As a high school EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher, one of the things I've noticed in the ten long years I've been at it is that I'm teaching less "English" and more test-taking skills.
In my earliest years teaching, I just kept trying to improve their English knowledge. My students were the remedial group, and at that time they weren't expected to write a sentence nor even the shortest of compositions. I had been teaching a couple of years before I saw my first "sample" Bagrut, national standard test.
Now the textbooks we choose and the lessons are all geared those important tests. I have techniques and systems to help my students pass and get good grades in the reading comprehensions and short composition they're now required to write.
Math teachers complain that students claim they can cram only the "formulas" that will be included after the Ministry of Education announces test content.
Test preparation is one of today's most desired pedagogic skill. That's why I wonder how truly accurate those international math statistics really are.
Another problem is that because of translations into various languages, it could be that some were written more or less clearly than others. And of course there's the "help" or cheating factor. "Explaining instructions" is sometimes a bit more detailed or "helpful" than it should be.
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