CBEST study group prepares prospective educators

The California Basic Educational Skills Test, also known as CBEST, is an exam that tests basic reading, writing and math skills of aspiring educators who plan to have a career in teaching.

The Future Teachers Club presented seminars at the LAC library on what to expect for each portion of the CBEST exam. 

Club adviser and assistant professor of reading Melanie Levy talked about the most effective ways to prepare for each part of the exam.

The exam is split into reading, writing and math sections and consists of 50 multiple choice questions for math and reading, while the written portion requires two short essays.

Because the time limit for the exam is four hours, Levy broke down how time should be spent on each section to avoid running out of time, especially for the writing section. 

The first essay analyzes a given situation while the second essay instructs the exam taker to write about a specific personal experience. Both parts require a bit of brainstorming, outlining and writing, which can become time consuming. 

“I don’t have a very nice name for it, but I call it a brain-dump. Just imagine a dump truck or a trash track, and that’s where I dump all my ideas onto the page,” Levy said.

Vice President of the club and aspiring history teacher Cristian Cardenas explained how his method may be a bit juvenile but very effective.

“I like bubble graphs, it may be a bit archaic or childish, but I feel like it’s worked for me from kindergarten all the way up until two weeks ago,” Cardenas said. 

Because the reading portion of the CBEST exam is made up of 50 multiple choice questions, Levy encouraged the group to read the questions thoroughly before reading the prompt passage.

“The test administrators aren’t counting on you to understand the passage thoroughly, but just enough to answer the question,” Levy said.

The second meeting doubled as the future teachers club’s end of the semester meeting. With finals around the corner, members thought it best to not ask members to meet any later in the semester, Cardenas said.

In the second meeting, they spoke about the achievements of this semester as a club and their goals for next semester.

Club adviser and Teacher Appreciation Coordinator Megan Kaplinsky talked about wanting more than just club members to attend a spring round table event for Latin X and men of color in education. They would also like STEM students of any gender and ethnic background to attend so they can recruit those who many consider teaching as a possible career path.

“We want more than just our club coming, we want all of our education students from the STEM fields coming too because we want them to consider teaching in the back of their heads,” Kaplinsky said.

The Future Teachers club will meet in the same L-165 room in the library next semester every Thursday from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m..