Never to Early for ELA Test Prep!!

The ELA test is our big focus now that we are back. We want to be 150% prepared so we can SHOCK everyone with our great scores. I will be staying many afternoons until 4 pm and offering indidualized tutoring. In addition we will meet the Saturday before the test, for a very important practice session, including how to budget our time and feel super confident!

Here are some good strategies to keep in mind, but mostly remember if you believe in yourself, anything is possible!


1.

Divide and conquer! Answer the easy questions first to build confidence. This will
also allow you to rack up as many points as possible right from the start. However,

always be sure to mark the questions you don't answer right away so you can go

back to them.

2.

Pace yourself. Check your watch from time to time to make sure you're pacing
yourself appropriately.

3.

When in doubt, guess. You at least have a chance that you might guess correctly.

4.

Don't let others distract you. Focus only on your own test. If others are writing and
you aren't, don't panic. If others finish before you do, try not to get nervous.

5.

Use any extra time to first make sure you've answered all the questions. Then, go
over the more difficult questions and read them a second time. Read essays
carefully to make sure you answered all questions and followed directions first and grammar second.

6.

Don't change your initial answer unless you have a good reason to do so;
research indicates that 3 out of 4 times a first choice was probably correct.

HOMEWORK SCHEDULE

This a schedule of homework that is due in the different subjects. You must still check with your math, science and other social studies teachers their homework assignments. Also, don't forget to use the links here to practice grammar and math, I will give you points! This is a week's worth of assignments so you can get ahead. Reading is something you must always do for 2 hours a week. Yes, you get a grade for homework and as you know it does become part of the classwork as well. Just like in sports, dance or anything you want to get good at it (even video games!) practice pays off!


1) Literacy/Humanities Homework:

Connect the corrected autobiography sections, write a table of contents and choose photos or other pictures for your cover and for the inside pages. Do not forget to include your timeline and adjective web.

2) Social Studies Homework (8th graders):

Explain how your research topic connects to the forming of the United States. Add to your graphic organizer, complete your table of contents and hand in another sample of paraphrasing. Draw or print maps and pictures to share. Last day for presentations is Friday.

4) Vocabulary:

Finally, everyone needs to hand in 15 sentences with the spelling words by Thursday.