Tuesday Testing Day
All students will report to their Homeroom teacher's classroom.
11th grade students will take the Mock ACT. Bring a pencil and an ACT approved calculator. No other materials will be allowed into the testing room.
9th and 10th grade students will take the Horizon Benchmark Assessments. Bring your CHARGED Chromebook, your Chromebook charger, a calculator (optional), and pencil/paper.
All students will be allowed to bring study materials to the testing room, but they must remain under their desks during testing. Be sure to bring:
A snack/lunch
Study materials
Headphones
Chromebook---don't forget your charger!
Cell phones are permitted but must be powered OFF and placed in the phone caddy.
All students will eat lunch in the cafeteria during lunch waves and will then return to their homeroom teacher’s classroom.
This time should be spent as a study hall. Passes will not be given to other teachers, lockers, etc. Make sure you have everything you need!
After the lunch waves, students will attend their 7th and 8th periods.
How will HTHS Students Utilize YouScience Brightpath?
All HTHS teachers and students will be trained on using the YouScience Platform. On Wednesday, September 25, students will be begin the process of working through the aptitude "brain games" and interest survey. Each subsequent Wednesday, students will continue the process until all games and surveys are complete.
FAQs: Aptitude & Career Discovery
Discover our answers to your questions about our brain games designed for high school students. Let’s get started!
What are aptitudes?
An aptitude is a natural ability to do something. Think of it as hard-wired potential. Some
people call these "strengths" or "talents." It is important to understand that these abilities are
different than interest, personality, and skills—all of which can change over time. Because
aptitudes are stable, they can serve as a reliable navigational tool throughout a lifetime of
decisions.
Aren’t interests important too?
Absolutely! Aptitude & Career Discovery includes a 60-question interest survey. The magic is
combining a student's interests with their aptitudes to find the careers that incorporate what
they love with what they're naturally good at.
What aptitudes does Aptitude & Career Discovery measure?
Eleven brain games measure the nine aptitudes most critical in determining career success:
Idea Generation, Inductive Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning, Sequential Reasoning, Spatial
Visualization, Timeframe Orientation, Visual Comparison Speed, Vocabulary, and Work
Approach.
What does my student get from Aptitude & Career Discovery?
Every user receives:
● Personalized career matching with in-depth information about each career (including
salary, projected openings, education requirements, a day in the life, and much more).
● Comprehensive insights about how natural abilities impact work, school, and social life.
● Self-advocacy language to help you think in a very positive way and communicate
strengths on resumes, applications, essays, and interviews.
● Online access to results for 10 years.
Who can see the results?
Only your student and their administrator (typically a teacher or school counselor) can see their
results. We take student privacy very seriously and never share information.
How will the results affect school and future plans?
The goal of Aptitude & Career Discovery is to help users uncover and understand their natural
abilities (aka what makes them awesome!) and find the careers that will best use those talents.
Maybe you're a great fit for a career in medicine but haven't taken many science classes—let's
work on that schedule for next semester! Or maybe you assumed you would go to a four-year
college, but don't really have a specific plan. The brain games can help you discover what
degrees are required for your best-fit careers—or open your eyes to in-demand careers that
don't require a four-year degree. Every career within the system requires some certification or
degree past high school, but we know not every desirable career requires a bachelor's degree
(or higher). With 10 years of access, users can continue to use their results throughout school
and beyond to help determine the next steps that are right for them.
PSAT – Thursday, October 3
Juniors and Sophomores who signed up to take the PSAT will take that test on Thursday, October 3. This year the PSAT is being administered electronically nation-wide. There is no make-up for the PSAT. Today before school, students taking the PSAT received a website and login code to access preparation materials, to include a practice test. The PSAT is a much different format than our students are accustomed to seeing. It is important for students wishing to perform well on the PSAT to take at least one practice test under similar testing conditions.
For at least two days before the PSAT students should:
- Get a good night’s sleep – 8 to 10 hours is recommended
- Eat well and drink plenty of water
The morning of the test, students should:
- Eat a breakfast with plenty of protein
- Arrive to HTHS by 8:00 am to find your testing room
- Be sure to bring two sharpened No. 2 pencils, an approved calculator, a bottle of water, and a snack
PSAT Strategies: How to Approach the Digital PSAT
The PSAT is different from the tests you are used to taking in school. The PSAT is going digital as of fall 2023, and while the content of the exam is staying the same, its structure and scoring system will be slightly different than its predecessor. The good news is that you can use the new PSAT’s particular structure to your advantage.
For example, on a test given in school, you probably go through the questions in order. You spend more time on the harder questions than on the easier ones because harder questions are usually worth more points. You probably often show your work because your teacher tells you that how you approach a question is as important as getting the correct answer.
This approach is not optimal for the PSAT. On the PSAT, you benefit from moving around within a section if you come across tough questions, because the harder questions are worth the same number of points as the easier questions. It doesn’t matter how you arrive at the correct answer—only that you select the correct answer choice.
Below, we list three expert PSAT tips to help you increase your PSAT score – and test with confidence.
PSAT Strategy #1: Triage the Test
You do not need to complete questions on the PSAT in order. Every student has different strengths and should attack the test with those strengths in mind. Your main objective on the PSAT should be to score as many points as you can. While approaching questions out of order may seem counter-intuitive, it is a surefire way to achieve your best score.
Just remember, you can skip around within each section, but you cannot work on a section other than the one you’ve been instructed to work on. To triage the PSAT effectively, do the following:
First, work through all the easy questions that you can do quickly. Skip questions that are hard or time-consuming. For the Reading and Writing & Language Tests, start with the passage you find most manageable and work toward the one you find most challenging. You do not need to go in order!
Next, work through the questions that are doable but time-consuming. Then, work through the hard questions. If you run out of time, pick a Letter of the Day for remaining questions. A Letter of the Day is an answer choice letter (A, B, C, or D) that you choose before Test Day to select for questions you guess on.
PSAT Strategy #2: Use Elimination
Even though there is no wrong-answer penalty on the exam, Elimination is still a crucial PSAT strategy. If you can determine that one or more answer choices are definitely incorrect, you can increase your chances of getting the right answer by paring the selection down.
To eliminate answer choices, do the following:
- Read each answer choice
- Cross out the answer choices that are incorrect
- Take your best guess
PSAT Strategy #3: Take a Guess
Each question on the PSAT has four answer choices and no wrong-answer penalty. That means if you have no idea how to approach a question, you have a 25 percent chance of randomly choosing the correct answer. Even though there’s a 75 percent chance of selecting the incorrect answer, you won’t lose any points for doing so. The worst that can happen on the PSAT is that you’ll earn zero points on a question, which means you should always at least take a guess, even when you have no idea what to do. When guessing on a question, do the following:
- Always try to strategically eliminate answer choices before guessing
- If you run out of time, or have no idea what a question is asking, pick a Letter of the Day EXCEPT “C.” Test makers have figured out students are guessing “C” more often than the other letters so for the hardest questions they are avoiding “C” for the correct answer. Pick “A, B, or D” and stick to that letter for ALL guesses. This will statistically improve your guess odds.
Looking Ahead
September
- 10 - College Visit Day for Seniors; ACT Mock testing for juniors; Horizon testing for freshmen and sophomores; No excused check-outs after the tests unless for doctor's appointment with appropriate documentation.
October
- 3 PSAT for 10th and 11th Graders; E-Learning Day for 9th and 12 Graders
- 11 - Homecoming Game and Dance
- 14 - School Holiday
- 15 - E Learning Day
