Running head: PRAXIS CORE EXAM ANALYSIS 1

Praxis Core Exam Analysis

Edgar Canela Lopez

College of Southern Nevada

Education 299

Professor Wyckoff

23 September 2018
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Praxis Core Exam Analysis

Passing scores in all three of the Praxis Core Exams are required to progress in taking the upper

division education courses and/or for the pursuit of a Bachelor’s Degree of Education at UNLV,

NSC, and UNR. The passing scores in Nevada for each of these three exams are as follows: a

minimum score of 150 for the Math exam, a minimum score of 156 for the Writing exam, and

finally a minimum score of 162 for the Reading exam.

Exam Preparation

The extent to which I studied was that of doing several practice tests from a single book that

was lent to me by the library. The book I borrowed from the library was titled, “Exam Cram:

Praxis I” and mostly consisted of a number of practice exams from each section of the Praxis

Core with little more than that to offer. Regrettably, the book itself was not much use other than

as a source of diagnostic tests, for it lacked any sort of context on how to arrive at the correct

answers. More often than not, it would just reaffirm the correct answer was indeed right because

it answered what was being asked. I did not manage to find any other Praxis books that I had not

looked at during the previous year, so I reluctantly picked this one up. The lack of clarity from

some the handbooks, as well as the price for which they are offered online, made me hesitant to

buy any until I had an idea of the context that is offered from different authors.

Exam Results

In the Math Portion of the exam, I scored in the 79% range, which means that I am in limbo in

terms of passing the exam. Initially, I found this very surprising, as I find Math to be my forte,

seeing as how that is what I plan to teach. On further inspection, however, I found the root of
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what lead to my less than stellar performance in the Math portion of the exam. The breakdown of

the topics and individual scores showed that I had performed poorly on just one particular topic,

and that was on Statistics and Probability. Seeing as how I have not had a large amount of

exposure to these topics since graduating from high school, it makes sense to me as to why I

scored poorly as poorly as I did. For the Writing portion of the exam, I scored in the 80% range.

This means that similar to Math, I am in the middle of “likely to pass” and “not likely to pass”. I

was not too shocked by this, as I am not a particularly strong writer. Finally, in the Reading

portion of the exam, I scored the worst out of the three tests, only scoring in the 62% range. With

that performance, I need improvement on my reading skills to pass the actual exam as it stands

now. The length of the passages was not something I was prepared to face in a single sitting.

Future Exam Preparation

For the Math portion of the exam, I plan to prepare by going to Khan Academy and reviewing

some of the basic concepts of Statistics and Probability. As for the other two topics that make up

the Math portion of the exam, I scored well enough on them as to not feel the need to spend as

much time reviewing questions from those sections For the Writing proportion of the test, I will

look at the ET website for more practice problems and also visit the one of the Writing Centers at

CSN. As for the Reading portion of the exam, I will just try and do more practice problems from

a different Praxis Exam handbook and get accountable to the extraneous passages.