By Laurie Udesky

Third-grade teacher Annie Long grappled with a new problem when her students reviewed the online practice test to prepare for the Common Core-aligned assessments they will be taking in a few weeks. The instructions were too complicated for many of them to understand.

The practice test instructions included words such as “scan” and “sources” – words that were unfamiliar to the majority of her class at Bayshore Elementary School in Daly City.

But they were not the only students struggling with these elements of the practice test. High school students in San Jose interviewed by EdSource Today also had difficulty understanding the instructions and how to navigate different sections of the test, as did 3rd-graders in Fresno.

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