SAT Testing: Does it really measure intelligence and should it be abolished? Most colleges in the United States require high school students to take an entrance exam such as the SAT. After taking the test, the student must submit his/her score(s) to the college and they would determine if the student meets the standards for admission. However, this method isn’t the most effective way to determine eligibility for gaining entrance into the college. The score a student gets, does not measure his/her intelligence; it really measure is how well he/she is trained to take the test, therefore the SATs should be abolished. The first SATs have been introduced in 1901 as a Scholastic Achievement Test. This test was meant to measure the amount achieved by students seeking higher education. But later …show more content…
These companies have been known to possess tricks that help students raise their scores (Brownstein, Gose, and Selingo). If students can raise their scores by going to these prep courses, then how is the SAT testing intelligence? The prep course essentially tells students how to take the test and how to answer certain type to questions. Thus the best way to test intelligence is by administering an IQ test because there is no way to see what the test is going to ask.
However, there are others that believe no matter how much a person prepares for the SAT, the outcome will remain the same. The College Board, along with psychologists thinks that SAT is uncoachable. According to them, “coaching leads to improvements of only 30 points per section (qtd. in Shea).” But if coaching leads to 60 points improvements, then the test is coachable. For an example, if a student takes the test and gets a 940 and when he/she takes the prep course, he/she gets a 1000, then there is a significant improvement. Therefore the student is better prepared for the test after taking the prep
... a tedious process, but the change can have immense, positive effects for the future college student. The ACT and SAT that supposedly measure a student's learning potential through multiple-choice questions should be replaced by a test of a student's desire to learn determined through the analysis of essays, recommendation letters, and school or community involvement. This change can result in a more academically motivated freshman class. Standardized testing in its current form does not accurately measure most students' learning potential. It does not allow for diversity and creates a huge hurdle for many potential academic achievers. An adjustment to a diverse, open testing format of the ACT or SAT and a stress on the student's other academic accomplishments can accurately measure the student's desire to learn, therefore measuring the student's learning potential.
Since the release of the report by Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in December of 2010 many in the government and community are searching for ways to reform the American education system to give American students the greatest opportunity to succeed. According to the report, American students are not testing as high as other nations in the world (Duncan, 2010). There are many contributing elements that have brought America to her knees in the education system, however, the obsession with standardized testing is found to be one of the most influential downfalls.
The SAT's have sometimes been the deciding factor when determining a student's admission to a certain college, but recently colleges have stopped regarding SAT scores as the most important factor, and in some cases, colleges are now not even requiring applicants to submit their scores. This change in significance of the SAT's is due to recent controversy over the fairness of the test. According to Fair Test (2001) three hundred and eighty-eight schools do not require applicants to submit their SAT scores, and hundreds more do not place much emphasis on the scores. Because of the recent controversy and the number of schools not looking at or de-emphasizing the SAT's, the College Board, (the company in charge of designing, administering, and grading the test), has decided to make several changes to the format of the SAT's (which was just revised in 1994). These changes will take effect in the year 2005.
According to Robert Jackson in . “Retooling education: Testing and the Liberal Arts” Colleges who changed their admission by making the SAT optional have directed their aims into a more high school grade based admission. This solution is the only true measurement we have at the moment and it is a better measurement than the SAT states Robert Jackson. The writer also goes on to say scholastic aptitude should be abolished, as it has no true value or indicator of student’s ability. A more precise measurement based on four years of schoolwork is a pretty good indicator of student’s ability. It gives equal playing field for all students from their freshmen year in high school until their senior year in high school. Students have equal opportunities to perform giving them four years to accomplish good grades for college admissions. this method gives unprivileged students the opportunity to go to college who previously could not attend college because of SAT Prep cost. Also this method benefits college admissions by providing an indicator on how students will perform in college classes making it easy to admit or deny
"Former Bates College Dean of Admissions, William Hiss, said that intelligence is so complex, varied, and multifaceted that “no standardized testing system can be expected to capture it”(Westlund). Throughout the years standardized testing has changed its purpose and not for the better. In the late 1930s, the goal of taking standardized test was to award scholarships to "diamond in the rough" students (Westlund). Currently, the whole idea of taking the SAT or ACT is getting admitted into a college. Standardized test should not be a deciding factor of being admitted into a college.
These flawed tests are not truly able of measuring students how well students will perform in college as they are supposedly used to predict. A single test that students have to wake up for at six, seven in the morning on a Saturday and travel to some random location to take a difficult test should not impact the student's chance of getting into college, let alone predict how well they will
Standardized testing is a widely debated aspect of America's education system. There are many issues with the manner that we judge a child’s intelligence. After merely 10 years of schooling, the average student has endured an average of one-hundred-twelve exams. In certain situations it would be fine to argue that two sides exist to this story, yet that’s not the case here when it comes to aptitude. A grouping of questions is in no manner substantial enough to rank the caliber of any student regardless of its parameters. “These tests are dreadful” (Klodell) are the words of a 16 year old girl after she wrote about standardized tests. Should America continue to rank their students with such a dire test?
Standardized tests have been around for many years. During the 1920’s the SAT was known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (Syverson 56). According to Steven Syverson, in 1993 the test was renamed as Scholastic Assessment Tests in an effort to reflect the changing nature of the test (56). Jonathan Epstein notes that by 1994, the acronym was removed completely, keeping only the initials SAT (9). The United States Department of Education reports that the Scholastic Assessment Test [known as SAT] measures your ability rather than knowledge and is composed of three sections: writing, critical reading, and math (3). “The American College Testing Program [known as ACT] measures how you think and what you’ve learned in school, it consist of four multiple-choice
Students should not have to take a test just to enter in to college because students are more than a test score, they are people too. Why are students compared with a test score that – more often than not - does not reflect their academic ability? These tests are biased because people write the questions and, therefore, they can make the question wordy and choose which ones to omit (Pollard). These test do not measure a person’s intelligence; rather, their test taking ability. As proof, the ACT science portion of the test do not pertain to science knowledge at all; rather, it ...
Today, in the United States, standardized tests are administered every year by states to their Kindergarten-12th grade public school students. Different states place different weight on their standardized testing results where some states differ their funding based on results and annual improvement, whereas other states allow schools to simply gauge where their students are scoring relative to other schools in the state. These tests, however, are only standardized within one state. One of the few tests standardized throughout the entire country is the SAT, the Scholastic Aptitude Test, administered by College Board and required by, “More than 800 of the nation’s colleges and universities,” (Comras, 1984). This test will be the standardized test focused on in this paper. While standardized testing is that, standardized, and enables the comparison of one student to another, the meaning of the score does not equate to a test of intelligence. Therefore, while standardized testing should be applied in the education system, it needs to be more indicative of the material learned in school and should hold less weight than it currently does in the college admissions process.
Hugh Price and Stuart Kahl are among the large majority of people who do not believe one test is able to accurately measure what a child knows. Price states, “High-stakes standardized tests, like the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the SAT, fail to capture the qualities most essential for success in the corporate world, such as creativity, drive and leadership” (Price). Price claims that although these tests are able to rate children in topics such as Math, English and History, what really makes one who they are is more than book smarts, but their personality and leadership skills are also necessary. In addition to Price believing this fact, Kahl also articulates against standardized testing.
High stakes testing does not accurately determine a student’s intelligence. In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences researched the appropriate and inappropriate uses of tests. They agreed that “no single test score can be considered a definitive measure of a student’s knowledge”(http://www.allianceforchildhood.net/news/histakes_test_position_statement.htm).
Why is standardized testing part of the college admission process? Some of us might still remember taking the SAT or ACT when we were applying for college; however few of us question why we have to take such a test. Millions of dollars are spent on prep materials all so we can achieve a decent score and hope colleges will be impressed. The College Board claims a high SAT or ACT score correlates to college success which is defined as a good GPA throughout college. However if you stop and ask yourself what the SAT or ACT has to do with college success, most of us will arrive at the conclusion that these tests have almost have nothing to do with college success. Some of the questions are simply on these tests are simply ridiculous and will never
High-stakes testing is for the cookie cutter student not the unique individual student. High stakes testing was started in 1905 by French psychologist Alfred Binet. He began developing a standardized test of intelligence which was named Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. During World War I, standardized testing was standard practice, it was how U.S. servicemen jobs were divided and assigned. Years passed and the first test to come into play was the SAT, it was founded in 1926 as the Scholastic Aptitude Test by the College Board. Years passed again in 1959 and to compete against the SATs, the ACT (American College Testing) were created. The test was made up of questions that geared students to a course of study by asking about their interests. In addition to math, reading and English skills, the ACT assesses students on their knowledge of scientific facts and principles. These tests have become just geared toward college as the decades went by. Decades past and new tests came were created, in 1980 the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills (TABS), 1984 the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS), 1991 the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills
The measuring of raw intelligence with tests continues in all areas of education. One of the most famous examples is the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT. The SAT, which analyzes a student's mathematic and grammatical abilities as well as reading comprehension and vocabulary, is used by nearly every college in America to help determine whether a student is qualified to enter that institution. Because it is assumed that the SAT can predict future achievement, certain scores could automatically dictate whether a student was in or out of a prospective program. The SAT program is a wonderful tool to be used to gauge a students aptitude, but it seems that colleges are solely basing acceptance on those criteria. What is a student to think when the first hurdle he or she must jump is a required 1300 score on the SAT to enter into any particular higher institution of learning? That this is the one and only hurdle and you mind as well not even start the race because you don't have the right shoes.