About a year ago, when I was taking my Art CSET (teacher\u2019s) exam, my good friend Brian, who has a Master\u2019s Degree in English from an Ivy League college, was taking the English CSET.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t studied for it; he simply wanted to see if he could pass it.\u00a0 He failed all four sections.\u00a0 I was now going to attempt to pass the same exam, and I have only ever had three English courses in College, and none with above a C+ grade.<\/p>\n
I guess in a month from now (now that I have completed the exam), I\u2019ll see what only three weeks of studying gets me.\u00a0 This is the least I have studied for any of my previous CSET exams.\u00a0 With six to eight weeks of studying (each), I was able to pass History, Art and Technology on my first try, and in fairly specular fashion.\u00a0 This English CSET has been the hardest for me so far because it\u2019s the furthest away from my areas of competence.\u00a0 Sure, I can write a sentence and I\u2019m fairly well-read (at least in Science Fiction and Religion), but I know NOTHING about grammar and very little about literature as a historical subject.\u00a0 My only prior knowledge in these two areas are my German studies from fifteen years ago, where I was forced to learn some English grammar as a result of learning German grammar, and my Art History degree, which uses the same historical time period names that Literature does.<\/p>\n
During my preparation, I took several pre-tests and I consistently got below a 65%.\u00a0 To pass any of the CSET tests, you need a 73.3% or higher.\u00a0 In the final days of my preparation, I used those pretests as a study guide, so hopefully, I\u2019ll get that minimum 73.3% score that I need.<\/p>\n
On test day, I was given five hours to complete four tests: two essay tests and two multiple choice tests.\u00a0 I would have to keep a pretty good pace just to complete all four tests within five hours.\u00a0 The first test on Literature was fun and I felt fairly good about it.\u00a0 I had studied Literature more than anything else in preparation for this exam because I knew so little about it and because it was the subject of two of the four tests.\u00a0 Still, about half way through the first test, I got really tired of reading all those literary passages and I could feel my comprehension dropping.\u00a0 I was mentally drained.\u00a0 The second (essay) test was also on Literature.\u00a0 I felt less good about this test because I was already drained, and because it\u2019s simply hard to write two complete essays in such a short period of time.\u00a0 They gave me plenty of scratch paper to create an outline or a draft on, but I went right to the final draft in both cases to cut out a lot of extra writing.\u00a0 I hope that this strategy will work!\u00a0 It took me 3.5 hours to complete these first two tests.\u00a0 When I looked up at the clock and realized that I only had 1.5 hours to complete the second two tests, I panicked a little.\u00a0 The two remaining tests were a multiple choice test on Grammar, which I knew nothing about, and an essay test involving four one paragraph answers on drama, oratory, creative writing, and print media, which I did know.\u00a0 I flew through the Grammar test and finished it in half an hour.\u00a0 I also flew through the short answer test in 40 minutes.\u00a0 Wow, I actually finished all four tests with 20 minutes to spare!<\/p>\n
So\u2026 how did I do?\u00a0 I may have passed two or three of the four tests.\u00a0 I do not feel that I passed the Grammar test.\u00a0 I also got the feeling that I was going to be awfully close to 73.3% on the three tests I did better on; in other words, I may have passed three tests or I may have passed none.\u00a0 If, by some miracle, I actually do pass the Grammar test, it will only be due to the fact that there were some teacher skills questions and some early childhood development questions included in the test.\u00a0 That stuff I do know.<\/p>\n
I really, really hope I passed the two essay tests because I don\u2019t ever want to write that much again in a testing situation.\u00a0 The good thing about the CSET tests in general is that once you\u2019ve passed a test, you don\u2019t have to take it again \u2013 even a partial victory is a victory.\u00a0 So long as I pass two or more of the four English tests, I\u2019ll go back to complete the rest.\u00a0 If it turns out that I only passed one or less, I\u2019ll see this as God\u2019s clear direction that I shouldn\u2019t be teaching English.<\/p>\n
Oh ya, my wife also took her test on Home Economics.\u00a0 She had passed two of three required tests previously, so she only had one to go this time around.\u00a0 I hope she passed.\u00a0 She said that she bombed one of the essays, but did very well otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About a year ago, when I was taking my Art CSET (teacher\u2019s) exam, my good friend Brian, who has a Master\u2019s Degree in English from an Ivy League college, was taking the English CSET.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t studied for it; he … Continue reading