MCAP math vs ELA - which do students struggle with more in 7th grade?
I'm a 7th grade teacher in Montgomery County and we're 8 weeks out from MCAP testing. I've been trying to figure out where to focus the last stretch of review. Last year our class average on the math assessment was 58% proficient, which was honestly worse than I expected given how much we drilled operations and algebraic thinking standards.
This year I've spent more time on constructed response items because I noticed a pattern - students who score well on selected-response but poorly overall usually blow it on the 2 and 4 point constructed items. The MCAP rubrics are specific about what they want but kids don't internalize them until they've practiced writing to them a few dozen times.
For ELA, the evidence-based selected response questions seem to be the biggest stumbling block. Part A is usually fine, but Part B asking for textual evidence is where I lose about 30% of my students. Has anyone found a consistent strategy for teaching that connection explicitly in the last few weeks before the test?
ELA scores have been lower the last two years at our school. Part of it is text complexity - they're genuinely hard passages and students who haven't been reading at grade level all year hit a wall. 8 weeks isn't enough to close that gap but you can absolutely teach the test format itself.
Math tends to score lower statewide but ELA has the biggest variance in my experience - strong readers ace it and struggling readers really hit a wall with the EBSR format. The Part A/B connection is something I drill using a 'prove it' sentence frame and it's helped noticeably.
The constructed response rubrics are publicly available on the MSDE site and I make students self-score their own responses against them. Takes about 15 minutes per response but after 4 or 5 rounds they start to internalize what a 4-point answer actually looks like.
We had our best MCAP math results the year we switched from full-unit reviews to daily 10-minute spiral review of the most-tested standards. By April students had seen each priority standard probably 30 times in low-stakes settings.
Honestly, from what I've seen talking to other 7th graders, math trips people up way more than ELA. Not because the concepts are harder necessarily, but because kids don't really understand why they got something wrong. They'll see a red X and just move on. That never worked for me. I started going back through every wrong answer and actually figuring out where my thinking broke down, and it made a huge difference. It's tedious but it's the only thing that actually sticks.
Same thing with ELA though -- don't sleep on evidence-based questions. A lot of students pick answers that feel right instead of tracing it back to the text. If you can get your students drilling the "why is this wrong" habit on practice materials, they'll start catching their own mistakes. I've found that approach useful even across totally different test formats, like when I was using mcap industry regulations compliance material to build that same skill of eliminating wrong choices with actual reasoning. Eight weeks is enough time if they're working smarter, not just drilling more of the same stuff.
Honestly, I almost quit studying for the math section after week 4. I kept bombing the practice tests on expressions and equations and I just figured I wasn't a math person. What finally clicked for me was slowing way down on the word problems instead of rushing through them -- I was misreading what they were actually asking. Once I did that, my scores started creeping up and I ended up passing with room to spare.
ELA wasn't easy either but math was definitely where I struggled more. The evidence-based writing questions on the ELA side felt more manageable once I practiced pulling quotes. So if your students are anything like me, I'd put the extra hours into math, especially those multi-step problems. It's worth sticking with it even when it feels hopeless.
I'm not a 7th grader obviously, but I took the MCAP as a working adult going back for a certification and I can tell you the ELA writing section absolutely wrecked me at first. Math felt more predictable -- you either know the formula or you don't. But the writing tasks have this way of tripping you up even when you think you've got it. I found a lot of practice through mcap/questions/writing language arts and doing timed runs helped way more than just reading through prep material passively.
For your 7th graders I'd honestly lean into ELA if you've got limited time. The math gaps are usually fixable with targeted drills, but the writing and evidence stuff takes longer to click. It wasn't until I started treating each practice prompt like a mini timed test that my scores actually moved. Your kids are probably the same way -- they need the reps under pressure, not just exposure to the content.