First taking STAAR tests in third grade, sophomores are gearing up for one of their last ones with Thursday’s English II EOC. However sophomores have came to conclusion that that they didn’t prepare as much as Freshman year.

“I feel a little less prepared this year because the focus was not on STAAR,” sophomore Paige Swallow said. “In English II we wrote a lot more SAR’s and I think there was less emphasis because we have participated in a lot of english STAARs up to this point.”

However sophomore Chelsea Kang seems to have a different take on this.

“Now there are a lot of people who take SAT prep,” Kang said. “On the SAT there is a verbal section so those who attend SAT prep read a lot of passages so it helps.”

Although some sophomores may not think they are preparing for Thursday’s STAAR exam, English II teacher Katherine Allen says there’s a method to the process.

“I think because as a freshmen you need to be taught things more overtly and so it needs to be more obvious that your learning the material for the STAAR,” Allen said. “For the grade 10 curriculum, everything is pretty much built in that were hitting on everything we need to for the STAAR. We don’t necessarily have to be like this is for the STAAR, we are preparing you for the STAAR. Therefore we just assume and we know that you are going to be prepared in time to take the STAAR. We have done everything in our power to prepare you. It’s not obvious nor overt, it is just something we build in to our everyday class periods so that it makes it more seamless and were not stopping what were doing to teach you STAAR stuff.”