Graduation Speech : College Entrance Exams

Education is taken earnestly in primarily all countries throughout the world including America, but even more so in South Korea. While high school is considered to be one of the best times of your life in America, it is not the same for Koreans. In America, sports,

”Between pre-K and 12th grade, students take about 112 mandatory standardized exams" (washingtonpost). There are numerous negative effects following this shocking statistic that cause a stir with schools all over. For the majority of students, standardized testing is burdensome and loathed. Scores give an inaccurate representation of students' abilities and the system is often corrupt. They pose as a type of analysis that is designed to administer and record information in a consistent method. However, as years have passed, these commercially prepared tests have destroyed the idea of school being a safe learning environment. The stress of the test have also been found to push trusted educators to neglect the goal of maximizing each student to their full potential. Not only are millions spent on

Looking overseas, there seems to be a huge academic gap when it relates to worldwide standardized testing. One country that is dominating the world in academics is Singapore. Singapore has realized how much education is valued and how important the teachers are in the classroom setting. However, there have been speculations in how their students have prepared for these exams. In

Standardized testing has been a part of the education system since its founding. However Standardized testing and exams should be replaced in favor of another form of assessment because exams fail to achieve their goals. Exams have proven to be stressful from students, adults and professors perspectives. Some say that the system fails to give all pupils fair shot and the students who are exceptionally intelligent who fail assessments “can lack initiative” (Tait, 12). Which states that those who do not have one single set of skills are set up for failure which is unfair to those learners. One student says that exams “Represent cramming, and bad study habits.” (Debate.org, 10). Because while many students do procrastinate and end up stressing double later. Many are never taught how to properly study or how to study in a way that helps them learn best.

Naoki Ogi, a Professor Hosei University and an expert on Japan’s education system argue that standardized testing should be formally put an end as it depends solely on the score to firmly decide what school should be attended (Lewis, 2015). National exam is important for creating standardization, but in terms of education purpose, the standardized exam is not a solution to create a comparison. The knowledge together with the skill should not be evaluated by merely scores in one attempt. When performing the test, both students and teachers will feel the stress which may lead to death, as in the case in Indonesia. A state of having pressure and tension exerted also may lead to creating dishonest behavior, which caused by people involved in the education system. Moreover, the process of creating a national exam together with the prevention of cheating during the exam evidently costs a lot of money. Therefore, standardized testing in the national landscape should not be applied. Parents and those with highly educated level, such as teacher and educators should be aware that there are some students who are more interested in the particular field. In fact, they might feel that during the exam process, a coercion is used. The government, in this case, should have implemented a long-term study of student grow instead of creating the national exam system. The education system should instill knowledge and hone skill without worrying that the standardized testing might create an unfair grouping, whether they are coming from “better school” nor “middle-ranked school”. With long-term study, there is no additional budget needed for each individual student which can be more appreciated within the area of the school

All around the country, students, teachers and parents are preparing. Students are staying up past midnight for hours of fact drilling and studying. Teachers are giving extra homehork and cramming and extra information that may be needed. Parents are trying to help their children study in hopes they will pass, but they often only make it worse as they add to the ever increasing stress load of the impending doom of standardized testing. Standardized Testing is not as harmless as it seems. It often affects students on a mental level, making them extremely nervous, then breaking them down on a mental level. It also hurts the teachers in many ways, including temptation to cheat. Standardized testing is at a new high in America and is said to

Some people have asked to read the commencement address I delivered this morning to the 2013 graduates of Butler University. So here it is.

Imagine walking into class the day of a school-wide exam and your teacher offer you two choices, A.) Play fun games outside with your friends or , B.) Take a boring an extremely long test. If your answer was A then get ready to put down that #2 pencil and pick up that bouncy ball. In almost every school, both local and international students are required to take standardized test and exams. The results of these tests are used for a number of reasons. Many children miss out on a wide variety of academic opportunities because of the results of the test that deemed them not proficient,based on their results of a standardized test. Unfortunately, a A standardized test has been a stressor to students academic lives.

Standardized tests have become the pragmatic form of gauging a child’s intellect, and also have become the major factor in universities accepting applicants. Behind the results of each test lies the ability to mould a child’s future, with test for every occasion whether it is for medical school, an International Baccalaureate entrance exam, college or university admission, there is no escaping such discriminatory tests. These tests are designed to predict a student’s intellect, as well as evaluate the school and its staff based on their students’ academic performance. With constantly changing curriculums, and thousands of papers to be marked across a country, the cost of the standardize test becomes too expensive. The tests are not

Obviously, a student’s education is compromised in this because as long as this system exists, students will find school uninteresting and be less invested in it, dropping their grades and performance scores, the state will see this as a red flag and make the testing more in-depth, ultimately beginning the cycle anew with the student’s disdain for the tests growing. The tests also create an unnecessary rivalry between nations, which usually ends with either side “fixing” a problem in the system and creating a multitude of other problems, like a perpetual game of education Whack-A-Mole.

High school is supposed to be the place where you have fun and a time in your life you’re supposed to enjoy. Movies often trick you into believing that high school is an amazing time in your life and there is nothing but parties and fun. In Bring it on, they portrayed the fun and exciting part of high school cheer-leading, however they intentionally leave out the tough times high school students’ face in school and in their practices. In other popular movies, such as High School Musical the students have no pressures other than the next basketball game. In reality, this doesn 't happen. The constant pressure is affected by the grade level you are in. In high school, students can be classified based on the pressures that are faced in each grade level into the categories of freshman, sophomores/juniors, and seniors. I am here to help you make your high school experience less stressful.

Unlike America, Japanese education is highly influenced by the culture. The student works hard during their middle school and high school since the view college as a reward. Japanese student carry a different mentality in college than high school, “ students are also widely known to traditionally consider their university days to be a social playground , a reward for the hard work and making it there…” (“ Education In Japan”) The student feel the pressured to make it to college from strict parents, this make them busy in high school focusing on academics. They view that college is the ultimate reward for all their hard work and struggle. Family plays a huge role in the success of the student and that one reason the Japanese are more effective. The parents are strict and pressure the student to succeed. The American system of education is not as effective because parents are not

Cheating is one of the strategies that most insufficiently prepared candidates use during their examinations, although many people, educational institutions and governments make tremendous effort to avoid academic dishonesty during national examinations. Similarly, all the educational and governmental actors agree with the importance of integrity for all those who are involved in organizing examinations. Accordingly, it is in order to keep this reliability that the choice of proctors requests great care in every country and every educational institution all over the world.

Education systems in Asia are often characterized to be more overwhelming for students, compared to Western countries. In South Korea, students are pressured to ascend through high competition to enter a top-tier university to get a good job. To be superior than others in test scores, which are fundamental in getting into a good university, Korean students often use cramming-style and rote learning study method to get high test scores and grades. They go through overwhelming amount of study every day, and they have an extremely busy routine as they go to private institutes called “Hakwon”, where they can get extra lessons out of school. Cramming for the

English class seemed to be the most dreadful to take within school. Writing essays for most of my grade in a class is not what I was looking forward too. When I entered college I knew that it would be one of many challenging classes I would have to take. Starting from the lowest English class to moving on up, the writing assignments became longer and more thought out. The time came when I got into this class that I knew more work was going to have to be put into essays and thus brought out what I had not seen before in my work progress.