Persuasive Speech: Why SAT Exams Should Be Abolished

Introduction:

1. Like all of us did, “many high school students spend the spring semester of their junior year preparing to take the ACT or SAT.” (Streetman)

2. “Colleges often use one of these two tests to determine whether to admit the student or to determine how much scholarship money they will award the student.” (Streetman)

3. Today, I’m going to discuss why the ACT and SAT exams should no longer be used to evaluate a student’s readiness for college and why they should be abolished from all their purposes.

4. I will go into detail as to why the SAT and ACT exams are unfair and hopefully by the end of my speech, you guys will understand how useless the glorified exams really are.

Body Paragraphs:

1. Claim: So what exactly are the ACT’s

Evidence: The ACT tests, or the American College Test, is defined as “a standardized test to determine a high school graduate’s preparation for college-level work.” (foreignborn.com)

Transition: Although the exams differ from each other, and they both seem to be well throughout measures of performance, in reality they don’t represent the student’s capabilities in an effective matter.

*first visual supplement*(Goldfarb)

2. Claim: “Students who have parents with a higher income tend to perform better on the SAT and ACT exams.” (Goldfarb)

2.1. Evidence: As you can see in the chart behind me, students who have a household income more than $200,000 a year scored an average combined score of 1714. (Goldfarb)

2.2. Evidence: On the other hand, students who have a household income under $20,000 a year average a combined score of 1326. (Goldfarb)

2.2.1. Warrant: The score clearly increases as the income increase on the chart.

2.3. Evidence: “The writing section of the exam had such a large gap in score between income’s that the College Board officials have decided to drop it.” (Goldfarb)

2.3.1. Warrant: Is it really fair to judge a student’s academic ability based off their parent’s

*second visual supplement*(Streetman)

4. Claim: “The questions asked on the exams aren’t exactly fair questions to ask on a standardized test and are more opinion based.”(Streetman)

4.1. Evidence: Read the question behind me and decide for yourself if it’s a fair question to ask on a standardized test.

4.1.1. Warrant: As you can see, all the answers to the question are opinion based.

4.2. Evidence: During my research, I found one teacher who said “I teach writing and journalism, yet I found some questions were written so awkwardly — although they were grammatically correct — that I wanted to take a red pen to them and demand that they be rewritten” (Streetman)

4.2.1. Warrant: This test asks such a variety of questions, that general opinion based questions like the one behind me make the test unreliable.

4.2.2. Warrant: One question, like the one seen above, can make or break someone’s score and even push some students out of the acceptance range.

Transition: So these unfair questions not only affect the individual student, but are used for high school evaluations as