Socrato Crowdsources Test Prep Materials

Mark Hendrickson, April 17, 2008

Site offers new twist on test preparation

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | April 19, 2008

Socrato: Online Test-Prep Materials Uploaded by Web Users

April 18, 2008 - Socrato, a Massacusetts-based company, is offering a free, crowd-sourced test-prep service online, TechCrunch reports. Educators can upload sample test questions and study guides in various formats, and students can then use them for practice at home.

The site currently has test-prep questions for national academic standardized tests (SAT, GRE, LSAT, etc.), as well as for the U.S. citizenship test and individual course exams. In an upcoming release, Socrato will “be able to track how students deliberate on questions by analyzing which answers they cross off first,” TechCrunch says. —Catherine Rampell

We are excited to share our most recent release of features and test practice content, including MCAS 10^th Grade Math. Students will gain confidence by practicing MCAS questions from previous years’ tests.  We have designed Socrato so that teachers can easily assess student progress, and can share content with students and each other. This will reduce classroom preparation and review time because Socrato quickly identifies the areas where students need help.

We always enjoy feedback and we use it to create new features like the ones listed below. Please don’t hesitate to let us know how we can improve things.

Highlights of changes in the latest release:

Better access to Content

Users can upload and share their own content 

Users can upload any type of content directly to Socrato. They can keep the content private, share it with their friends and colleagues, or with the rest of the world. For example, content can be old exam papers, answer sheets in document format or even individual questions and answers.

Better search and browsing

Users can find content using various criteria including: recently created, most popular, search by category or guided navigation. Users can also mark any content as personal favorites and enjoy quick access to favorites in the ‘My Stuff’ area.

Practice

Based on feedback we have received, we simplified the Session Start page. Users will still have access to a few of the additional settings during Take Test. Let us know what you think.

Groups and Collaboration

This is a brand new feature. Anyone can create groups. A group can be a study group managed by students, tutor groups, or a classroom group. The creator of the group can decide whether to keep the group private, protected or make it public. Groups allow users to work on–and report on–a common set of tests.

Reports & Analysis

There are new reports available which allow users to assess their strengths and weaknesses by curriculum subject strands. These are now available for MCAS practice tests.

Other

Lots of other improvements. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Cheers,

The Socrato Team

We’ll be adding all the past 10th grade and highschool MCAS exams in the upcoming weeks.  We’ll be including the tests for English, Math, Science and Technology, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and History.  If you’d like us to notify you when the tests are available, just drop us a note at info@socrato.com.

 NORTH ANDOVER, Mass., Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ — Tens of thousands of Massachusetts’ 6th, 7th and 8th grade students can now log onto www.socrato.com at any computer with access to the internet and use state-of-the-art test preparation software to practice for their MCAS exams, which take place in March and May 2008. “Socrato offers new, state-of-the-art web-based test preparation and learning software. We have used many prior MCAS tests to perfect our system. Since we had all the data loaded into our system, we decided to make this software available to all Massachusetts 6th, 7th and 8th graders through 2008, because right now there is nothing similar available to them for free. Socrato hopes to help many students spend their study time more effectively and do well on their exams,” said Socrato CEO and Founder, Raju Gupta.

With Socrato’s innovative software, Students can practice entire tests or focus only on questions in specific areas of difficulty, which Socrato helps them identify. In addition to preconfigured tests, students can also create customized practice tests for specific needs saving time and energy by quickly focusing on areas in need of improvement. They can email or print questions to get help from teachers, or have teachers or parents review areas of difficulty online. Students and parents wishing to participate can sign-up at www.socrato.com.

Socrato can also be used by groups such as tutors, a class, or an entire school system. It allows teachers and administrators to manage shared testing content and track the progress of each student, class, or even a school district. Tutors and Schools interested in this option should contact Socrato at info@socrato.com for more information.

Gupta and co-founder Michael Oates, both veterans of Sapient Corp., combined have 35 years of experience delivering online solutions to some of the world’s largest and most innovative companies.

In addition to state tests, such as MCAS, Socrato plans to roll out testing tools for SATs and other standardized tests. For more information, call Marie T. Oates at 617-290-7795 or email her at marie.oates@socrato.com.

SOURCE Socrato

Click here to read the article on us in Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology

We would like to promulgate (v. state or announce) that we have fastidiously (adv. given careful attention to detail) culled (v. selected from a group) the top 500 vocabulary words from the multitude of lists on the net and from other sources for SAT, GRE, GMAT, and LSAT tests.  By the way, we found quite a few incorrect definitions on some of the lists out there.  So we’d like to impute (v. attribute or credit to) WordNet, an open source dictionary project, which provides all of our definitions.

You can find the vocabulary practice tests by selecting Vocabulary on the home page category  list.  There are 5 tests of 100 words each.  The Socrato 100 contains the most common vocabulary words.  The Socrato 400 contains the next 400 most common words, and we broke the list down into four tests of 100 words each.  Since you’re using Socrato, you can of course select whichever words you’d like to test with if you don’t like how we grouped them.

We’re also working to buttress (v. make stronger) our vocabulary offering with the Socrato 4000, which will be a monster list of common vocabulary we hope will keep you hone your skills.  Look for it in the coming weeks.