April 23 and 24 Prairie State testing will define Du Quoin High School juniors
All juniors in the state of Illinois will be taking the Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE) on April 23 and 24. This exam is an extremely important one. Results will be attached to their transcript which is a permanent record. Colleges and employers will be able to review these scores when they receive a transcript for a student. All colleges will accept the ACT part of the PSAE for entrance requirements. The last ACT for this school year is on June 8th and the registration deadline for that test is May 3. For more information about the ACT, go to www.act.org.
According to Eric Kirkpatrick of the DHS guidance department on Tuesday, April 23, juniors will take a full-length ACT test. The ACT measures four areas: English, Math, Reading and Science Reasoning. On Wednesday, April 24, juniors will take the Illinois Learning Standards as well as WorkKeys. The Learning Standards measure Developed Science. The WorkKeys measure three areas: Applied Mathematics, Reading for Information and, new this year, Locating Information.
The state reports an ACT score as well as a PSAE score. The PSAE score is a combination of all these tests. Students will receive their ACT scores by mail in June. The PSAE score will be distributed to students in late August at school.
In preparation for these tests all juniors at Du Quoin High School had the opportunity to attend ACT prep classes. These classes were on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from February-April. Our science department also offered special prep sessions for the science portion of the test during ELT. Teachers also worked on ACT material during English & math classes. Juniors also received preparation booklets from ACT as well as the PSAE state board. These booklets have full-length tests. Students need to review practice tests, learn tips and strategies, and become familiar with the format and timing of the tests. Students should take the test seriously and attempt to do their best. They need to attend both days and get a good night's sleep each night. Breakfast will be served each test day before 7:55 a.m. in the cafeteria. If students attend both days and exhibit good behavior with a sincere effort, they will be dismissed after the test each day.
Freshmen took the EXPLORE test in November at the high school. Sophomores took the PLAN test on that same day. Both the EXPLORE and the PLAN tests are practice ACT tests. By taking these tests students will be more familiar and better prepared when they take the ACT during the junior year. These students will receive score results with a predicted ACT score, college readiness standards, and an interest inventory with several careers to explore. They also get back the test booklet so they can look up any questions they missed and figure out why they missed the questions.