Advantages And Disadvantages Of Standardised Tests

When people think of the education system, most can say that there are some problems, though they might not be able to pinpoint what needs to change first. If you ask most teachers, they will say that the first thing that needs to be changed in the schooling system to help the students more is the standardized testing. They will say that while it can be helpful it has a lot of faults and needs to be updated or changed to help its students. Standardized testing has often been a topic for discussion, between parents and people in the schooling system. It seems that a lot of people either hate standardized testing for not giving every child a chance to succeed, or love it for being a fair way to test whether a child knows what they need to know at their age. There have been many articles, books, and documentary’s debating on whether or not standardized testing is doing more harm then good. There was a comic made that shows the brutality and bluntness of what standardized testing is really like. Standardized Testing causes too much stress by putting unfair expectations on teens and doesn’t give every single student the chance to succeed.

Texas takes the STAAR, Alabama the ARMT, and Hawaii the HSA. Each state in the U.S. has a standardized test required of every student. From the ACT and SAT to the STAAR tests, standardized testing has become common practice for almost every student. The earliest records of standardized testing are when in China, anyone wanting to get a job in government had to fill out their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry in examination. As more and more kids began to go to school during the Industrial Revolution, standardized testing spread as a way to quickly and easily test a large number of students. But not everyone agrees with the tests, stating that they are unreliable, and that the stakes are too high. Standardized tests cause immense amount of stress for not only students, but teachers as well. And the tests might not even be effective, causing more anxiety than it's worth.

Since Middle School, I was not opposed to standardized testing. I thought of it as a way of testing us of what we have learned. Although, after reading some articles about standardized testing I am re-thinking the pros and cons. From personal experience, I thought of it as a challenge to pass them. But now that reminisce about it, I noticed some of the cons of standardized testing. I remember having a week or two dedicated for testing, and in case of students failing they had to take time to redo it. It would take a while for all the students to finish their tests. And after remembering how it was back in those times I was more on the opposed side.

Although standardized tests do not accurately represent a student’s performance and future, they do present the opportunity to test an individual’s general knowledge. The tests also give students the chance to test their test-taking efficiency and time management, whether or not the individual is under tremendous amounts of stress. With these assessments, students can rank their performance and improve for future tests.

One of the biggest topics in the educational world is standardized tests. All fifty states have their own standards following the common core curriculum. There are many positives and negatives that go with the standardized tests. A standardized test is any type of “examination that's administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner” (Popham, 1999). These standardized tests are either aptitude tests or achievement tests. Schools use achievement tests to compare students.

Growing up in Chesapeake every student is forced to take a standardized test at the end of every class they take. Standardized testing has been a part of the educational system for so long that everyone is just accustomed to taking these tests or giving them out. Standardized testing does not just effect the students but it also effects the teachers. Chesapeake School Board should get rid of standardized testing in all grade levels because of different learning style, it limits the teachers to what they can teach and poor test scores.

The use of standardized testing is on the rise, with the intent of comparing the knowledge levels of large amounts of students. But is it a true and fair indicator of students overall knowledge?some may argue that it is the least expensive and most convenient way to compare mass amounts of students b having everyone test on the same data at the same time and under the same circumstances. Many believe that students learn and even test take at varying levels and performance is not consistent on any given day. Meaning ,students may have the exact same knowledge base, but some students simply are better at test taking, whereas others do not perform well under pressure and this may potentially affect the test results.

In the United State there is a test called Standardized test, which comes in every level of education. Standardized test is any form of test in which all test takers are required to answer the same questions. This test is given in believe of that it will determine individual’s skill. This got introduced in the mid 1800 and ever since that, this has been one of the requirement educational background qualification. Standardized test has been an argumentative topic for a lot of people, some people think it is a good method of determining someone’s knowledge on courses. However there are people who think that standardized testing should not be the only way to measure student skills. This is not something we can conclude by just saying , we should take standardized test or we should not take standardized test, because not everyone think the same way. This topic is open to an individual perspective. This research will state both sides of standardised test, meaning will give both side information leaving the the decision to the reader whether students should take standardized test in the United states.

Even though there are many downsides to standardized testing there are still viable reasons why they are still being used today. One of the main reasons includes the easy and quick access of testing students. Standardized testing allows schools to quickly access a large amount of students at one time. This is also one of the cheapest ways to tests such a large crowd due to machinery that grades which results in low tests costs for students. These tests also help by setting a national curriculum for all high school teachers to teach in schools. “It provides guidelines for curriculum. Standardized tests give teachers a structure of what needs to be taught. This helps keep classroom material consistent across the country” (“Pros and Cons of

Many different types of tests can be “standardized” in the same way. Test specialists consider the standardized tests to be a fair and objective methods of assessing the academic achievement of students, mainly because the standardized format, coupled with computerized scoring, reduces the potential for favoritism and subjective evaluations. Standardized tests could be used for different educational purposes. As an example, they could be used to determine the student’s academic performance and identify students who need academic support and place students in different course levels or award diplomas. Assessment tests are one forms of standardized tests and it has been designed to measure the skills and knowledge students learned in school, and determine the academic progress they have made over a period of time. For example the assessment test students need to take at the beginning of the first year of college or university. The assessment tests can be used to identify the academic placement for a student too. For educational purposes they can be used to hold schools and educators accountable for educational results and student performance, to evaluate whether students have learned what they are expected to learn, to determine if they have met learning

Standardized tests are a positive way to look at student growth and if students are reaching national benchmarks. Many standardized tests are a useful tool when deciding what college to attend, for example, the MCAT is a medical standardized that is required for all admittees into medical school. Around the country, many children are able to conform to teacher-made tests and how to navigate through them, although with standardized tests, they are raw and able to show if a student is really struggling in a specific area. Standardized tests are useful in schools across the country because they help enforce growth and how students are meeting benchmarks, while making it an equal playing field for all students.

I think the schools is putting to much emphasis on the Standardized Test. I think the government is trying to make the standardized test hard and hard each year I think the government wanna make the students in the school's fail there test's. Because it's no point they making the test hard and hard for the students to pass I think they should be making the test easier for the students to pass and get out of the school early so they don't have to worry about school no more. I think the parents of the kids that fail the Standardized test should have a protest go up to Washington D.C go to the white house and stand by the gates and protest. The government would listen to the kids that's not a factor to them government only care about the money

The pros and cons of standardized testing is a becoming a more popular conversation topic. One view is standardized testing can take away from learning opportunities from class time, as well as interrupt the curriculum being taught. On another hand, it is looked at as an efficient way to analyse and monitor students’ progress, in addition to better preparing students for college.

The United States education system has been using standardized testing since the 1800’s. Since the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 mandated annual testing in all 50 states their use has escalated tremendously. Since 2002 America has dropped from 18th to 31st in mathematics and science while reading has not improved either (ProCon). The failure of the education system has been blamed on various outlooks. There may be many factors, but standardized testing has not shown a substantial positive effect. In fact, it has hurt our students, teachers and the education system as a whole. Although some say that it holds valuable information, the negatives severely outweigh the positives in standardized testing.

Today, it can be observed that society has shifted education drastically from the time schools were constituted, to now. Throughout history, schools have gone from private, where only the elite can attend, to public schools where virtually anyone can attend. One of the factors that goes along with education is standardized testing. Frederick J. Kelly, father of the standardized test, once said, “These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned.” Not only has this shift occurred within education itself, but it has occurred within the testing concepts found within standardized testing so much so that the founder of these tests has chosen to give up on it.