Persuasive Essay On Test Scores

Anyone who has ever taken the ACT or the SAT knows how stressful and difficult the tests are. Students are forever judged because of the scores the receive by colleges and peers. The ACT/SAT are standardized tests that are meant to calculate what students have learned in previous years of high school. Colleges then use this score to determine whether a student will succeed in college. Specific problems with this process include the fact that high schoolers are extremely busy and may have other things on their minds, the tests require brutal test prep, the test can cause stress and anxiety, and the tests do not accurately gage a student’s college success. For these main reasons, students should not be required to take the ACT/SAT to get into college.

Standardized testing has been around since the early 1900’s. Today, it determines a high school student’s future. Every year juniors in high school start to prepare months in advance for the SAT’s and ACT’s. Along with the test itself, comes stress that is not necessary. The debate of standardized tests defining a student’s academic ability or not has become a recent popular controversial topic. Many colleges and universities are starting to have test optional applications because they are realizing that a single test score does not demonstrate the knowledge of a student. There is more value in a student that should rule an acceptance or rejection. In the article, “SAT Scores Help Colleges Make Better Decisions” Capterton states, “The SAT has proven to be valid, fair, and a reliable data tool for college admission” (Capterton). Capterton, president of the College Board, believes that the SAT’s and ACT’s should be used to determine a student’s acceptance because it is an accurate measure. What Capterton and deans of admissions of colleges and universities don’t know is the abundant amount of resources upper class families have for preparation, the creative talents a student has outside of taking tests, and the amount of stress they put on a 17 year old.

Historically, letter grades have served as a tool to rate educational intelligence. By looking at the progression of a student’s grades over time, people are able to determine whether or not the students are developing skills in certain areas. Using a one letter grade to determine progress has received many critiques as a common system used in America’s education. Critics claim letter grades cause students motivation and creativity to decrease because grades shift students focus from learning the material to obtaining a good grade.

Parents and professors speculate why children no longer display excitement and ambition for learning. Most share the common goal of educating the youth to take on the “rights and responsibilities of citizens” (Ravitch 109). Unfortunately, educational requirements have strayed from the original purpose and began to aim their attention toward the “importance” of standardized testing. As a current high school senior, my experience has been that students are branded by their grades and test scores as if they determine who we are as a person. Diane Ravitch’s “The Essentials of A Good Education”, successfully critiques the extensive use of standardized testing in order to pursue change in our education systems and prove that focusing on test scores corrupts a child’s inner creativity.

In order to grow and prosper in society, one must gain knowledge from a variety of subjects and apply the information in real life situations. High school is one source of education where adolescents are able to gain knowledge by attending classes. However, the school system has numerous flaws and fails to cultivate successful students who are driven to continue their education. Based on the texts in Conversation: Focus on the American High School and my own insight, two serious issues present in American high schools include the failure to reform the curriculum by integrating liberal arts and promoting artificial values in individuals which restricts growth.

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.

Today's society holds, above all else, education as one of the most important elements of our nation. Countless hours are spent in Congress filling out government grants for education, new education reform bills, and every standardized test one could possibly imagine. However, with all this time being spent on the education of our nation's future, there is little that is actually being done to help students to achieve their maximum potential. Several key factors are limiting children and young adults across the map from excelling past anyones' wildest imagination. One of these is, as mentioned before, is standardized tests. Also, lack of emotional and mental outreach to students has caused, and will continue to cause, a flawed hole

Three times a year, hours spent testing, and for what? Standardized Tests. Some school staff members, or family, believe that Standardized Tests can increase the students’ educations. Students can say otherwise. Personally, I have come to the conclusion that Standardized Tests can be substandard for students. The evidence supporting this claim is that the tests can cause stress in young children, it’s overall expensive, and it takes away teaching time. I hope from reading this essay you will also believe Standardized Tests should be cut from schools programs.

“High school grades reflect years of effort and are more reliable assessment of college potential than test scores.” Historians detected that standardized testing started back in the seventh-century in China. The government of China began to organize written exams to select people for the civil service. Also many educators try to make sure that they are following the right requirements but some of them don’t and do all sorts of stuff with the results. Many individuals would say that standardized testing is a helpful way of learning from what the student knows and doesn’t, but the consequences that teachers found out of the standardized tests are making the students have a decrease in critical thinking.

Yes i do feel as if the school is wasting their time on standardized testing because as a kid i want learning to be fun not always having to worry about a test every moment. I would like to be taught for different reasons in stead of being always being taught for test and the future, i know when i get older i'll probably would understand a little bit more but till than i want schools to realize that kids don't want to know that we are only being taught for standardized testing and teacher are very strict about the testing i'm not trying to tell any one how to work their classes but sometimes they have to understand its not all about test and teacher why some kids don't like to work .

Students shouldn’t be measured by what they get on standardized test since it doesn’t show other things that the students are good at. The author wrote, “ Contrary to popular assumptions about standardized testing, the tests do a poor job of measuring student achievement. They fail to measure such important attributes as creativity and critical thinking skills.” (Opposing viewpoints in Context pg.1) The author’s main argument is that standardized tests do not show the other skill that students, schools or programs have that isn’t shown just through a test. That Standardized testing doesn’t effectively measure the achievement of students. In his or her article, the author puts what achievement is but what is based on standardized test and not other things. A lot of attributes are not measured from the standardized tests. There are some places that have rewards for “shallow thinking” (Opposing viewpoints Pg.3)

After being enrolled in classes they are interested in, students will be more engaged in class, thus increasing student morale. People in charge are more likely to be happier and work harder. By giving students the option to choose what core course they want to sign up for, teachers can see what path their students are on and better prepare them for the outside world. “It was in reading and arguing about sports and toughness that I experienced what it felt like to propose a generalization, restate and respond to a counter argument, and perform other intellectual operations…,” which shows how the author found he was more engaged in his sports writing class than he had been in his broader high school English class (Graff 267). The curriculum must change to ensure the happiness and growth of the student. Child development should be the primary goal of every school district but, schools are now about making the grade. Now, interest is measured by how well a student is doing in the class not how much they are learning. “It is self- defeating to decline to introduce any text or subject that figures to engages students who will otherwise tune out academic work entirely,” illustrates how school boards are judging students equally and on the same level when they should be judged separately (Graff 270). Everyone does differently in academics because they are all different individual people who have different learning

Have you ever thought about what college you want to go to after high school? In order to get into that college, you must be accepted. Colleges look for a numerous amount of criteria in order for you to get accepted, and one of those things colleges look for is your standardized test score. The standardized test is a test administered and scored in a consistent, or “standard”, way (edglossary.org). Seeing that you must get a high enough score on the test in order for your dream college to accept you, the tests are difficult, but are very worth it at the end. Colleges have been accepting students into their school with standardized test scores for more than 50 years, and with that being said, it has seemed to work pretty well (content.time.com). In the end, standardized test scores show that you deserve to go to that college, and is also a way of showing that you’ve worked hard for so long to accomplish something huge.

“Our educational goal [is] the production of caring, competent, loving, lovable people” . The students found in the schools across the United State are the future of America. They are the doctors, teachers, business people, lawyers and many other roles, that will be out in the workforce in the years to come. What they learn in school will impact them immensely; it is the responsibility of a teacher to give students the best education in order to ensure the common good of the future. It is essential for students to not only learn content matter, but also the skills to enable them to participate in a democracy. Due to standardized testing, the emphasis of education has become on score and rankings rather than learning. A standardized test does not look at the whole student, the scores provided are on a very narrow aspect of education. In the classroom, there are countless ways for teachers to assess the student as a whole person not as just a score. Standardized tests scores should not be the sole criteria for determining a student’s academic achievement.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of students across the nation are required to take many standardized tests. Which are used to determine student’s achievement, progress and growth. These tests supposedly say the outcome of how much knowledge a student has or has not learned. The stakes are high all because of a test score. Standardized tests may determine a pass or fail status for grade levels through K-12 or admission into colleges if you are taking an ACT or SAT standardized test. It is unfair and a very unreliable method to use to measure the performance of students. Standardized testing methods creates more harm than good and should be revised because many students, teachers, and schools suffer from this annually.