Timed Testing Persuasive Essay

Stress, anxiety, worry, and pressure. All of these things can be felt by students while taking a timed test. The topic of timed tests is often overlooked because people consider it an unimportant topic. However, after thoroughly looking into this topic and fairly weighing both sides of the argument, I firmly believe that students should not take timed tests. Primarily, stress can affect a student’s memory, causing them to have a hard time remembering the details about the topic. Secondly, timed tests can create negative messages about the subject. Lastly, students are so focused on the time constraint that they often don’t show their full abilities. While some opposers may tell you that timed tests are great to see who knows the material and

As Jo Boaler, Professor at Stanford University, explains in the article Timed Testing and the Development of Anxiety, “Timed tests suggests that the most important ability is by working quickly, rather than thinking deeply and carefully.” What this evidence suggests is that students will truely believe that the most important thing about a subject is how fast you can do it, not how well. If a student carries this belief with them later through high school, or even college, it will affect them in a negative way. They will focus only on finishing in a short amount of time rather than clearly thinking through their answers. There is a point to be made that in the real world you will have deadlines, and yet most deadlines are not 30 minutes or one hour like many timed tests. In addition to that, while having an important deadline, even for your job, you will be able to have help, something that students do not receive while taking a timed

As Cathy Seeley explains in the article, Faster Isn’t Smarter: The Trap of Timed Tests, “Some students are good at timed tests and some are not. Students are also was prevented from finishing the test, something that causes some them a tremendous amount of stress.” Furthermore, the teacher was led to falsely believe that the student did not know the topic well. When students are put under tremendous amounts of stress, they often underperform because of the presence of anxiety. Indeed some of the students who completed the test and did well were those who indicated the most severe anxiety, talking about being “scared” when they were asked to take the test. The following were responses from fourth and second graders: “Complete this sentence, This test made me feel…” ‘Worried that I won’t finish.’ ‘It just scares me that I might get a bad score.’ ‘Nervous because I am afraid I will not finish or make a mistake.’ As you can see by this study done at Stanford University, students are more focused on the time constraint rather than performing well on the test.

In conclusion, it is crucial that we take a moment to review the evidence on the impact of timed tests which can lead to an inevitable path of anxiety and low achievement. Primarily, the stress of a timed test can affect a student’s brain, causing their memory to be blocked. Secondly, create the idea that