A Walk in the PARCC

The PARCC test has caused outcry among the student body of MHS since last year. Last year, a select group of students were chosen to “beta-test” the test. Having been one of those people last year, I knew what to expect when the test was administered to 9th, 10th and 11th graders this past week. However, my attitude was different between the two tests. Last year I went into the test thinking that I should try and just see how well I do and just see how the test affects me as a person. After experiencing nausea, exhaustion, boredom, and a bad attitude during that trial I was anything but pleased when I was forced to take it again. Going into the test, I knew that I would hate it more than anything, so I decided to ask some MHS students about their thoughts on the test.

“I hated it because it took away midterms and now finals are gonna be super hard.”

“The whole year all the teachers focused on was the PARCCs, not even what we were learning.”

“I really didn’t think the questions were good, they were either too easy or worded weirdly, I just didn’t like it at all.”

“I thought there was way too much time given for each section.”

“On the test I answered to the best of my ability but I didn’t obsess over the questions.”

“It’s never going to affect us.”

One student shared what they wrote for the essay portion of the test: “First I quoted Miracle and then wrote song lyrics.”

Many of the sophomores and juniors this year “refused” to take the PARCCs for various reasons. Most simply state that they did not want to take it and their parents just wrote in to refuse to take the test, causing every other student to beg their parents to allow them to refuse. However, one student had a different reason than they just didn’t want to take it:

“I didn’t take [the PARCCs] because of the SATs.”

Overall many students are not pleased with the test and just wish that the PARCCs weren’t applied to high school students.