Are You Smarter Than A Seventh Grader?
October 30, 2009
New York State English/Language Arts test
Earlier this year, seventh graders across New York were introduced to Brookhaven National Laboratory during part of an annual, statewide English/Language Arts test. Students were instructed to read a paragraph and then correct the mistakes they found. This year, the paragraph was about Brookhaven Lab employee William Higinbotham, who, 51 years ago this month, invented what is believed to be the first video game ever, Tennis for Two.
Lori Lebel, a seventh- and eighth-grade English teacher at Central Park International Magnet School in the Schenectady City School District, was surprised to see Brookhaven Lab mentioned in the test. As a high school student, she interned at the Lab and her father, Carl Czajkowski, still works in the Lab’s Nonproliferation and National Security Department.
“These tests rarely relate to something in students’ lives,” Lebel said. “The kids were so excited when I told them that I actually had a connection to something that was in the test.”
So, now for the test.
Click on the link below for the original paragraph that all New York seventh-grade students edited for punctuation, capitalization, and grammatical construction. There are no spelling mistakes. Can you make the right corrections?
2009-1457 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
