Understanding Fcat Administration

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test areGiven the basic constitutions of the test, we then shift
administered in late February and early part of Marchour focus to the practical implementation, drawbacks,
in every public school students from grade three untilpositive sides, and potential sources of criticism. The
the tenth grade. Parochial and private school studentsarticle written by Shaw (2004) confirms the validity
are not required to take the FCAT examinations butand effectiveness of FCAT. Scholar reflects upon
rather than administer other standardized test just likestudents scoring high on FCAT and the nation wide
Stanford Achievement Test. On the other hand, FCATtesting. According to the results of the study, there is a
Science is administered once a year to every publicpositive correlation between the efficiency of FCAT
school student in grades five, eight and eleven.results and the typical nation wide academic testing.
Students in the fourth, fifth and tenth grades studying inFCAT is believed to be able to identify the fields in
public schools will take an FCAT Writing test knownwhich a student needs to improve his or her
as "Florida Writer". In contrast with other exams given,knowledge. As such, early administration of testing that
the Writing exam is administered in the early part ofstarts in the 4th Grade allows identifying the abilities
February in order to have enough time for scoringand weaknesses of a students' theoretical knowledge
before the school-year ends.base.