PBATs vs. Regents

Regents are tests that NYC high school students have to take to graduate. If you feel they are too hard or too stressful most students transfer to another school. They are called transfer schools. A transfer school is a school to help students over aged for their grade or behind in credits. They take PBAT’s they are performanced based assessment task. High school students have to take regents or PBAT’s at school every year or semester before you graduate, you go to your school on the day you, your grade or class is assigned (for regents) or you go the time you are assigned on a specific day to present your PBAT to 2 or more teachers. According to the school board.com, “They are the same both include a lot of reading, writing, thinking, revision, and presentation skills. They are prepare students for college and they show readiness for college.”

In my opinion PBAT’s are better to take than regents because you are basically having a conversation with your teachers about your topic that you were chosen to write about. Some agree and some dont, for example Eileen Villanueva my mother agrees with me. “Me:In your opinion which do you think is easier to take? Villanueva: PBAT’s because it’s over time. You get to prepare and practice for the presentation. With the regents even though you prepare and practice you really have no idea what you will have on the test. Once you take it you just risk passing or failing depending on what was asked. I also think with PBAT’s you take away more knowledge from that particular subject.”

Regents aren’t the best in my opinion they are set up so a lot of kids won’t graduate, everytime you retake it, it becomes harder and harder. Villanueva states “When i was in school it wasn’t mandatory”. In comparison to now in the New York State they are mandatory to graduate. Fun fact New York State is the only state where the students need Regents/PBAT’s to graduate. The only people who look for a regents diplomas are colleges. In my opinion if you decide that you don’t want to go to college then you shouldn’t have to put a lot of effort into something that isn’t going to do anything for you in the future.

On April 24th, 1996 James Dao published an article in regards to the regents and them being required to graduate. In 1995 21% of the students successfully completed the regents.

Regents are mostly unexpected. Every time i took a regents test i felt unprepared because some of the things that were mentioned on the test weren’t taught in class. Unlike the PBAT’s where you get sometimes pick a topic you want to write about, and your more prepared because you don’t really do you PBAT in a week you are doing it over time and as your learning new things.

Finally, most people agrees that PAT’s are better than regent and they also agree that PBAT’s are easier than regents.