Argumentative Essay: Grade 9 New Jersey Student Learning Assessment

Monday morning. 7 A.M. A dark classroom. “Today, you will be taking the Grade 9 New Jersey Student Learning Assessment.” Sounds dreadful, right? Many students are anxious about these tests for months prior to the actual assessment. All of the stress leading up to the exam can sometimes actually “psych” a student out for the exam. In this way, the student can get so stressed about the exam they end up with a terrible score, even if they are very bright. Should standardized tests be administered? This question has been debated ever since standardized tests began to be given to students. Many studies have shown that standardized testing is not the best way to measure a student's performance and growth. These assessments seem to be more of an

Standardized tests are only ONE test. A student can very easily mess up, and it can not accurately measure whether a student really knows something. For example, if a student guesses three questions correctly, but the student doesn’t understand them, the test results do not display that the student was just guessing. The test just shows that the student knows how to do those questions, but in reality, all that the student really knows is how to accurately guess. In support, “Standardized test scores are easily influenced by outside factors: stress, hunger, tiredness, and prior teacher or parent comments about the difficulty of the test, among other factors. In short, the tests only show which students are best at preparing for and taking the tests, not what knowledge students might exhibit if their stomachs weren’t empty” (“Do Standardized Tests Improve Education in America?”). Students' standardized test scores are mostly determined by preparation. This supports the fact that students' intelligence can not be measured by this singular test. The preparation and how students are doing right before the test is the biggest factor of all. A student could be failing all classes, but do well on a standardized test because they guessed correctly, or are good at taking tests, but it is not

Students already have so much on their plates, between extracurriculars, sports, schoolwork, social lives, and many more things, and standardized tests are just another thing that is added to students' plates when in reality, standardized tests are not even very effective. For example, “A new study suggests that changes in levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress, during weeks of standardized testing hurt how students in one New Orleans charter school network performed — and kids coming from more stressful neighborhoods, with lower incomes and more incidents of violence, were most affected”(Tatter). The fact that stress is causing students to do worse on standardized tests is just proving the point that standardized tests can not accurately measure students' intelligence. If a student is extremely nervous about something, chances are, they will not do so well on the test, proving that standardized tests should not be administered. All of this information gets back to the thesis, showing that the added stress just is more proof that the test can not measure an actual intelligence