About This Test
The Elementary Education: Content Area Exercises test is designed to measure how well prospective teachers of students in the elementary grades can respond to extended exercises that require thoughtful, written responses. The exercises pose challenging problems for the test taker to analyze and solve, thereby assessing the examinee's in-depth understanding of elementary education necessary for safe and effective practice.
Each of four essay exercises is set in the context of a subject area (or integrated subject areas) and in the context of a classroom situation. Each exercise presents a specific teaching situation; the examinee is asked to discuss an instructional approach or to develop an instructional goal or solve an instructional problem and outline the steps necessary to achieve the goal or solve the problem. The examinee must justify the steps or decisions based on his or her understanding of issues in curriculum, instruction, or assessment. For example, an exercise might cover instructional approaches using trade books to teach reading/language arts in a first-grade classroom.
The four essay exercises cover topics in curriculum, instruction, and assessment, as described in the Elementary Education: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Test 0011. Each topic is considered in the context of reading/language arts, mathematics, science, or social studies. One exercise concerns reading/language arts; one concerns mathematics; and one concerns either science or social studies. The remaining exercise requires understanding of interdisciplinary instruction in elementary subject areas, such as the integration of reading/language arts and social studies or other integrated subject areas. Physical education and fine arts content are not covered in this test. Each exercise represents 25 percent of the total test score.
This test may contain some questions that will not count toward your score.