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Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

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Standardized Testing and its Correlation to College Readiness Albert Einstein once said, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” The ACT or the American College Test, is a standardized test that measures a student's ability in the common core classes. It is most known for being able to show correlation between a student and their college readiness. The ACT does not correlate to college readiness because students study for the test itself, rather than to retain academic knowledge, some advanced students are at a disadvantage, and students’ GPA shows more accuracy than the ACT score. The first part of this problem is that, students study for the …show more content…

It is the basis for all college's submission platforms. According to John Haltiwanger, senior politics writer for Elite Daily, “Students are now trained to take tests. Instead of developing critical-thinking skills, which the Common Core is apparently designed to promote, they're learning to become test-takers by memorizing rules and standards.” Students no longer study to retain, they develop test taking strategies that will not help them in the future. These tests are being used to grab points, not to actually learn the material. This furthers the claim, because it shows students study for the test and developing test taking skills, rather than to retain. Furthermore, in 2002, the United States passed a program called No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This requires states to test students on the common core classes, leading to more standardized tests (Elementary and Secondary Education Act). Since NCLB, the US scores have dropped in every common core class in terms of global ranking (National Research Council). This is a sign of how little standardized testing …show more content…

The ACT will test on the intelligence of the average student junior year. For example, the ACT will test a student on anything from Pre-Calculus and below in the math section. Most leading students have to go back to former education to prepare for the ACT. In a peer reviewed article published by Fairtest, and opposition viewpoints, it stated that “To improve learning and provide meaningful accountability, schools and districts cannot rely solely on standardized tests” and “Standardized exams offer few opportunities to display the attributes of higher-order thinking, including analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creativity.” Both of these quotes show the designs of an advanced student. Progressive students usually show high order thinking, and improve their learning through tests and education. Standardized testing only creates a problem for the intellectually gifted and doesn’t test to the best of their abilities, furthering the claim of the disadvantages of exceptional students during standardized testing. Many students at Chaska High School have had problems with overcoming this challenge. Quincy Foss, a sophomore attending CHS and currently in Advanced Placement Calculus said, “being in advanced classes can affect my ability to take standardized tests, because I haven’t studied the material that I’m being tested on for a couple of years. I enjoy being in these classes, but sometimes I

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Some students excel in high school. They have outstanding grades and high GPAs, but simply cannot take standardized tests. Some may suffer from test anxiety, and when a college is looking at test scores they do not consider the fact that the child may have test anxiety. The ACT test does not accurately measure how well a student can perform in a college environment, nor does it give an accurate measurement of a student’s knowledge. All throughout, school teachers

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Furthermore, the ACT’s, “four subject area tests are directly related to what students have learned in high school in those four courses” ("State ACT Scores Fall below Average"). This statement suggests that the ACT is a reliable source when testing what students have learned throughout high school and an adequate estimate of students GPA throughout college. However, when, “labeling a test score as readiness, the council's use of a single score for placement purposes violates standards for the proper use of tests” (Skip). Skip’s statement reveals that while the ACT tests students' abilities, this test alone should not qualify a student for higher education or determine one's potential to succeed. In addition, colleges and universities throughout America decide a student's eligibility based off of accuracy on standardized tests; however, students also have a designated time to finish each section.

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Today, these tests are used to measure students’ learning abilities and the level of success in individual schools in comparison with other students from around the nation. While GPA is still a factor in accepting students into college, colleges focus heavily on ACT and SAT scores. Colleges prefer to accept students based on their standardized test scores because the colleges believe that a standardized test is the best way to measure a student’s academic level. Schools rely so heavily

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