Are Standardized Tests Worthy Indicators Of Intelligence Or Academic Ability?

Most standardized test do not measure emotional or mechanical intelligence, actually a lot of educators argue that standardized test do not measure comprehension or actual intelligence but rather memorization. While others may believe that standardized testing just needs a few improvements, others believe that it is impossible to have a test that measures accurately the capability of a diverse student population. Today’s schooling depends heavily on the test scores from standardized test. Standardized testing should not have so much weight put on them because they have a negative impact on effective education, students’ self-concept, and learning styles.

Students intelligence is often measured by standardized tests, but these students are at their worst while taking the test and it does not accurately measure their intelligence. Students are stressed, nervous, or simply do not take tests well. Standardized tests also don’t show how hard working a student is, which is important and can be proven by a GPA.

Forms of standardized testing have been around since the Sui dynasty time period, in which the Sui and Tang dynasties conducted imperial examinations in order to test those that hoped for government positions. Many other cultures have adopted it as well and refined it into almost an art form; for example, the United States. The United States began to conduct standardized testing around the time of the First World War; these tests measured the abilities of soldiers in order to give them jobs according to their results. Although the approaches to standardized tests are very different, the same general concept is the same. Since then there has been an increase of standardized tests: SAT, ACT, ASVAB, TAKS, STAAR, and EOC’s, just to name a few.

The earliest record of standardized testing originates from China. It was created to test knowledge of Confucian poetry and philosophy for men applying for government jobs. In 1905 a man by the name of Alfred Binet created his own,

Testing has been used for centuries in many different ways, not just to test student intelligence levels. According to an article written in Time, the earliest form of a standardized test comes from China where government leaders would be tested on their knowledge of Confucius and poetry. The article continues with the inclusion of testing during the Industrial Revolution. The testing during this period took children who were not in school and measured their knowledge of subjects that students in schools learned. As time went on, more and more advances came to the testing scene. New products included a revised version of the test, called the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, and professionals developed the test scanner by 1936. These inventions improved the time necessary to receive results from an IQ test. Today, tests, like the

The use of standardized testing to measure students’ knowledge is an inaccurate reflection of their capabilities. By being forced to take a test that does not effectively show their abilities, students become overstressed, and the tests themselves do not promote true academic achievement. Rather than learning about subjects in order to gain knowledge, students simply memorize facts and formulas to get a decent test score. Standardized tests are not an appropriate measure of student performance, only benefit certain groups of students, and do not prepare students for the real world.

Valid – The test must be shown to measure what it is intended to measure. Unbiased – The test should not place students at a disadvantage because of gender, ethnicity, language, or disability.” Yet, all three requirements for a test to be viable do not apply to standardized testing. Results produced are not consistent, as the day to day lives of students are constantly changing; Issues in the students’ lives may affect their thoughts, emotions, and health that would affect the results of their tests, providing a variety of test scores for one person alone. The validity of the test is also in question as it does not account for differences in students’ backgrounds and personal life so test scores do not accurately measure student’s abilities, but rather, it measures their ability to memorize information and test taking skills. Standardized testing holds a very large amount of bias, as the students of different ethnicities, cultures, and languages, have to confront many biased questions that are present in standardized tests. Therefore, standardized testing, according to Zucker’s analysis of an effective test, should not be used as an effective measure for testing students’ intelligence as it breaks the three requirements that make

Standardized tests within today’s American Education have become a policy, creating vast and long tests to comprehend each student's knowledge over their years of education within American society. While there are positive and negative effects of using these standardized tests to assess students’ needed fundamentals of education in terms of standards, the validity of these tests always come into question, considering that so many high school graduates are applying for college. This calls into question whether we should keep using these tests, or abandon them all together. It makes one beg the question: To what extent are the criterion of standardized tests valid in predicting collegiate educational success? Due to the inefficiencies of standardized

As a result, many feel that tests like the ACT and SAT do not provide correct evaluations of a student’s knowledge or learning capabilities. Hence, in order to pass any test, memorization is automatically preferred rather than understanding the concept of the subject. An interviewee in Katy Walsh’s interview comment’s, “…I guess it's our human penchant for trying to attach a number to kids: 'You're an 83; you're a 78.' We are comparing and sorting kids by using these tests and that doesn't always correlate to what's being taught in school. If there was a stronger connection between what kids are taught in school that would make sense…” Although Standardized testing is utilized across the nation nowadays, it certainly does not measure one’s intelligence. With this in mind, it should be disallowed because it is an unbeneficial way of measuring the performance level of a student and creates a grade oriented mindset. We as students are being ranked based on our grades we receive on exams. But are these tests an effective way to measure student’s achievement? Students are being unmotivated to excel in subjects they struggle in because the educational system is defined their success by a certain number. The system in pinpointing out their weakness rather than helping students improve in their areas of difficulty. Therefore, they are manipulating the fact that a grade defines them and their future. Schools should focus more on the development of a child, rather than rank them based on the grades they receive in a test. Not only are standardized tests an undependable way of grading, but also, it does not promote life skills the child will need when growing

I think that one standardized test cannot determine how smart a student is or how well a school is doing. One test can simply not show how smart a student is because one test is not a accurate representation of the student’s knowledge.

Standardized tests should be limited in public schools because it only measures a small portion of learning. They do not account for many important concepts such as creativity and critical thinking. Some standardized tests only measure rote memory skills. Multiple choice tests only measure knowledge recall and not a student’s full understanding of a topic(Berube,2004). Standardized do not test in every subject area. Most tests only focus on reading and math skills. It does not include subjects such as science and social studies. The use of multiple-choice standardized tests does not always allow students to demonstrate their full understanding of a topic. Furthermore, tests limit student learning by focusing on only on cognitive abilities and ignore many other important qualities that are important to a student’s success(NCTE,2014). Due to the fact that the majority of standardized test do not measure all forms of learning, they neglect students who strengths may be in not tested subject areas.

In Time’s: A brief history on standardized testing, we are given a deeper history on how standardized testing began. It is said that the Chinese started using standardized testing for government jobs to examine their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry. French philosopher Alfred Binet began putting together a standardized test of intelligence. That

Standardized testing is any test that remains the same and is given in the same manner to all test takers. Standardized testing began in China as a part of job applications. They became more frequently used in the early 1900’s to determine an individual’s intelligence. The army used these tests to determine if soldiers were officer material. In 2000, Finland had the highest PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) scores in the world. Finland uses very little standardized testing compared to other countries. It has been proved that high performing countries (Finland, Japan China) do not use standardized testing. The controversy about if standardized testing was truly helpful and if it showed a true reflection of a student’s

Because education is the most essential part in a country’s development, there are so many controversies about the system or the type of education. [The question is whether standardized tests are good for students or not.] It’s the truth that education is associated with almost everyone in the society, so of course everyone wants to find the best way of education. Since a test is an effective way to measure how much students have learned from classes, people have already created two styles of tests, which are standardized tests and local tests. Some people are confused about what the standardized tests are. According to Popham (1999), “standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures,

“If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.” This cogent advice given by Michelle Obama concludes that one can attain great accomplishments even if they did not achieve very high scores on standardized tests. The scores do not set the boundaries of their future. Standardized testing is required in numerous schools and institutes. It is designed to measure the academic performance of each student and is commonly used to evaluate for education above high school. Many people believe that standardized testing is an effective and reliable way to determine the intelligence of students. However, it does not necessarily demonstrate the true abilities of an individual.