In March, the 11th grade students will take the English SOL. According to the Virginia Department of Education , SOLs as the Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools establish a minimum for what students should know at the end of a class.
The Writing SOL will test students’ ability to use information that they have learned throughout the school year. The test has two parts, a multiple choice section and a written section. Unlike the other SOLs such as History and Math that take place in May, the SOLs take place in March so there is enough time to grade the essay portion of the test.
Stephanie Brooks is one of the English 11 teachers at RCHS. She explains the test format of the SOL and how the test works.
“The first part of the SOL is the multiple choice component, which asks questions about formal writing styles, concepts, quotations and all of those aspects of writing. Day two is the written response, in which they are given a prompt and have to orchestrate a formal five paragraph essay addressing the prompt,” Brooks said.
She then goes on to describe how she is preparing her students for the SOL.
“We’ve done some warm up activities that cover one subject a day. We are also working on the writing portion with actual in class writing assignments such as essays. Ultimately, closer to the SOL, like in February,we will do SOL “boot camp” days where the entire day will be reviewed for the SOL,” Brooks said.
Alice Gresham is an English 11 AP student in Ms. Payne’s class. She describes how prepared she feels about the upcoming test.
“I honestly feel very prepared. I feel like all the activities that we have done in class have led up to us, as students, to be prepared for the upcoming SOL,” Gresham said.
Although the test is in March, teachers have been preparing their students all year. Here are three testing tips to remember for the day of the test according to an SOL writing review packet. First, use the process of elimination, eliminate the answers that are obviously not correct. Second, don’t leave any questions blank as they will be counted wrong. Lastly, use backsolving. Sometimes if the question is confusing, looking at the answers can help synthesize what the question is asking. Best of luck juniors!
