How to Use Quizzes for Test Prep

Whether you’re looking to improve listening scores on the SBAC, CAASPP, ELPAC, TELPAS, or WIDA assessment (see 5 stepsto prepping students for tests), Listenwise quizzes are a great tool to prepare for the listening portion of the test. Quizzes are easy to assign, provide an opportunity for students to practice their test-taking skills, and report on the strengths and weaknesses of your students’ listening comprehension.

We post multiple-choice quizzes on a few Current Event every month, which we recommend assigning weekly to students. Our teachers love these Current Events quizzes as a 10-15 minute asynchronous listening activity. Here’s a list of our Wednesday quizzes.

For more help with finding and assigning a quiz, explore this section of the Support Center.

Here are a few examples, which provide tips and tricks for using Listenwise quizzes throughout the year in preparation for state tests, while supplementing your curriculum with engaging listening activities:

Weekly Listening Routines

Here is one teacher’s instructional practice, along with their favorite feature, quiz reporting, which provides insight into how students are performing across 8 key listening skills:

“Listenwise is a great way to engage students in both current events and topics related to curriculum. It’s easy to implement as part of a regular schedule; I assign one each Monday, so students can anticipate it. I also like how the questions are broken down by skill. For example, I was able to see that my students were struggling to identify the main idea of the interviews and respond by re-teaching this concept. I love having Listenwise as part of my weekly curriculum!”

Customizing Listening Supports

Nicole, a California ELA teacher, begins the school year by listening together as a class and providing our interactive transcript supports. As the year progresses and students’ listening skills improve, she removes the interactive transcript from assignments in order to prepare students for state tests (especially the ELPAC where they won't have a transcript available when they listen to audio excerpts).

Cross-Curricular Listening

Scott is a Social Studies teacher in California, who says “Listenwise helps build what I would call listening stamina” for their state test, the CAASPP. His school is focused on building listening instruction into weekly routines across different content areas to strengthen students’ listening and literacy skills.

California Test Prep

For California educators, students are tested on their listening skills through the ELPAC and the CAASPP. Each test assesses listening skills in different ways. This blog post compares the two listening assessments.

Benton Lewis is an ELA teacher in California, and he shares best practices for using Listenwise to help his class prepare for the CAASPP and assist in improving students’ listening scores: