Does anyone else think it's 100% ridiculous to expect 1st graders, kids aged 6-7 years old, to be able to solve all of these addition problems within 1 minute?
My son gets to take the test twice, first at 1 minute with the class, then at 2 minutes, and they average out the grades. Even with that advantage he only scored an 8.
It's not unreasonable. They did the same when my son was in private school and he was in kindergarten. When we moved him to home school we continued teaching him that way.
It's more of a life long lesson. How to solve problems within so many minutes and under pressure. When you get a job boss says I need this done by this time and you have a lot on your plate plus home problems. You still have to do what boss said and done when boss needs it.
And it's a good exercise for the child's brain to solve and memorize. That's how people are quick all memory from what they had learned and stored in their brains.
I don't think it's unrealistic. They are "math facts" they are meant to be memorized, not solved. If memorized, they can be read and answered in the alloted time period.
I don’t think the the purpose is to do all of them but just to asses how may they can do an get right. When I was in school we had something like that called the mad minute and it was about 50 problems but it was just to practice
1 minute? Even I couldn't do all that in 1 minute!
(I remember once in 1st grade I had a math test. The teacher marked a question as wrong. I went to her: "But....8+3 DOES equal 11, not 12...." Teachers aren't always right!)
@martcas1989 10 minutes is more than reasonable. My son has ADHD and a Processing Disorder, and according to pediatrician and psychiatrist most likely has Aspergers, but hasn't been diagnosed.
With all of the trouble he has with processing things like this, he only gets 2 minutes on the test.
@believeinbuddha it's not the math I have a problem with, it's the time. Kids get stressed out and work slower when they know they are being timed anyway. And these kids aren't going to have this stuff memorized, they need time to work out the problems.
My son can answer all of these correctly, just not within 1-2 minutes for all 25 problems.
I don't think that's too advanced. They expect you to know A LOT by the time you enter school so I'm not surprised they have them starting basic math in first grade. When i was young we started around then I believe.
It's more of a life long lesson. How to solve problems within so many minutes and under pressure. When you get a job boss says I need this done by this time and you have a lot on your plate plus home problems. You still have to do what boss said and done when boss needs it.
And it's a good exercise for the child's brain to solve and memorize. That's how people are quick all memory from what they had learned and stored in their brains.