The Importance Of Individual Achievement Tests

Most standardized test do not measure emotional or mechanical intelligence, actually a lot of educators argue that standardized test do not measure comprehension or actual intelligence but rather memorization. While others may believe that standardized testing just needs a few improvements, others believe that it is impossible to have a test that measures accurately the capability of a diverse student population. Today’s schooling depends heavily on the test scores from standardized test. Standardized testing should not have so much weight put on them because they have a negative impact on effective education, students’ self-concept, and learning styles.

Amy Tan also felt that standardized tests could not accurately determine a person’s intelligence. She effectively makes her argument by using rhetorical devices such as, “I wanted to capture what language ability tests could never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts” (Tan 768). When she said that standard tests cannot determine a person's true intelligence, she was trying to say how people have different ways of thinking and different types of intelligence, and yet these standard tests only can measure a certain type of intelligence; therefore it really is kind of unfair, for lack of a better term.

Additionally, Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” There are different forms of intelligence that go beyond what our school system measures. Students are not a unit to be measured, and students cannot be assigned a numerical value to identify their intelligence. Students are diverse—they learn at different speeds, and they learn in different ways. Focusing solely on test scores is hurting our students and deviating away from building our society on success and excellence. Critics are slowly realizing the problems associated with standardized tests—they create anxiety, they are extremely biased, and they do not measure the ability to think deeply.

The definition of success and routes to success may be different, but it is undeniable that all people want to succeed in their lives. According to Malcolm Gladwell, success is seen as an achievement coming from hidden opportunities, effort, diverse backgrounds, or cultural legacy, in life. However, I believe education is one of the factors that contribute the achievement of individuals. There are flaws or inequalities in the United States’ education system, and one of these is the use of standardized test which is the issue that comes in between the individual and their successes. In order to increase the chance of success for an individual, standardized testing should be revoked from education because it does not measure the creativity and knowledge of students which play important roles for one to succeed.

Albert Einstein once stated, “not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.” High-stakes testing attempts to determine the knowledge a person has obtained throughout grades K-12. These standardized tests are being used to judge a person’s ability to graduate from high school and also judge if a child has enough knowledge to proceed to the next grade level. Throughout this paper, I will be discussing how these tests do not accurately portray one’s intelligence, how they have increased drop out rates, and also show the damaging psychological affects they have had.

Valid – The test must be shown to measure what it is intended to measure. Unbiased – The test should not place students at a disadvantage because of gender, ethnicity, language, or disability.” Yet, all three requirements for a test to be viable do not apply to standardized testing. Results produced are not consistent, as the day to day lives of students are constantly changing; Issues in the students’ lives may affect their thoughts, emotions, and health that would affect the results of their tests, providing a variety of test scores for one person alone. The validity of the test is also in question as it does not account for differences in students’ backgrounds and personal life so test scores do not accurately measure student’s abilities, but rather, it measures their ability to memorize information and test taking skills. Standardized testing holds a very large amount of bias, as the students of different ethnicities, cultures, and languages, have to confront many biased questions that are present in standardized tests. Therefore, standardized testing, according to Zucker’s analysis of an effective test, should not be used as an effective measure for testing students’ intelligence as it breaks the three requirements that make

On average, graduating high school students will have taken around 112 standardized tests between preschool and their senior year in high school according to a 2015 study by the council of the Great City Schools (Ayers). Students all over the U.S. are dealing with the increasing amount of standardized tests being given to them, and not reaping any of the benefits they claim to offer. Test related stress, misinterpretation of intelligence and decreased classroom hours are only a few of the many issues that arise with standardized testing. Unfortunately, standardized testing does not give a clear indication of a students improvement or lack there of, and should not be used in schools to measure

Standardized tests set a standard for all students to be at the same level of intelligence and comprehension, whether it be Keystone exams, Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT), or the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, America is obsessed with having their students reach a certain score or better. With the addition of high school exit exams, are we taking standardized testing too far? The argument that the Washington Post gives in one of its articles uses arguments such as the facts that come from these tests and what should be required of graduating high school.

The impact of the army testing on education is especially important. The perceived success of the army programme was used to present intelligence as the most important measure of human ability, which could be used successfully to categorise pupils and predict their future performance in school. In the 1920s, Yerkes and Terman created the ‘National Intelligence Tests’ aimed at primary schoolchildren, arguing that ‘the limits of a child’s educability can be fairly accurately predicted by means of mental tests given in the first school year’ (cited in Murdoch, 2007, p. 93). Similarly, intelligence testing became the basis of college recruitment.

Growing up, I never really had a problem with tests. I didn’t necessarily enjoy taking them, however I—thankfully-- never got too apprehensive. I looked at them as a way to determine my intelligence, and would gladly share my scores—both good and bad—with my peers. Looking back on my perception of tests, I find that my point of view was ignorant to the fact that test scores—whether they are standardized or not—do not determine a person’s intellect.

Achievement tests are used to, “….attempt to assess a person’s level of knowledge in skill in a particular domain” (Hogan, 2003, pg. 6). There are many types of achievement tests that can be taken whether it is for school in order to test ones abilities in math, reading and grammar, or a test geared to test an individual’s knowledge in his or her profession that will allow them to gain a licenser in the field the individual works in. State jobs also may require individuals to take achievement tests in order to acquire entry level jobs and promotional positions.

Standardized testing does not show the intelligence of anyone who may take it. I have asked all of my teacher about these test and most to all say the have no effect really. Most of these test is to test the logic that or teachers have given us. If our teachers can't understand half the questions on there, what in their right minds makes them think we can score high and the people teaching us struggle with the test. “Gives parents information on how their child is performing compared to students locally, provincially, and nationally, as well as how their child’s school as a whole compares to others.” in all reality this does not mean if the child is not trying or nothing this is just a way to make asumptions

Getting a good grade on standardized tests doesn’t mean a student is smart. It has been a common misconception that standardized tests show the comprehending ability of students in certain grade level. Accordingly through different times different researchers have come up with tests that they some how believe is better than the former model. But current studies have shown a different approach as to what standardized tests really measure. We have come to know that these tests, rather than promoting student’s abilities they are tools for measuring students for college acceptance, evaluate schools, and is not a platform for celebrating different characters.

In society, children are taught with the purpose to be successful on standardized tests. However, a score may not be able to decide a person’s intelligence skills. “Researchers have found a statistically significant correlation between high scores on a range of standardized tests and a shallow approach to learning.” (Kohn, 2003, para. 15). If we can accept the stated research, then we must realize how risky it is for colleges to put such attention on high-pressure college entrance tests. A person who has anxiety about test-taking may do horribly on the SATs, ACTs, and graduate entrance exams, but yet these scores will

The early designers of intelligence tests focused only on cognitive abilities such as memory and problem-solving. For example, Binet equated intelligence with the abilities of logic and language. In fact, in the first half of the 20th century, IQ tests were considered adequate measures of intelligence. Society linked IQ scores to an individual’s potential for success in life (Wechsler, 1958). Current research has moved away from IQ scores as the only measure of intelligence. As early as 1920, Thorndike hypothesized that true intelligence was composed of not only an academic component, but also of emotional and social components. Social intelligence, wrote Thorndike, is “the ability to understand and manage men and women, boys and girls – to act wisely in human relations” (p. 228). It is an ability that “shows itself abundantly in the nursery, on the playground, in barracks and factories and salesrooms, but it eludes the formal standardized conditions of the testing laboratory” (p. 231). In 1967, Guilford presented a view of intelligence as a multifaceted construct composed of one hundred and twenty different types of intelligence. Shanley, Walker and Foley (1971) held that social intelligence was distinct from academic intelligence, but they