Customer Reviews

MTEL General Curriculum (REA) - The Best Test Prep (MTEL Teacher Certification Test Prep)

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

The section overviews were very general and did not truly benefit me in testing. I felt the book made the test appear too simplistic when, in reality, the questions in the test were very specific and difficult. The practice test short answer questions were great! I also believed that although the questions were easy, it gives you an idea of the types of questions you will find! I recommend this text in addition to E.D. Hirsch's What Every Sixth Grader / Fifth Grader Needs to Know.

Regardless of the typos and clear grammatical errors of this book, some of the information/facts are just plain wrong! The objectives of the general curriculum MTEL have changed since it was published, so a lot of the information this book covers isn't even on the MTELS. Their history section is VERY weak and incomplete compared to all the information one must know for the test. It's a large book, they could have been much more selective in what facts they included, and not have talked about extraneous information that isn't even on the test anymore. Go to the DESE website (or just google MTEL, it'll be the first hit you get), and look up the objectives the state wants you to know. They aren't comparable with this book, but you can find info on most of those objectives through other resources, even on reputable websites for certain things. Don't waste your money on this book!

I used the REA prep-books for the MTEL Communication/Literacy and the MTEL Middle School Mathematics and overall these were pretty good, however, this MTEL General Curriculum prep-book by REA is aweful!

The History and Child Psychology sections do okay at giving over a short summary of the content of these sub-areas, but the Language Arts, Math and Science sections mostly just explains what is on the MTEL so you know what to study, rather than giving over the "cliffnotes" of this information. So this book is pretty useless for these later topics.

Some of my friends have recommended "What Every 5th Grader Needs to Know," and "What Every 6th Grader Needs to Know." Why both I'm not sure; I haven't looked at them yet.

I bought this book in the hopes of studying for the MTEL...well, not with this book! It has one test -- and it recommends you take the test, see where your problems areas are and study....only problem is, the book doesn't help much with the study part!! I could have spent better money and time on purchasing children's study guides and taking the practice MTEL online! Do not buy this book -- This was a total waste of money.

I purchased this book on the recommendation of my fellow teachers. What every fifth and sixth grader needs to know, are better study guides.

Failing the general curriculm by 2 points twice in a row, I found myself searching for something to help achieve those two points. After reading this textbook, I discovered many of the questions I struggled with on the MTEL focused on here along with step by step stragies on how to solve them. Recently I took the examine again and left feeling 10x more confident thanks to this book.