8th grade. Unit 1. Final Test

 👉Communicative area: testing your reading, listening and speaking skills.

The smartest kids in the world

In the spring of 2000, a third of a million 15-year-olds in forty-three countries sat down for two hours and took a test unlike any they had ever taken. The test was called PISA, and it measured the learners' ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet the challenges of real life.

The test did not ask traditional test questions, for example, how many coins one needs to buy something, but it asked the learners to design their own coins.

Many tests before and after PISA aim at testing what children have memorised. They are able to check learners' success at school, but not their ability to think critically and solve problems. PISA is developed to test learners' creative thinking, critical thinking and communication skills which learners will need to be successful in the modern world and to be able to think for themselves.

The number-one country in the first PISA test in 2000 was Finland. PISA is organised every three years. Every time, different countries show different results, but Finland stays the leader. The other regular champions are Estonia, Canada, China, Singapore and South Korea. Belarus participated in PISA for the first time in 2018. The results that Belarusian 15-year-olds participants showed in reading, mathematics and science at PISA were in the middle of the ranking: with about 35 countries above it and about 35 countries below it.

What makes education in Finland successful? When a child in Finland turns 7 years old, they start basic education, and it lasts for nine years. In classes 1-6, the children are usually taught by one teacher. This helps the teacher and children get to know each other very well. In basic school, children attend school five days a week. They usually spend between 19 and 24 hours a week in school, and they have minimal homework. The short school day includes a lot of breaks.

Lessons in Finnish school focus on developing practical skills so that students can use the knowledge from lessons and course books. Finnish children have only one standardised test when they finish high school. Having no exams at school does not mean that children are not being assessed regularly. However, it is not one task for each student in class but several tasks that students can choose to do. In Finnish School, there is no competition between students. They compete with themselves, and they cooperate with others. Every student has their own goals that are discussed and set every year together with the teacher and parents.

unlike - different from

PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) - Международная программа

по оценке образовательных достижений учащихся

measure - измерять, оценивать 

assessed - оценивать