The Importance Of In-Class Tests For College Students

One of the main controversial disputes regarding education is if test taking is actually a beneficial form of a learning technique for students. Within the context of Henry L. Roediger III’s article, How Tests Make Us Smarter, Roediger goes into depth upon how giving students “low-stakes quizzes” could help improve their memory as well as consistent and spread out practice. Psychology In Action, written by both Karen Huffman and Katherine Dowdell, also restates similar learning techniques within their first chapter.

With the added pressure to do well in school, standardized testing becomes a means to added stress, anxiety and further complicates the pressure to succeed in a student’s life. Rather than a focus on learning and understanding, school has become a massive rope skill memorization test designed to have students memorize subjects to pass the test, and forget the material the next minute for the next test. When asked to speak about standardized testing, education chairman, Larry Taylor, said “It’s heart-wrenching, and it’s also insanity when you see the level of achievement these kids are already doing and yet they can’t even pass this test.” (Smith). The utilization of standardized testing further exemplifies and validates the idea that no matter how hard or long you work in school, your work will never be worth the few answers you write for the

Students dread the time of the year when they stop with their course material and begin to prepare for test. Everyone is in agreement that some type of revolution is needed when it comes to education; eliminating standardized test will aid the reform. The need for standardized testing has proven to be ineffective and outdated; some leading educationalist also believe this because the tests do not measure a student’s true potential. This will save money, stop labeling, and alleviate stress in students and teachers.

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.

Some of these variables might negatively affect a student's ability to answer the specific multiple-choice questions on a standardized test, but the learning potential lies within the student, not the multiple-choice question. The makers of the test cannot encompass all the variables of the students in the multiple-choice questions, nor should they have to try. The multiple-choice questions should be replaced with essay questions that allow for a diverse response from students of many backgrounds, not one "standard" response from a uniform background. Supporters of standardized testing might argue that a test cannot encompass all the variables of the student population, but essay questions encourage diversity, not uniformity, in the students.

The stress settled in once the word ‘testing’ echoed through the classroom. The students knew what it brought, and they knew how dreadful it would be; sitting in one room, hour after hour and day after day, silent and still, with only the sound of the clock resonating through their heads. Standardized tests are assessments that local and national governments may require their students to take. However, these tests do not properly evaluate their intellect, and only lead to tension and mental strain on a student’s attentiveness. Although many schools believe that these assessments are productive, it is proven that they are not beneficial to students because standardized testing leads to stress and anxiety, it is wasting valuable classroom time,

Thinking must be practiced in each content field at each educational level. For the teacher, this means hard work. To teach students to memorize facts and then assess them with multiple-choice tests is a much easier choice to make. In a course that emphasizes thinking,

The education of students has transitioned from learning crucial lessons to preparing for yearly tests. Meanwhile, differences in students’ comfort of taking such tests and learning styles have affected the scores of students of equal academic merit. The tests also have not helped younger students to accelerate the education process that, theoretically, should result from increased

As generations pass, and students change and develop, teachers and administrators propose new techniques to help students improve. From the introduction of school, to the division of age groups, to standardized testing, someone always has a new way to help students in school. A new idea, however, may be the key to success. A school in Massachusetts has developed a new program that challenges students with college level classes while still in high school. As students improve in school, to prevent boredom in the classroom, they need a challenge, this challenge being harder level, college courses. While still in the comfort of high school, students experience the rigor of college classes, this helping ease the transition into higher education

Today is test day, an obstacle that in time will falsely decide a student’s future academically and morally. He has one chance to portray his academic performance in such limited time, having to forcefully disregard whether or not he is in fact emotionally prepped on the given day. There is an unnecessary surplus of students who share such experiences, who too have had their dreams and talents ripped by automated grading. This tale is nothing new, such senseless obstacles have troubled generations. Standardized tests are not a valid measurement of academic success and should be discontinued due to their one-size fits all curriculum, inaccurate performance judgment on a given day, and inefficient test taking times.

The use of standardized testing to measure students’ knowledge is an inaccurate reflection of their capabilities. By being forced to take a test that does not effectively show their abilities, students become overstressed, and the tests themselves do not promote true academic achievement. Rather than learning about subjects in order to gain knowledge, students simply memorize facts and formulas to get a decent test score. Standardized tests are not an appropriate measure of student performance, only benefit certain groups of students, and do not prepare students for the real world.

High School juniors and seniors are frequently asked what they plan to do for their college education. While discussing their future in college, many relevant topics come into the conversation. One may talk about their grades and classes, paying for school, and their test scores. All of these have a very important impact on what a student will do for the next few years of their life. Unfortunately, in our society, test scores are an extremely important factor in the college admissions process. Students are highly encouraged to put forth a serious effort in order to achieve the best possible score. “To this day, most four-year colleges require applicants to take one or more of a number of standardized tests for admission, and

Opponents of standardized tests claim that taking these tests are rewards for shallow thinking. Taking these tests can sometimes be a little challenging because not all students are good test takers. Some students when taking a test get overwhelmed and over think when reading the questions on the tests. According to Harris et al., “Studies of students of different ages have found a statistical association between students with high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking” (3). Generally overthinking on a test can lead students to choosing the wrong answer because they second guess their first answer choice. When teachers give kids test taking strategies one of the most common things said is to always go

Standardized tests measure only a small portion of what makes education meaningful, making them both inaccurate measures of collegiate success and detrimental to students’ educations as schools refocus their curricula on test preparation. Standardized tests don’t measure other important elements of a student. There is a countless amount of important characteristics that are not measured in standardized testing including “creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, and integrity” (“Student Achievement”). Each and every one of these characteristics are extremely important for a person to have to live in the real world, which requires a person to think abstractly at times. The standardized test doesn’t test the most important things that is essential to survival in the real

Unfortunately in modern time, students are more concerned to pass a test, than actually learning the material. It’s inconsiderate for schools to feel that throwing test after test will predict and showcase a student’s intelligence. “Most current U.S. standardized tests include only multiple-choice questions and provide no way for students to explain their thinking, says Swartz, of the National Center for Teaching Thinking. “So if a student answers (d) and that's correct, it still raises the question, ‘Is he