougths and helps you to guess better when you don't know the correct answer. Mark out only ones you are pretty sure are wrong. Sometimes, you'll know three are wrong, but the fourth one has a colon or something in it that you are not familiar with. Since you know the other three are wrong, the fourth one must be right.
3. Stand up and stretch - At certain points in the test, they will ask you to stand up and stretch if you want. You will not want to. Do it anyway. What happens is this - the longer you sit, the slower your blood flows. The slower your blood flows, the less oxygen your brain gets. The less oxygen your brain gets, the sleepier and more unfocused you'll get. Once that happens, it is all over. STRETCH!
4. Do not leave anything blank - A blank is a wrong answer, better to just put B than to leave it blank.
5. Mark mistakes as you find them - Just quickly circle or mark the area, don't spend a lot of time, but this way, when you run across that question, you'll be able to answer it quicker.t
6. Know your enemy - You may have seen that movie The Blair Witch Project. The whole thing about that movie that made it scary was not blood and gore, it was that you never saw any witch, monster, peopel dying, etc. The fact that you did NOT know what was out there made it even scarier. We fear the unknown. So it makes sense to know this test. Below you will find the test explained.
The Test
The English I EOC is made up of 80 questions. The questions are broken up by two catagories.
Composition - This deals mostly with grammar and text editing, although every so often a question does appear based on what was written in the passage. These passages are easy to distinguish since every line is numbered. There are four passages, each with 5 - 8 questions, for a total of 28 questions. These questions will mostly be written in this format:
What could be changed in sentence 5 to make it correct?
A good last minute thing to study for this type of question is comma rules. Many of the answer choices will involve commas in one way or another. Knowing how to use them will not only allow you to find the correct answer, but also eliminate wrong answers.
Textual Analysis - This is reading comprehension. The best thing for this is to read as much as you can. Read anything! You can also do the practices on the side bar there for some extra credit.
Want more practice? Try going to Daily Dose of EOC!
Critical Reading Lessons
These are the lessons using the books we have in class. You have a blue sheet where you are keeping you answers. You will have to turn in a blue sheet with 8 lessons completed. This will count as a major grade, so it is important to have this done. Please make sure that you do not lose your blue sheet or you will have to do this over. If you need another copy of the blue sheet, you can print it out here:
Remember to put the lesson number AND the name of the book you are using for each lesson. Here are some photocopies of lessons so that you can do some at home:
From: Crime and Punishment
Crime
Lesson 6: Jesse James
Crime Lesson
10: Assassination of MLKjr
Crime
Lesson 13: Lizzie Bordon
Deceptions
Lesson 3: Trojan Horse
Deceptiosn
Lessons 8: Uri Geller
Deceptions
Lesson 21: War of the Worlds
Calamities
Lesson 3: Killer Tornado
Calamities
Lesson 9: Poisoned Tylenol
Calamities
Lesson 16: Soccer Fan Disaster
Heroes
Lesson 3: Jackie Robinson
Heroes
Lesson 10: Charles Lindbergh
Heroes
Lesson 13: The Little Rock 9