Students at Rachel Carson Middle School took the world language credit exam Nov. 13-14 — entirely on the computer for the first time.
In previous years, the exam has assessed students only based on hand-written essays. This year, however, all but two languages, Sanskrit and Twi, were tested for reading, writing, speaking and listening on a digital program that uses computer-adaptive testing.
“The program is called Avant, and they just changed the process and that it is a computerized test,” said Mrs. Megan Carr, the School Based Technology Specialist.
Isha Katti, an eighth-grader on the Explorers team, was surprised at the change.
“I was actually shocked that they changed it to computer,” she said.
The WLCBE is an exam in which bilingual students can earn mandatory high school language credits that they otherwise must earn through a language course.
Priya Deshpande, an eighth-grader on the Explorers team, thought that the new changes made the exam harder.
“It was harder because it was testing all four of your areas,” said Priya.
The reading and listening parts of the exam were self evaluations.
“All we had to do for them is answer ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ to the questions they asked,” Priya said.
Students began preparing long before the WLCBE.
“I went to a language prep class,” said Isha.
Priya said that she studied a lot for the exam.
“My mom basically sat us down and made us prepare,” she said.
Isha was pretty confident leading up to the exam. She was stressed the day before, but after the exam, she said that she thinks she did well.
“I think overall it went pretty well,” Isha said.
The WLCBE provides a total of 54 languages.
Yug Mehta, a seventh-grader on the Dream Team, said that he did not take the WLCBE because his language, Gujarati, is not on the exam.
“I think they should work on including more languages,” Yug said.
