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In the previous post, I wrote about how RCEF designed special tests in Math, Science, English, Language Arts, and Social Studies for students. Our goal was to measure their skills beyond the textbook. Below are some examples of questions from the Social Studies test.

What do you think is the most important of China’s ancient inventions and why?

This question was from the fifth grade test. On the most basic level, we were testing whether students remember information about the inventions. All of the students did. We were also testing their ability to make sound arguments, backed up by evidence, to support their claims. Finally, we wanted to see if students would actually compare the significance of one invention with the others, rather than only explaining why their chosen invention was important. Unfortunately, hardly any students did this.

Here’s another example:

Your class went to Xinle Village to investigate smoking. Do you feel that the smoking problem there is serious? Why? What actions do you think we should take now that we’ve done this investigation?

This question was in both the 5th and 6th grade tests. The students had done a community research project investigating smoking habits in nearby villages. In the first part of the question, we were testing whether students could back up their opinions with evidence from their surveys. Among the 32 students in 6th grade, only three students talked about the general hazards of smoking without referring to the specific situation of the village they investigated. Among the remaining 29 students, only 5 students made vague statements like “most men in the village smoke and spend a lot of money on it”. The other 24 students cited statistics or data from their surveys, such as the percentage of villagers who smoke, the average amount of cigarettes they smoke a day, or the average amount spent on cigarettes a year.

In the second part of the question, we were assessing students’ problem solving skills, the feasibility and detail of their proposals, and their creativity. Most of the students suggested starting a publicity campaign to encourage people to quite. Here are some of the other proposals:

• Forbid village stores from selling cigarettes
• Producing cigarettes that are just filled with candy
• Teaching villagers methods for quitting smoking
• Doing an objective survey and publicizing the results
• Fining smokers
• Persuading our own family members to quit smoking

The sixth grade curriculum deals a lot with conflicts and peace. In this question, we test students’ problem solving skills in a conflict situation: “Country AB lacks water and suffers from drought which brings problems like famine and disease. In order to help its people, Country AB has gone to war several times and invaded nearby countries that have plentiful water. If you were the General Secretary of the United Nations, how would you deal with this problem? Why? What are the benefits of your solution?”

Nearly all students tried to think of ways that could prevent a conflict, and at the same time deal with the underlying issue of water shortage, most of them involving sending water to the country. However, there were a few who only suggested persuading or pressuring the president of the country from initiating wars. For example, one student wrote: “I would tell their President: ‘Even though you lack water, you shouldn’t use war as a method and invade other countries. In war, if you don’t die, then I die. What good is there in that? I implore you to call back your soldiers or else don’t blame the United Nations for what we will do. This can scare the President because he knows that more people equals more strength. One country alone can’t beat the United Nations. The good part of my solution is that it will show the President the terror of war.”

We were looking for feasibility and detail in their answers. Many students simply suggested to “send water to the country”, while some actually thought through specific methods for sending the water. For example, one student suggested building a big water pipe connecting the country to surrounding countries. Another suggested building huge, shared water towers near the border between that one country and other countries so that they could share water resources. A couple of students suggested that instead of donating the water, the country should have to pay for water from other countries so that they remain self-reliant.

Finally, we wanted to see which students would come up with the most creative solutions. One student said: “I would tell them to split up their population among different peaceful countries where water is plentiful. If one country has to bear the burden of all the people, it will not have enough water.” Another wrote: “I would make Egypt and its neighboring countries sign a contract saying that Egyptians can use the other countries’ water in return for giving people from those countries free admission to tour the pyramids. This way, the water resources in surrounding countries can be used to their fullest and Egypt’s tourism industry will advance. This solution brings benefits to each country’s development.”