The Interview Of Nicholas Lemann Essay

Recently, I had taken the time to interview Budan. His full name is Mr. Giovanni Budan. He is 27 years old. He’s an Italian – American man who is happily married for 13 years and is living with his wife in Almaden Valley in San Jose California. He’s pursuing a degree in Marriage and Family Therapist. His major approach was to study Behavioral Science. He was employed in big organizations like Apple and Google. Currently, he was working as a Chef. He belonged to the joint family. His family consists of his Parents and three Siblings out of which there were two sisters and one brother. His maternal grandparents lived near his home since his childhood. There were two aunts and five cousins from the maternal side but on the parental side there was the only grandmother. He was very close to his maternal side family.

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.

Einstein once said, “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Likewise, if a poor test-taker is judged by their SAT score, they could be forced to attend an inadequate institute of higher education. For decades, the SAT has been “the test” that makes or breaks a student's chances of getting into their top college. Generally, the privileged populace do well, but minorities and women do not come out as strong and are therefore limited to college choice. The SAT has proven to be an unsuitable, biased method for predicting success of students in college.

Grodsky, Warren, and Felts (2008) researched the complicated relationship between testing and social inequality. They found that some supporters of testing have promoted it at least partly as an solution to rigid class structures. For an example, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was designed in part to make top colleges into places for bright young men from all backgrounds, not just the children of the elite. Though, modern critics note that standardized assessments largely reflect socioeconomic status, mainly because students from privileged backgrounds with average scores can increase their results by taking expensive private test preparation courses (Gershon,

The ACT and SAT were created to accurately measure the knowledge of our children and make sure they are prepared for college, yet often times it seems to have the opposite effect. Due to the tests, some students are deciding not to go to college just to avoid paying so much money when they do not think they can do well in college courses. Even if students do decide to go to college, they may avoid taking classes with large tests due to test phobia developed from the ACT or SAT (Paul 42). Seeing such low scores in certain subjects can lower a student’s confidence and willingness to take those classes in college. By not taking certain classes, a student is limiting what major they can complete which will lowering their career options (Paul 42). We can’t let this happen to our students! We can’t let one stupid test destroy the careers and futures of hundreds of teenagers. The long term effects of the trauma created by the ACT and SAT are detrimental to today’s students.

In 2011, Jen Wang was finishing up her freshman year at Connecticut College. As a young girl growing up in New Jersey, Jen took her first SAT when she was in the sixth grade, long before other students her age would even start to think about college. Jen said that test preparations for standardized tests, like the SAT, took up most of her free time that could have been used to do other things (Billy). The SAT’s early intent was to open doors of higher education to students without traditional credentials, but now this test is held at high esteem, the biggest indicator of college success (Mulugetta). Although standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT are used to “level the playing field” for students across the country, these tests add little

By now, everyone has come to the conclusion that SAT is a flawed system. The test is designed to determine the future of high school students. Its job is to capture a snapshot of what a student has learned over the course of their academic career. Unfortunately, this is not what happens. Instead of treating a student’s score as just a snapshot, colleges treat a student’s score as their complete academic intelligence. What the system fails to realize is that not all students are good test takers. A student could study for weeks, but when the curator says “You may begin” their mind goes blank. Furthermore, the education system has become too dependant on the SAT to calculate a student’s intelligence. The real emphasis should be on the student’s GPA, essays, extracurriculars, volunteer work, and how much they challenged themselves. Focusing on these aspects allows the college to review an applicant’s work ethic.

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.

Misinformation, false and inaccurate information, can not only affect one’s bias but future poor decisions about consequential matters. Many of today’s spread of misinformation derives not only from the reader’s interpretation of the given bias and rhetoric within the sources, but the afterward outspread of this information. In the case of standardized testing, media often portrays it as an unnecessary and overwhelming tool used to equally assess the student population in core subjects. But, the media never shines the light on those who rely on the tests to excel in their classes. In “SAT Scores Helps Colleges Make Better Decisions, Gaston Caperton of the U.S. News and Report argues that SATs indeed gives colleges administrators a fair field

“I was in trouble. The first analogies were pretty straightforward- along the lines of ‘leopard is to spotted as zebra is too striped’- but now I was in the tall weeds of nuance. Kangaroo is to marsupial as the giant squid is to- I don’t know, maybe D) cephalopod?” (Boylan). As we all know, tests vary from straightforward, to mildly difficult, to just unforgiving and torture for the mind, but this is life and whether people like it or not, everybody has to take a test in their academic career. In specific, the quote at the start of the paragraph shows the author of Save Us From the SAT, explaining to the reader her struggles when she took the SAT or Scholastic Assessment Test. But not to worry because College Board announced in late March that they will be redesigning the SAT to make it, as they say, more high school oriented. The way the SAT is being changed is by making the essay optional, taking out the odd and unusual vocabulary words and replacing them with words that people use day to day life, allowing it to be taken on a computer, and most importantly not penalizing the test taker for getting the wrong answer. This all sounds fantastic, but there is one problem and that is that the new exam will be put into use in 2016. That is my problem, why would they make people suffer and make the test only available until 2016. In my opinion, College Board should speed up the process of making the new SAT in order for other people to benefit from the changes.

Every student planning on going to college must take the SAT in order to receive scholarship money or to be accepted into most institutions of higher learning. The test was first introduced in 1926 and was adapted from a general IQ test for army recruits (“SAT History - The Evolution of the SAT”). It was used as a test to determine the intelligence of the soldiers. Now, it is a widely feared test that essentially predicts a student’s future. The scores can determine what path a student takes.

According to Zwick’s research, “Academic researchers investigate the fairness of the SAT based on how well it predicts college grades for each racial group” (321). Rather than arguing for racial bias on the SAT like Lemann, Zwick argues that such bias does not exist. Unlike Lemann, she does not believe that the SAT underestimates racial subgroup’s scores, rather, she claims “ [that] SAT scores tend to predict higher college grades than were actually attained by African-American, Latin, and American Indian students and lower grades than were actually attained by Asian American and white students” (321). Zwick explains how the SAT helps minorities get into the college of their choice, not how it hinders them. In fact, in the UC system, “the main barrier of all ethnic groups in admissions is the failure to complete college preparatory courses” (324). Now she qualifies her argument by agreeing with Lemann on the way to successfully and efficiently integrate students of all ethnicities into colleges: “improve K-12 education so that college applicants will be better prepared for the SAT” (324). By making a strong, uniform high school curriculum, all students will be equipped with the core fundamentals of learning, which will better their chances of joining the elite. Like Lemann, she desires to help the meritocratic system become a fair system for all

A cartoon entitled SAT Changes speaks widely to the reader as it does an array of other audiences. This cartoon emphasizes the stress students feel about the exam from a parent perspective. The father, adjacent with his wife, sits reading the newspaper making a ludicrous, satire filled and not easily ignored, nor forgotten comment- ‘they’re eliminating the waterboarding part of it…” These parents most likely listened to their child complain for extended periods of times about the standardized tests’ difficulty and irrelevance. Yes, the College Board attempts to change this by altering the SAT in the spring of 2016, but the opinion of the father in this cartoon speaks widely around the nation to a parental audience: the approaching alterations are not enough. He firmly believes the test will still produce difficulties hard for students to overcome. Sure, the students don’t need to “water board” anymore, but they will still be judged upon their ability to recall information in a timed setting.

Supporters of the test may state it is a good base or “key” to use and gage a student when looking to gauge their academic skill level. Swing to the other side and it’s unsurprisingly easy to find the reasons to oppose the test. Reasons include that the test prevents some students from unlocking their full academic potential due to their lack of easily available resources. Lack of these resources could be due to financial situations or a person’s ethnic background. Studies show the SAT cannot predict a student’s performance in secondary school. These studies examine and exhibit to us (the viewer) that the SAT lacks in showing a student’s true qualities and work ethic. Segregating students based on a test prevents a student from possibly unlocking their full potential. Students judged by their SAT are not the only ones missing out on potential academic success, the future of America loses the chance to further educate the next generation of potential

The SAT is a standardized test widely used for college and university admissions in the United States. It was first introduced in 1926, and its name and scoring system have changed several times throughout the years. Many students around the world that want to pursue post-secondary institutions in the US make it a point to write the SAT at least once in their high school career to better their chances of getting a higher score. This test has three parts to it – one reading, writing and one math. In order to achieve the best score that they can possibly get and be placed in the highest possible percentile, students may decide to attend SAT preparation classes starting from the early years of High/Middle School. The unfortunate reality of these extra preparation courses is that they are quite expensive, and due to this, they mostly cater towards to higher or higher-middle class families. Courses that provide extra preparation such as Ivy Global are not very affordable to many families and so students. According to many statistics and news reports, the higher the test taker’s family income, the higher their scores in the test. This has been a topic of great controversy as we have grown in the modern society