The Cons of Standardized Testing

Throughout high school and college we will go through a vast amount of testing but why? Testing is used to show a person’s amount of knowledge on a particular subject. Usually it’s for one specific subject and not a majority of them, the standardized tests include all testable subjects as in English, math, science, writing, and reading. However, before we can all begin our college careers we have to take one of two tests, the ACT or the SAT. These two tests determine the college you get into, the amount of scholarships you will receive, and even whether or not your will be accepted into any 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.

Standardized testing has been ruling over the lives of students, making or breaking them in their education without fair judgement. Tests like the SAT and the ACT count for way too much when applying to colleges, which in turn limits the student 's capabilities to thrive in an environment that would benefit them. There are many problems within a standardized test that deems them to be unreliable as a true test of knowledge. Although designed to test groups of students on intelligence, standardized testing neglects to fairly acknowledge the abilities of each unique student which reflect their true capabilities.

Although students may have enough time to prepare for the SAT/ACT, there are many distractions that could prevent the student from getting a good score. The SAT/ACT both require students to answer a load of questions in little time; the student would be more focused on trying to answer all questions rather than getting as many right as they can. One other distraction could be the student’s testing environment. The student may have

When asked why institutions rely on test scores from the SAT or ACT as a part of the admission process, they provide two answers (The ACT). First, the exams provide a common measuring tool when evaluating students. However, the exams do not show skills and character traits that are key to success, such as creativity, collaboration, and self-discipline. Moreover, the four sections tested on the ACT may not be applicable for a student’s higher education aspirations or career goals; for example, a lawyer will most likely never have to use trigonometry. Secondly, due to the high variance of the quality of secondary education, individuals argue the extreme difficulty it is for admission officers to judge the level or rigor of high school curriculum by examining a student’s transcript (The ACT). Though GPA is not a standard measure across schools, admission officers can understand how to value a GPA from a certain school because they have access to annual school reports about class size, GPA distribution, courses offered, etc. (Page). Therefore, a lack of standardized testing scores would not leave admission officers with insufficient information about the

Many high school students don't take these tests seriously, because many of them are at the same level of thinking as adults, and realize the tests are flawed. Still they might not consider that these tests being flawed might lessen their chance of getting into college. Certainly one could envision a system of standardized tests in which learning was at the center.

With so much riding on these tests, many students become stressed and unable to perform, despite buying prep books and spending long hours studying. "I cannot tell you how many students I have worked with who are amazing in their classes but freeze when it comes to the SAT or ACT because they know how much is riding on the scores," says high school councilor Patricia Mucenski. Instead of placing significance on high school grades, which display not only a student’s intelligence, but also illustrate hard work & determination, our knowledge and future success are measured by a score on one test taken for three hours on a Saturday morning.

In most of the countries students are expected to take standardized exams before completing their high school education. In America, students take ACT, a standardized exam which measures students’ ability to move forward for college. They generally tests students on their knowledge in English, Math, and Science. Each section has its own points, and the overall score is the average score of all sections. But are standardized exams really standardized? And can it measure every student’s ability correctly? I argue that standardized exams are not really standardized and it is not fair to every student who is taking these tests. The main reasons which make standardized tests unstandardized and unfair are the improper distribution of content, purely

Standardized testing is over powering conversation across America. Standardized testing is a test in which is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. It is most commonly used to measure students’ progress and success. Most students of all grades through high school have some form of standardized testing.

An argument of this nature is described by Jeffrey Penn, a reporter for the New York Academy of Sciences, who states, “Despite some limitations and the intense criticism by opponents of standardized testing, colleges and universities can reliably use admissions tests to screen applicants”. He continues this argument by arguing that tests like the SAT are good predictors of how well a student will do in college. Though there may be correlation between the two, test scores are no nearly the only factor in college admission or success. There are a vast number of college courses in existence and success in many of them have nothing to do with how high a student scores on the SAT. On top of that, these tests are not always accurate for a number of reasons. Diane Andrews, an individual chosen to represent the organization FairTest, points out that, “An individual's score may vary from day to day due to testing conditions or the test-taker's mental or emotional state”. A strong student who works hard in school could be dealing with something personally or just have a small fluke and have their test score cause colleges to turn them away. So much emphasis should not be placed on standardized tests such as

For one thing, tests cause anxiety for students. Most students in elementary, middle, or high school are under extremely high pressure to perform well on these tests, as it affects their future greatly. SAT scores affect people when applying for colleges, jobs, and other aspects of their

All students will eventually take a standardized test. Some people are simply bad test takers. Focus plays a big role in doing well on an exam. Some testers can’t focus on their work because of the length of the test. Also, when people are timed, they are scared of running out of time without the test being completed. These people are considered “bad test takers.” Even if they don’t perform well on tests, that doesn’t mean they are simple minded.

Standardized testing is used in most schools and institutes and they are intended in a way, which are managed and documented in a consistent method and to establish a common bar by which all students’ achievements could be measured. The progress of students is shown or comes from standardized testing. All test takers are required to answer the same set of questions in standardized testing. These are exams that usually have true or false, or multiple-choice questions, and those that take the exam are given a certain amount of time to answer all the questions or problems. Millions are spent on these tests every year, since this need to be taken, in order to be accepted in graduate and undergraduate programs and for to reach state requirements for education. Although most schools make students take standardized tests, it does not measure the knowledge of a student fairly.

Standardized test are exams that are given to students to compare achievements and their ability of understanding. The development of Standardized testing came from an French psychologist, Alfred Binet, in about 1905. From that development until now all public schools in the United States are to participate in Standardized testing. The goal of these exams is to be able to compare students intelligence by analyzing their scores. Contrary to those believes, Standardized test lack to test student on important attributes like their creativity, dedication, and critical thinking skills, from those missing factors it can be understood that standardized test are irrelevant to the actual representation of a student knowledge.

Standardized testing is believed to originate from China, where government job applicants were required to put their knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry to the test (Fletcher). The United States began to utilize standardized testing during the Industrial Revolution, which was a period of pulling children out of factories and putting them into the education system (Fletcher). Despite the history of standardized tests they may be more harmful than originally perceived. Currently, many people believe that standardized test results are useful in order to measure the intelligence and progress of students. Additionally, it is believed that the results of the tests should be used to determine if a student should advance to the next grade level. However, the harms of mandatory standardized testing outweigh the benefits because these tests fail to reflect real-world situations, they prevent non-tested materials from being taught, and they lack use due to the fact that the missed problems are not available for students.