Lessons · Teaching · which basic skills test your state sets, and what it is for
One gate, two names, and your state picks which
A basic skills test measures reading, writing and mathematics at the level of somebody who finished secondary school. It is not about teaching and it is not about your subject. Most of the country sets Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators, which is three separate tests: Reading, Writing and Mathematics. California sets CBEST, the California Basic Educational Skills Test, which is three sections of one sitting. Your state, and often your programme, decides which and when.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by a state certification officer. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
People fail this test who are excellent teachers, and they fail it because they prepared for the wrong thing. Somebody who spends a month on how to teach fractions to a nine-year-old and then meets a question about the slope of a line has prepared for a different examination. Knowing which paper you are sitting is not administration. It is the first content decision you make.
How to think about it
Find your state's requirement on the certification board's own site, not on a forum, and write down three things: the test name and its code, the passing score, and whether your programme requires it before admission or your state requires it before certification. Those are different deadlines and people miss the earlier one.
Worked example
Praxis Core is three tests: Reading 5713, Writing 5723, Mathematics 5733They can be taken separately or as the combined 5752. Separately means you can retake one without resitting all three.
CBEST is Reading, Mathematics and Writing in one sitting, and the Writing section is two essaysPraxis Writing also has two essays, inside the Writing test rather than as a section of its own.
The Praxis Core mathematics test allows an on-screen calculator; CBEST does not allow one at allWhich changes how you practise, not only what you practise.
Some states accept Praxis Core, CBEST, or their own paper, and will tell you which they accept from out of stateA candidate moving states is the person most often caught by this.
Your turn
Name the basic skills test California sets.
California sets rather than Praxis Core
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Assuming the content examination and the basic skills test are the same paper. They are not, they are sat at different points, and passing one says nothing about the other. The basic skills test is general and comes first; the content examination is about what you will teach and comes later.