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Standardized Testing Benefit Analysis

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A typical student in the United States takes about 112 standardized tests between kindergarten and senior year. By contrast, most countries that outperform the United States on international exams only test their students three times during their school careers. The topic of standardized testing has been controversial for years. Many people argue over whether or not the tests are actually useful to the educational system. Nonetheless, statistics prove that the United States spends way too much time testing their students without an inkling of all the negative effects the tests bring. Schools should be able to focus on enhancing students’ educations, but all the testing forces teachers to spend their short amount of class time preparing their …show more content…

To begin, standardized tests put too much pressure on students. These tests are used to determine if a student is “smart enough” for their age or what college they will be accepted into. The majority of colleges have set ACT score that students must achieve in order to be admitted there. That means when it comes time for the test, students often overwhelm themselves studying because they want to be accepted into a good, quality college. A study in England, which is focused on high-stakes testing, found a 200% increase in counseling sessions related to exam stress between 2013 and 2014. One agency even found an increase in suicidal thoughts related to exam stress (“How High-Stakes Standardized”). Students should not have to spend their whole school careers …show more content…

Most schools are rated by how their students perform on standardized tests, so in order to receive an excellent score they make sure to prepare their students. Teachers are then pressured to only focus on material that will appear on the test.Under those circumstances, students’ curriculum will get narrowed. Study shows schools may drop whole classes like History and Science if they aren’t being taught, especially in low-income schools because parents can’t afford to pay the extra money to keep those subjects for their children(“The Dangerous Consequences of”). This is unhealthy because critical topics and skills are not being taught to students, as they can not be tested with paper and pencil. Instead of learning and comprehending the material, students are taught with repetition of simple skills and tested on that material a few days later. This allows students to memorize for the test and forget the material a week later, rather than actually learning the material and applying it later in life. Equally, teachers are hurt by this process because if they want to receive a good grade, they will most likely teach to the test rather than their students. This takes the fun out of teaching for some teachers because they no longer have control over what they teach. In the long run, teaching to the test has a negative effect on students and

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