CAHSEE Prep

The thought of taking the California High School Exit Exam(CAHSEE) strikes fear in to the heart of many high school students all across the state of California. Think about this for a second. In many cases students are taking a test on material that they haven't studied in 5 years! I don't know about you but I can't remember what I read last week much less solve problems based on concepts I learned years and years ago. It's no wonder that many students struggle to pass this exam. For those who may be unfamiliar with the CAHSEE it is a standardized exam that contains approximately 180 questions in two sections. Those sections are Mathematics and English-Language Arts and a student mus pass each subsection in order to graduate from a public high school in the state of California.

So how should students go about preparing for an exam like this? The single most effective thing that students can do to prepare for the CAHSEE is to attempt as many practice problems as they possibly can. Both the math and the english sections of the exam are broken down into 6 subsections. Students should start with the first subsection and work their way through them one at a time. There are literally hundreds of old test questions available free of charge from the California Department of Education(CDE) website and many of these problems come with written explanations.
Here is a list of some useful resources available free of charge from the CDE:

Exam Blueprints(Language Arts): http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/hs/documents/bplangarts03.pdf
Exam Blueprints(Mathematics): http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/hs/documents/bpmath03.pdf

Language Arts Study Guide: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/hs/elaguide.asp
Math Study Guide: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/hs/mathguide.asp

2008 Released Questions(Language Arts): http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/hs/documents/ela08rtq.pdf
2008 Released Questions(Mathematics): http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/hs/documents/math08rtq.pdf

Pay the most attention to the last set of links which provides students with lots and lots of real exam questions! Simply put, solving those problems is the absolute best way to prepare for the CAHSEE.

Students can also take advantage of several online test prep services that offer classes helping students prepare for the CAHSEE as well. When evaluating these test preparation programs, make sure that they are centered around solving practice problems.
Students can find lots of other test prep resources online at various sites in the education community.
In the next section we will take a look at a few sample questions and watch how these can be solved.