Standardized Testing Research Paper

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 does not occur at the college level where someone might assume that it would be mandated. When someone is taking a test to enter a college, wouldn’t it be logical for a

     The SAT are standardized tests, formally called the Scholastic Aptitude Tests and are used by most colleges

In addition, the SAT and ACT can be considered inaccurate because they are often biased toward certain ethnicities, social classes and genders. Those in favor of these standardized test argue that they are an equal opportunity for all to demonstrate their knowledge and capability, however, this is not the case(“Do Standardized Test” par 10). The ACT is known for being biased toward certain groups of people. “According to ACT research, when all factors are equal, such as course work, grades and family income, Whites still outscore all other groups. If the ACT

Imagine a test capable of making or breaking a student's chances of getting into his or her dream college. Imagine a test score that can be easily influenced, but only through thousands of dollars worth of coaching. Now imagine that same test but biased towards certain crowds of students while also being incapable of accurately predicting their futures. Is this the test you want for colleges to use in order to distinguish students? This is the SAT—famous for the unnecessary pressure it presents to students as well as the unfair disadvantages it presents to many others. Since these SAT scores are extremely artificial, SAT tests are not an accurate predictor for future success.

Many know the stressful feeling of having to take the ACT. The exam room fills slowly with worried faces and remains quiet until the test stars. Students grasp their pencils tightly, their palms sweating with the thought of their future at stake with this single test. In order to get into any college, an ACT or SAT score is required. These required scores for admission vary from school to school which can make it difficult for every student to attend their dream school. A single test will determine who can and cannot attend a certain college. With this system, it can deny students with potential in certain fields a place in a college because they might not test well. College admission should not be based on

This is in fact not the case, there are an abundant number of alternatives to standardized assessments. Alternatives to determined how a school performs according to "Do Standardized Tests Show an Accurate View of Students' Abilities" are "high school graduation rates and number of dropouts, enrollments in advanced placement and other college prep courses, college acceptance rate, and college remediation rates for recent high school graduates" (6). As previously mentioned by the research the Hampshire College performed there are also alternatives for accepting students into colleges that are not test scores. Some possible choices are essays and interviews, recommendations from mentors, and assess factors such as their community engagement and entrepreneurism. The main point is that these standardized tests can be replaced with better options of where to place schools and students on the overall

In the United States, two popular tests are the SAT and the ACT. These tests are as crucial as they can determine what college a student can attend. The reason for this is the SAT and the ACT provide colleges with an unbiased look at what type of student they are looking at. The SAT is curved, so that a 1500 is consistent across every test so there is no worry of grade inflation or deflation due to deviations among tests and their level of difficulty. For this reason standardized tests allows universities across the world to easily compare the applications they receive. This is needed as some colleges receive upwards of fifty thousand applications per year.

Generally speaking, the SAT is a one-day test where students are forced to test in specific areas such as math, reading and writing in an allotted time period. An individual’s success cannot be measured by a snapshot of time. Many believe that time does not help reflect a student’s overall performance because there are multiple of variables that can happen throughout the time period and day to that individual. In addition, the SAT testing does not take into account other academic areas that a student may excel in. While a student’s GPA on their transcript can show administrators the student’s strengths and weakness since it reflects an accumulative of four years in high school, thus it is able to better represent a student’s academic

“Even the test-maker admits that high-school grades predict first-year college grades better than ACT scores do.” (Fair test.org)

Where are we headed as our future generations prepare to take over and lead our nation? Will our nation’s graduating students be competent and equipped to lead us into a successful future? How do we determine if we are preparing them to be intelligent enough to be successful in this world? What is intelligence and success? And is that all it takes to lead a successful nation? It has been proven that student performance and higher grades can dramatically increase the economic growth of a nation, but is this all we need? Has Washington (Govenement) put in place the best method for establishing a new generation to lead our country? Or should we ask, do we want Washington to be taking the lead of our educational system?

The scoring is a little different but not by much. Its mainly just the numbers because both test are put together are on the same scale. The ACT is scored from one to thirty six. With one being the lowest and thirty six being the highest. With the ACT having four sections, each section is averaged from one to thirty six and then they are all averaged altogether into one score as a whole. The SAT scores on the other hand range from two hundred to eight hundred on each section and are added together for one huge score with the maximum of 2400 points. The most popular college-admission test that is being taken is the SAT. Annually two million college applicants take this test each year. But don't get so caught up into that test because the people taking the ACT numbers are rising and people are predicting the the ACT will one day become more popular than the SAT. The level of of work you'll be faced with in college is stimulated in the reading sections from both the SAT and ACT. Both test have four passages and have are range from science to fiction. Multiple-choice questions are followed by the passages to test your reading skills and reasoning ability. The SAT is a little less straightforward than the ACT Reading Comprehension. Even though the ACT passages are longer and more on the academic side, the questions are less

SAT and ACT standardized testing has been required by colleges since the 1920’s, however a new trend of test optional schools have been appearing. Test optional schools allow students to choose whether they want to submit their test scores to colleges. It is supposed to stop unfairness and bias in the college acceptance process. Bowdoin College was the first school to become test optional in 1969. However, it was not until 2009 that many schools also started to become test optional. Today more than 870 school are test optional. Schools are choosing to pick the right students instead of the best test takers.  Colleges are questioning whether SAT and ACT can really predict a person’s future success.

Standardized testing is a collectively accepted aspect of education today, it is used to evaluate if students of all ages are being shaped and educated up to the common standard set by the government. Standardized testing can be seen in almost all educational settings from kindergarten classes to exit exams for nurse practioners. Standardized testing came into play when former President George Bush ran his campaign on being the education president and enacted the No Child Left behind Act. Under this act all educational districts are subject to standards and core values they must meet to receive accreditation and funding from the government. Just the other day many students at Moorcroft high school student had to take a

Are you stressed out over standardized tests? Some say that the test are perfectly normal for the children. While others think that the children are too stressed over the tests. I believe that the standardized tests stress the students out too much because the children are too worried. I hope that when you are done reading this you will agree with me.