Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: exams, high school

This topic has 6 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 10 months ago by LDIMom.

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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June 29, 2012 at 5:27 am
anniepeter
Participant
This is my first attempt at exams. Am I on the right track? This is for my dd who is a senior’s final exam. Any feedback from those of you that have more experience with both the subject matter and exams woudl be highly appreciated!! I can’t be too stiff b/c this is my kids’ first exposure to this too. How much time do you think this should take? And should I give them a set amount of time? Is this too much? Should all the answers be written? I was considering asking for one question in each “class” to be written and the rest oral. Feel free to make suggestions for change.

Government – 1) Is our government today what the Framer’s of the Constitution intended it to be? How concerned should we be about that? and why? 2) What rights are guaranteed in our Bill of Rights? 3) What is the purpose of our Constitution (tell where is it found in our documents)? 4) What was the debate between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists about? How do you stand on these issues today? 5) Why do we have political parties? How do they help the political process? How do they hinder it? How do you think the system might be improved?
Economics – 1) How would you define the study of economics? What makes for good economics? Bad? Give examples of how law affects economies – past and present.
Biology – 1) Tell me what you know about how living things are categorized in the study of Biology? What defines each of these categories? (i.e. what makes a bird a bird) 2) Define and draw a diagram of a cell explaining the function of the various parts. 3) Tell all you know about the most fascinating thing you learned in Biology.
Chemistry – 1) What did you find most interesting and/or enlightening in your study of Chemistry? 2) What do you know about the different types of chemical reactions and how/why they happen? Give examples (including diagrams and balanced equations) for each.
Personal Development – 1) What are the 7 Habits? Give a brief example of each habit in action. 2) Family book – What can you do in your various roles today to help make the Family work beautifully? 3) What have you found most helpful from your study of Attacking Anxiety and Depression? How can Daddy and I help you to apply what you’re learning and meet your needs?
June 29, 2012 at 3:15 pm
Sonya Shafer
Moderator
For your first attempt, I think you did admirably well! My only point for discussion would be whether there might be too many far-reaching questions for Government. They’re all good questions; I’m just wondering whether there are too many — and all of them deep — along with everything else.
Karen, Bookworm, Linda, others, your thoughts?
June 29, 2012 at 3:32 pm
anniepeter
Participant
Thanks so much Sonya. Reading it over again this morning at a REASONABLE time I can certainly see that too! Maybe I should just have her choose one question. Any thoughts on how much written vs. oral? I guess my hope was that she could do it in an afternoon (the written portion anyway).
June 29, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Bookworm
Participant
I agree with Sonya–you have some awfully broad questions here. Entire libraries are full of books trying to answer them. 🙂 I think I’d have a hard time answering all these well in one afternoon. We usually do an exam “week” of at least three days, with several two-hour sessions spread over the three days, rather like college or grad school. For high school I typically do all written, actually, with just a few exceptions, and I tend to target the questions a bit more for this age, since they are shortly to be doing essay exams in college, which often have painfully specific questions. 🙂 I tend to think about what I want them to show, how long I think it might take them to answer the questions I am coming up with, and then plan a few (say, three to five questions that might take fifteen to twenty minutes each to answer–or if my questions might take only 5 to 10 minutes to answer, give a few more questions.)
June 29, 2012 at 4:11 pm
missingtheshire
Member
I work along similar lines to Bookworm…we do nearly all written answers and I use more specific questions for the written answers. We do have a debate day where we practise debating broader issues, but we use that for fun rather than exam, however I do pay attention to how well they formulate arguments and discussion points and I consider that in my grading. We do a few short form answers of a couple of sentences, up to an essay type length answer for one thing. I would use some of your rather broad government questions as discussion topics, as they are perfect for that and lend themselves more to discussion than writing. I too would spread it over a few days.
June 29, 2012 at 4:24 pm
anniepeter
Participant
Thank you for your input ladies. I think I will limit it to one question in each topic for written answers and I’ll let her choose which one – she can choose for speed if she wants! Then we’ll just discuss the others on the way to MN next week to get ready for her graduation. I just need a little something more to “grade”…and to guage what she got from Bio and Chem and Econ since I wasn’t very involved in her learning in those areas. OK…I was completely uninvolved except for what she shared voluntarily when she got excited about something she was learning!
June 29, 2012 at 4:38 pm
LDIMom
Participant
Not to high school yet but keeping this discussion in my back pocket for future reference. Thanks all!