Grade 8 FAST ELA Reading & BEST Writing
Frequently Asked Questions
Welcome to Albert's Grade 8 Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) ELA Reading and Writing course!
This page provides specific content-related information for Albert's Grade 8 FAST ELA Reading and Writing prep course, including how it is organized, what standards it is aligned to, and ideas for classroom uses. If you need technical assistance, please visit our Help Center or contact hello@albert.io.
For testing information or details about the exam itself, visit the Florida Department of Education.
Subject Organization
Albert's Grade 8 FAST ELA Reading and Writing prep course is organized into themes and further broken into short, formative assessments on specific topics.
Themes
Our full Grade 8 FAST Reading & BEST Writing subject guide includes 2 themes:
- FAST ELA Reading Quizzes
- B.E.S.T. Writing Free Response Questions
FAST ELA Reading Quizzes
Our topic quiz theme contains a set of short, formative topic quizzes. Each topic quiz is designed to be given in a single class period. The quiz questions mimic the rigor and format of the actual exam. For example, here are some topic quizzes within the theme:
- Reading Quiz- Prose | The Storm
- Reading Quiz- Poetry | "See It Through"
- Reading Quiz- Literary Paired Passage | Science Fair Surprise
- Reading Quiz - Informational | A Day in the Life in Antarctica
B.E.S.T. Writing Free Response Questions
Our free-response question theme contains an expository and an argumentative free-response question. Each free-response question is designed to be given in a single class period. The questions mimic the rigor and format of the actual exam. For example, here are the topics within the theme:
- Free Response - Argument | Uniforms
- Free Response - Expository | The Impact of Horses
Using Standards to Find Questions
Every question is aligned to the standards outlined in Florida’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.) Standards for English Language Arts (ELA). Each standard begins with the state abbreviation FL.
You can find questions aligned to learning standards using our standards search tool. In the Standards drop-down at the top of the Assessments tab, you can search for standards by name (for example, FL ELA.8.V.1.2) or description. When you type in characters that match one of the standards, the drop-down will populate with matching standards.
For more help on finding questions using standards and tags, visit our Help Center.
Question Types
Grade 8 FAST ELA Reading & B.E.S.T. Writing uses 5 question types to provide students with a variety of practice that mimics the actual exam. These question types include:
- Multiple Choice
- Multiple Select
- Two-Way Table
- Snippet Select
- Free Response
Related Content
Formative Assessment Quizzes
The quizzes in this course can be given to students throughout the school year to gauge their understanding of all assessed standards. Teachers can quickly assign one of our short topic quizzes in this course, whether at the end of a unit or as a quick final prep before the exam.
Supplement with Albert's Core Courses
For additional material, you can combine Grade 8 FAST ELA Reading & B.E.S.T. Writing with our other core ELA courses. Our core courses are aligned to Florida standards, so you can leverage thousands of aligned practice questions across Albert to assess, reteach, and extend student learning.
Our Help Center is always available!
Our Help Center is available any time and provides articles written by the Albert team to answer questions you might have about implementing Albert in your classroom.