Unlike other CST prep products, Pacent combines targeted questions and focused lesson to give students and teachers the supportive tools necessary to excel.

Purpose

The purpose of the test preparation guide is to provide students with a meaningful review of the most important concepts taught this year and to ensure that students engage with the CST, thus yielding accurate information that can be used for both individual and program wide continuous improvement efforts.

Recommended Use

This program is designed as a supplement to the core instructional program. The strategic thematic warm-up/close element can substitute for the regular daily warm-up. However the Focus lesson is not intended to replace the core program lesson. Most programs are not paced to allow for 5 weeks of review lessons. These lessons can be used after school with a targeted group of students, in a shadow class, as extra credit to be worked at home or with a tutor, etc.

Program Overview

The intended use of this program is to balance the need for exposure to question format and difficulty similar to the CST with educationally sound concept review.

Most CST review guides are comprised of a series of practice tests designed to simulate the CST experience. Unfortunately these resources don't provide much in terms of instructional value. Pacent's review approach is to strategically select the most important standards for well designed review lessons designed to both reinforce key standards and to establish relationships between concepts.

The Pacent program emphasizes:

• Grade level math concept development
• Relationships between concepts
• General test taking strategies
• Note taking skills & study habits

Program Components

The Pacent Strategic CST Review Program is comprised of five 4-lesson Focuses. Each lesson is composed of two key elements:

Strategic Standard Build

Rather than trying to review every standard we've strategically selected 4 thematic standards / module. This targets review instruction and allows for students to practice and apply recently reviewed information for multiple days.

Focus Lesson

Each Focus is comprised of 4 focus lessons that provides students with series of related problems that build concept development and reinforce mathematical relationships and understanding across the related standards.

How do I use the program?

Each lesson has 4 phases:

Phase 1- Free Response Warm-up:

The top left portion of the 2 page lesson spread provides students with warm-up questions and the top right portion of the 2 page spread provides a place for students to show their work.

Phase 2- Focus Standard Lesson:

The bottom portion of the 1st page of the 2 page spread presents students with a series of related problems. Teachers will use a variety of strategies to guide students through completing these problems. On the bottom right side of the 2 page spread there is a section for taking notes, noting vocabulary, etc.

Phase 3- Multiple choice practice:

The lesson closes by brining attention back to the warm-up problems. The top 4 boxes provide multiple choice options to the original warm-up questions from phase 1. Now students find their solution from amongst the choices and evaluate each of the response options to see if they can find a reasonable way to arrive at each answer and/or the answers that are easily eliminated. The lesson ends with 4 more multiple choice questions similar to the original warm-up questions. This gives students an opportunity to apply recently reviewed concepts and strategies. Note that the CST multiple choice pages are collocated in order at the back of the booklet in order to discourage students from moving ahead on their own.

Phase 4-Check answers & track progress:

Lastly, there is a bubble sheet on the back of the test booklet where students can record their answers and keep track of their progress. Students also have a web monitoring option, which provides students with progress reports and additional study resources where needed.

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