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Debate surrounding standardized testing
Standardized testing is important to measure student achievement
Debate surrounding standardized testing
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In “A History Of The SAT In 4 Questions”, Cory Turner and Eric Westervelt write about the SAT and how it is changing. The authors discuss the new version of the SAT and how the College Board is going to change things. The Board “hopes the redesign will provide a more accurate measure of a student’s college and career readiness.” (Turner and Westervelt, A History Of The SAT). For example, Cyndie Schmeiser, the chief of assessment of the College Board, says that the new test “will include vocabulary, but within a reading passage.
In the poem “Directions for Resisting the SAT” by Richard Hague, he talks about how everyone in high school has their own struggles that they go through at some point. Especially as a junior or senior when preparing for your future. Family members have given advice about what you should do with your life, attempting to guide you whether it’s helpful or not. We are supposed to know what we want to do for the rest of our lives by the time we are seventeen. This poem is the complete opposite of that.
Over time, the SAT’s format has changed to better measure a student’s ability and potential. Excessive stress is put on students to do well on the SAT’s, and causes them unnecessary strain. As college admissions become more and more competitive, the need for higher test scores has increased, despite fatal flaws in the SAT test itself. Although the SAT is used by thousands of colleges and taken by millions of students, many students' scores do not reflect their true abilities, and therefore the SAT test is useless.
As students start their senior year of high school there are many changes in their life. This is the time of a student’s life when they decide what they want to do after they graduate high school. Students can decide to join the military, work, or continue their education at a college or university. For the students who continue their education they have many things to do before they finally get accepted. A common step they take is taking the The American College Test (ACT) and the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT).
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
SATS and ACTS have been used for numerous years as a way to gauge a student’s academic success while in college. Students have the choice which test they would prefer to take and most colleges do not prefer one test over the other. There are a few key differences between the SAT and ACT, which may make one test more suitable than the other for those taking the tests. Many studies have proven that the SAT and ACT are not the best judge of future success, and that colleges should focus their applications more on past grades and accomplishments to decide which students should be accepted to their university. SATs and ACTs are not an effective measure of college readiness and future academic success.
Ted Tran Ms. Yelton English III DC 11 April 2023 The SAT and ACT needs to be changed The SAT and ACT have made a considerable impact on students nowadays in society through college admissions. Although there are benefits to the test such as scholarships and ranking, some students have struggles and unfairness through the test, especially with low-income or minority backgrounds. In addition, students also have had test anxiety while taking the SAT and ACT which discourages them from the test.
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
Should The SAT Determine Your Future Throughout the years there have been many questions regarding the reliability of the SAT. Should an aptitude test be such a large factor in college acceptance. I firmly believe The SAT should not be a factor in college admissions because it has proven to be biased , unreliable, and overall unjust. The Scholastic Aptitude test, or SAT is no stranger to high school students across America. The test is divided into two sections of math and verbal language skills, a total of 138 questions with a point scale ranging from 200-800.
The tests only ask for knowledge or facts that the student can barely recall and when taking these tests they are taken on a school day and they take 2-3 hours to complete. Standardized testing began in the 1920s to test students ability but was renamed to Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) (Livia). The American College Testing (ACT) and the SAT are both used in the United States for college admission. However Swope and Miner believe that, “Standardized tests will never answer the questions of what our children need to learn to be leaders and informed citizens in a multicultural, ever-changing world” (Cole, Hulley and Quarles 19).
The stress and strain that the SAT places on a student is tremendous. The SAT is a thing that adds great stress to a student’s life and prohibits the expansion and diversity of institutions that require it. According to a study done by The Washington Post, the average
Standardized tests have been around for hundred of years. These include tests like the SAT and GRE, which are biased. A major issue with these tests is the fact that the distributors are making millions a year, even though these tests don’t measure a student’s capabilities. A PBS (2002) article states that figures went from $7million in 1955 to $263 million in 1997. A Big Think (2011) article stated “The trick for educators, colleges, and individuals is remembering that test scores are merely one (imperfect) indicator of how you stack up against the crowd, not an assessment of any your future potential” (p. 1).
“At Wake Forest University, we saw more costs than benefits to standardized tests” (Tiefenthaler np). Such tests have been used for many years to predict college preparedness and are thought to be very productive in judging between different students. Several studies performed across the country have found these tests to be insufficient for their use and discovered underlying reasons. Standardized examinations, such as the ACT or SAT, are not the most efficient method of judging a student’s readiness or worthiness for college. One of the assumed advantages to the standardized tests is the ability to judge when to teach students certain material.
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.
Standardized testing has become an obsolete way of measuring a student's ability. Students nowadays pay for specialized courses in order to obtain a competitive score. The test is vital for the student's admission to a university. They are conditioned to the method of: memorize, apply and forget; contrary to focusing on understanding the material. Students have to attend school are required to get excellent grades, as well as having classes in the afternoon in pursuance of a being admitted to a top university.
