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SAT Essay

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The leaves are turning from a summer green to the array of orange, yellow, and red hues. The fall has begun, but this means so has the college application season. Thousands of high school seniors are racing to testing centers last minute to gain extra points on their ACT and SAT scores. American College Testing (ACT) and Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) are college entrance tests giving ways for high school students to gain acceptance into college and earn merit scholarships. Typically Ivy League colleges require their students to score in the top 0.1% which means earning perfect scores on their ACT or SAT test. So when the fall season rolls around, students are cramming all night before the tests trying to memorize the tricks and ways to …show more content…

So poor scores by the students on standardized tests will give a district lower ranking. This causes schools to be strictly teaching to the standardized tests curriculums. So many schools and teachers focus on teaching how to perform well on the standardized test rather than other important subjects the students are passionate learning about. Students then start to utilize memorization techniques and creative ways to learn on how to beat the test rather than studying on history and sciences where there is potential to grow as a student and learn (Concordia University). These infamous tests put unnecessary stress on the students, teachers, administrators and even school districts. Some students are able to pick up the tricks easier than others, so they score higher. Therefore, the ACT and SAT do not test the intelligence of a student nor the abilities of a student as the test does not follow a high school curriculum, rather ACT and SAT are stressful tests for easy comparison nationally.
Moreover, standardized tests, ACT and SAT, are created as a fair comparison between all students as the test is written at the same time for all students each month, administered with consistent instructions, same allotted timing and scored in the same manner, but there are confounding variables that affect the scores of the students (Poulsen). When a student enters a testing area, their identity is replaced and they become a barcode: a

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