Argumentative Essay: Should The SAT Get Paid?

Throughout the college admission process, one indicator of admittance stands above all, the SAT. The SAT stands for the Scholastic Achievement Test, which serves as the standard of assessment for colleges throughout the United States. Known for its pervasiveness, the SAT provides a comparative standard for students’ abilities. Although the SAT provides such a benefit, the SAT unexpectedly poses as a problem for college admission officers throughout the nation due to its inherent negative aspects, which stir a controversy among the nation. The question arises, should we keep using the SAT for admitting students into college? Supporters of the test claim that SAT scores correlate to other scores, are hardly affected by private preparation, and

While the argument presents a great benefit for colleges across the united states, the testing scores fail to do justice to students because the scores do not represent the actual skills that the students need to succeed in college. To clarify, the SAT, particularly in the math section, tests students by how quick they can substitute an answer choice for a variable in the problem and not by how the students can critically think about a solution for a question. Therefore, the SAT fails as a proper indicator of skills necessary for success in college. In addition, this disadvantage in sat testing overwhelms the benefits that sat testing

In the article, Tough claims, “About a quarter of college freshmen born into the bottom half of the income distribution will manage to collect a bachelor’s degree by age 24, while almost 90 percent of freshmen born into families in the top income quartile will go on to finish their degree.” To further Tough’s claim, in my opinion, the SAT not only discriminates based on wealth but also on race. Common knowledge dictates that minorities often lie within the lower end of the wealth spectrum while caucasians often lie in the upper end. Based on this common knowledge, the SAT is evidently