What Are The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing Essay

Aristotle once said, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Students go to school to learn the core academic values but these are not the only values they should be walking away with after they graduate. Students are forced to take standardized testing each year that claim to access their knowledge in a broad range of subjects and are used by colleges to determine admissions. Some commonly known forms of the tests are the ACT, SAT, Terra Nova and PSSA. Standardized tests are an inaccurate representation of students academic ability and therefore should not be used for college admission decisions.

Standardized testing is an inexact inaccurate representation of a student’s academic ability because the testing

When studying for standardized tests, students are taught to seek the simple and quick answer. Students may then use this tactic not only when they are taking the test but in all aspects of their academic career. Because they are trained to just skip the hard parts and make an educated guess when they do not know, students begin to transfer this superficial thinking to all aspects of their school work. This shows how the tests creates incentives for superficial thinking (Harris). Standardized testing puts a tremendous amount of pressure on students and trains them to think a certain way to ensure good test scores. Students may begin to search look for the fast and easy answer when doing school work, this is harmful to their learning and leads to bad habits that may be hard to

Standardized tests prepare students for the stress, pressure, and competition of the real world that is to come in their future. The exams place pressure on students to study and comprehend the material. The exams may push students to compete with their peers and to help each other grow and do better on the tests. Although standardized testing can help students grow and be more competitive they also place a stupendous amount of pressure on students, which can lead to a severe amount of anxiety. Students have to deal with the pressure of This also places the added burden of constantly trying to do better than their peers onto students (Williams). Students are often compared with little regard to their differences (Williams). When students are forced to "perform" on these tests and do better than their fellow students it shifts the focus from actually learning the material to cramming in as much information as possible to do well on the tests. This pressure placed on the students can lead to severe anxiety and in extreme cases mental conditions. Standardized tests have become so intense that they have taken the joy out of teaching and learning for both students and teachers. This pressure affects students performance on the test, therefore the testing can not be used as a gauge of their academic