EFFICIENCY OF THE 8TH GRADE PUPILS IN SOLVING WRITTEN TESTS IN BIOLOGY

Sa？etak The aim of this analysis was to study the efficiency of the pupils of the 8th grade in solving items of different levels of cognitive skills. A total of 113 written tests of the pupils in the 8th grade (113 out of 474 pupils who participated in the competition) from the County Competition and all written tests (16 of them) from the State Biology Competition in the category of knowledge in the school year 2014/15, was analyzed. The total number of points in written test at the county and state competition was 50. The maximum of points achieved at the county competition was 47 and the minimum was 11. The analyses of the competition's results showed that the 0.8 % of pupils accurately solved 90 % or more of the test. The 10 % of the most successful pupils that participated in the competition achieved from 37.5 to 47 points, i.e. from 75 % to 94 % of the test was accurately solved. The maximum of points achieved at the state competition was 39.5, while the minimum achieved was 22.5. Pupils who accurately solved from 76 % to 79 % of the written test were among the 10 % of the most successful pupils in the competition. They achieved from 38 to 39.5 points. The analyses of the pupil's tests confirmed our assumption that the pupils who accurately solved 90 % or more of the test would also be able to solve the 2nd and 3rd cognitive level items in a higher percentage than the 10 % of the most successful pupils that participated in the competition