The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing By Spark Admissions

The blank walls of the classroom seemed to shine as face after face marveled in their test scores, remembering the things they thought they didn’t know how to do. In the article, “ What are the pros and cons of standardized testing,” by Spark Admissions, the evidence shows Standardized tests should be used in schools. Standardized tests are fair, prepare students for jobs and college, and create a student guideline of progress over the years and where they should be in the future.

Standardized testing is a fair way of measuring students' academic abilities. According to the text, in Paragraph 5, sentence 2, “ It’s a single test, taken under equal conditions, to measure student achievement fairly.” This helps different schools use one test

This is proven to be true by evidence from Paragraph 6, sentence 2 where the text states that standardized tests, “can help an education system better compare students from very different backgrounds because all these students took the exact same test.” Therefore showing the teacher or school the students progress over the years and how they did compared to the other pupils in their school or district. Another way standardized testing can help the school is by saving them the hassle of creating an individual test for each student. This is proved when the test states, “Standardized testing can also help standardize individual students’ educations” (Paragraph 8, sentence 1). This removes the headache from the teachers, giving each student the same test and comparing the scores to the other students is much easier than creating a test for each student personally. In another instance, the text explains that, “Standardized tests can also illustrate student progress over time. Taking the same or similar tests over the years can allow students to indicate measurable improvement” (Paragraph 8, sentences

A critic may say that standardized tests restrict teacher’s creativity and effectiveness, or they affect school funding, and a popular one would be that they can negatively affect student’s confidence. However all of these claims are false, teachers can use the standardized test scores to create an individual learning plan that helps the student rise to their full potential, and funding mostly comes from taxes not necessarily test scores. The big one is that it impacts student confidence negatively, this claim is also false. If the student receives a good test score they will feel accomplished but if they receive a mediocre score they will feel determined to make a better score on the next test. In the long run this helps the student to learn commitment and determination. In the end the fact that standardized tests have a positive effect comes out on top of the claim that they should be forgotten and thrown