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Arguments Against Standardized Testing Essay

1616 Words7 Pages

Students in the United States go to high school, graduate with a good GPA, apply to a college of their choice, get accepted, and go through college to find a high-paying job in the future. Unfortunately, there are some students who have the grades but do not have the test scores that colleges would like to see to be admitted. The alternate route for these students that still would want to pursue a college degree would be to either retake the tests that they did not do the best on or apply to a community college, and then transfer into a college of their choice. The use of standardized testing in college admissions should be eliminated due to its biased nature, limited scope, and lack of effectiveness in predicting student success. Standardized …show more content…

One of the alternatives should be a full review of a student’s records in post-secondary schooling. A comprehensive and unbiased method of assessing a student's potential of academic success in higher education is overall application review. This method can provide a more complete picture of a student's skills and accomplishments by considering several factors, including academic performance, extracurricular activities, and personal experiences. The potential bias that can result from only using the results of standardized tests and other restricted measures can be minimized with the use of comprehensive evaluation. In relation to the overall review of a student’s records, performance-based assessments and portfolio reviews can be used to help fully identify a student’s skills and abilities. These assessments, which consider a wider range of skills and information than traditional standardized tests, can provide a more thorough understanding of a student's abilities. The administration of these assessments could cost more time and resources, and the scoring could be flawed or inaccurate. Although these problems may arise, it could be a better alternative than having to use standardized tests. Lastly, schools should revert to test-optional policies like they did in 2020. Caralee J. Adams, who wrote “College-Entrance Testing: ‘Defining Promise: Optional Standardized Testing Policies in American College and University Admissions’”, said that a new study found that there were "’no significant differences’ between the college grades and completion rates of students who submit ACT or SAT scores with their college applications and those who do not” (Adams pp.1). This concept may create higher education more accessible to students from different backgrounds, including those who might not do well on standardized tests. It also raises the question whether these tests are

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In the scholarly journal “Brave New World: How Test-Optional Policies Could (And Should) Change College Admissions,” written by William C. Hiss and Valerie W. Franks, Hiss and Franks concluded that students who do not send test scores to institutions tend to perform just as well as student’s that send test scores. Hiss and Franks shares their research from a total of 37,000 students from public and private institutions that were accepted to college without sending any test scores. These students were then studied closely by their high school grade point average (GPA), cumulative college GPA, and standardized test scores. The end results explained that there was a very small difference between submitters and non-submitters. Standardized test

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In a country that promotes the ideas of grit, innovation, resourcefulness, and growth, I find it curious that American universities are still using standardized tests as an indicator of future success in college. Although standardized tests are only one factor in admissions to many colleges, they should not be used at all because they do not accurately predict the success of students in higher educational environments. Instead of using the SAT and ACT, admissions officers should put more weight on written essays, cumulative high school grade point average, extracurriculars, and letters of recommendation when deciding admissions. Although some may argue that the SAT and ACT offer a way of ranking students without factoring in grade point average, their ability to predict the future success of college students has not been demonstrated.

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This can ultimately equate to priority on-campus housing, tuition reductions, dream colleges, and jobs; aspects of college that are not always guaranteed without exceptional test scores. AP (Advanced Placement) exams can ensure college credit for a certain subject if the student performs well, preferably scoring a four or five out of five. “For example, if you score well on the AP English Literature exam, you may not have to take the college’s required freshman-level English course.” (Taking Required Tests) If every college did not consider standardized tests, then universities and employers would miss out on academically inclined prospects.

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1304 Words | 6 Pages

Currently, there are 850 test optional colleges in the USA and this number is slowly growing (Sheffer). William Hiss believes making standardized tests optional will allow more people to get a higher education (Sheffer). Optional testing creates a more equal opportunity for everyone. A Wake Forest study showed that the “average high school GPA of incoming freshman increased after the school stopped using standardized test scores as a factor in admissions” (Balf). It was also found that higher GPAs were maintained in college (Jaschik).

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Friendship is a human necessity; could anyone imagine how lonely their life would be knowing that they didn’t have anybody at all? In, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, friendship is the one thing, that doesn’t make you depressed. Knowing that someone is by your side, makes your life have a purpose. In the 1930’s, during The Great Depression, two men, George Milton and Lennie Smalls are close friends, they’re inseparable. George has taken Lennie under his wing because he cannot live on his own because of his mental deficiency.

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Standardized Testing: Making College Admissions “Fair” Every year , the daunting prospect of undergoing standardized testing brings anxiety to thousands of high school students, and for good reason: a student’s performance on standardized college admission exams - most importantly, the ACT and SAT - is a major determinant in deciding where they will go to college. For decades, such standardized tests have been universally accepted as part of the admissions process: proponents argue, as Syverson (2007) explains, that such tests are the only way of standardizing college admissions when students from different schools have such widely varying profiles. However, in the past several decades a growing anti-testing movement has begun to poke holes

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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?

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1749 Words | 7 Pages

Introduction Standardized tests may be used for a wide variety of educational purposes. For example, they may be used to determine a young child’s readiness for kindergarten, identify students who need special-education services or specialized academic support, place students in different academic programs or course levels, or award diplomas and other educational certificates. Thesis Statement Standardized tests should not be eliminated completely, but should rather be evaluated in addition to other factors such as grades, extracurricular activities, and volunteer hours. This would take pressure off of students during standardized tests, allow colleges to see how well-rounded the students are, and give students who are better in other areas

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935 Words | 4 Pages

In the history of modern colleges, the SAT has been the most widely accepted standardized test by students. The SAT was first introduced in 1926, and since then it has been used by millions of college applicants to demonstrate their academic prowess. Following the creation of the SAT, there have been countless debates on whether it should be scrapped or kept due to its potential to unfairly discriminate against students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and its possible lack of correlation with academic success. Every year, more schools begin to shift toward test-optional, while many schools continue to use mandatory standardized testing. To fully understand and agree on an answer to this debate, extensive research must be done, and students

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Standardized tests are very common in today’s modern society. They are used as a tool to measure a person’s performance and indicate how their estimated performance will be in a college class. Every year hundreds of students take the ACT or SAT in order to get accepted into their college of choice and to receive scholarships, but they fail to see the problems with these standardized tests. As more and more people take these tests, the national average score falls causing doubt in the extremely important system. This is leading people to question whether or not the ACT and SATs are accomplishing what they were created to do.

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647 Words | 3 Pages

In fact, the increasing use of standardized testing will do more damage than good, because of its failure to capture the entirety of a student’s body of work. Furthermore, the overwhelming stress that the United States government, and school systems have placed on the usage of standardized tests has become detrimental to American education, and is not the most effective way to gauge the intelligence of American students. The American educational system should be fixated on providing each child enough attention and information so they can succeed in that class and in the future. However, the increasing focus on having to pass a standardized test has blinded schools of the real goal, because they are required to get their students to pass the standardized tests.

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927 Words | 4 Pages

Colleges and jobs review past testing scores to determine whether a student is worthy of their time. A student’s testing history will follow them throughout his or her life, making the tests truly “high

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Everyone is familiar with the dreaded standardized examinations that occur at the end of every single school year and are necessary for college admissions. Although these tests are not inherently value defining, society has subtly placed a disproportionate worth on the outcomes of these exams. Allowing exams to determine students’ academic worth is unproductive and potentially harmful to a young scholar’s motivation. Standardized testing is not beneficial to students because undesired results can discourage young people, misrepresent a student’s capabilities, and negatively affect future pursuits.

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1191 Words | 5 Pages

Standardized testing has become one of the most popular types of testing in U.S. public schools to date. Students take numerous standardized tests throughout their childhood schooling. (Studies show that a typical student takes an average of 112 mandated standardized tests between Pre-K and 12th grade.) While standardized testing is one of the main procedures that Universities use to judge incoming students, it is not proven to be the most effective way to convey a student’s actual intelligence level. The U.S. should not focus so heavily on standardized testing because it is not a complete accurate measurement of a student’s intelligence.

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1025 Words | 5 Pages

As a student in high school did you ever feel like the standardized test are helping you or making you get in to a better college? Have you ever thought about how many hours students and teachers spend preparing for the standardized test? Many hours and studying are being put into those test but are they really effective and are the test doing the students good in life? Standardized tests are really just to effective, teachers and students spend too much time on them and it’s not doing the students any good, and even it’s not doing the teachers any good. Standardized tests in schools today in Ohio should be stopped because they are causing for teachers to be evaluated by the test results of how the students do on the tests, they are having the students more stressed about school and do they benefit you in colleges and university and do they really look at how well students do on them test.

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