1.4 million students take the ACT/ SAT around the nation sometime during their high school career (Rose, 2024). Standardized tests in the college admissions process have been a staple in student applications for decades, with exams like the SAT and ACT designed to assess students' readiness for a college education. The SAT, first created in 1926, and the ACT, established in 1959, were originally created to provide a common measure to compare students from diverse educational backgrounds. These tests evaluate students in math, reading, English, and science, theoretically offering colleges a uniform metric to predict academic success. However, the use of standardized tests has created an ongoing debate on the fairness and benefits. Standardized …show more content…
“Teaching to the test” threatens students' ability to be innovative, curious and overall successful in their educational growth. Teaching in constrained and narrow education prioritizes short-term performance over long-term growth and disadvantages students from comprehending subject matter in college settings. Standardized testing should be eliminated from the college admissions process because it fails to provide an accurate measure of student potential. The ACT and SAT both measure college readiness and the potential for a student's success. However, in a study supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “At higher levels of achievement, there was even a negative relationship between ACT scores and college graduation” (Morrison, 2020). This can be accredited to students only having strong test taking skills but lacking skills truly needed for college success, such as resilience and time management. Furthermore, students who see strong test scores in their high school career may experience burnout and mental health issues throughout …show more content…
These tests do not account for students' growth or progress over time. Unlike GAP, testing does not accurately provide clear data of student effort and overall ability to succeed overtime, especially in a college setting. Many students possess strengths in areas that these tests do not capture, leading to an incomplete and skewed understanding of their capabilities to themselves and the admissions process. It is argued that standardized testing is essential to assigning students to merit-based aid, a type of aid based on the students academic achievements rather than their financial need. What this side fails to understand is that this disadvantages students who excel in their communities and extracurricular activities instead of the test are passed on the opportunity to receive aid. By using test scores, the students who put more into helping the communities do not receive the recognition and aid that they deserve. According to FairTest, “Both ACT, Inc. and The College Board aggressively promote the perception that winning scholarships depends on scores from their products without providing context as to how pervasive those programs
... 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.
Garcia-Pelayo2students, one can find oneself surprised when we learn that each state spends roughly “$1.7billion a year” (Ujifusa 1) on standardized testing. Money for standardized testing if being spentbefore students even set their eyes on a college application, and definitely before they start fillingout their applications. Standardized tests are expensive, and usually required too. Unless astudent knows for sure that the school they’re applying to, and getting accepted to, does notrequire standardized tests, spending those $65 dollars is almost inevitable. What most studentsconsider “back-up schools” might not need high grades, but at the very least they need thesatisfaction of knowing that you took a test and that they have a number by
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
In recent years many schools have begun to put more emphasis on standardized test scores. Almost all college bound students now take entrance exams like the ACT or SAT. These tests supposedly indicate how "smart" a student is and how successful they would be in colle...
Today students go to school from K-12 earning their education and take a standardized test during their junior or senior years (sometimes sophomore year). The SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and other standardized test are used by colleges across the world to determine if a student is ready for college. As a result, there are some individuals that disagree with the use of standardized testi...
Standardized tests have been around for quite a while now, and are used by a large number of schools. These tests are developed by large educational companies, and because they are distributed to such a large number of schools, they’re used as a standard with which to compare students from the state in which they reside, or across the U.S. Most of these tests are fill in the bubble, multiple-choice, versus essay tests, which are more expensive for the schools to have graded. Some of the better known standardized tests are: SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test), ACT (American College Test), CAT (California Achievement Test), ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills), and TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills).
Standardized tests have been a scourge of student life in America for more than fifty years. Throughout the United States, high school students prepare for months for the day in which they have to take out their No. 2 pencils, to endure four everlasting hours of bubbling-in answers. The ACT, American College Testing, and its counterpart, the SAT, Scholastic Assessment Test, are known as the high school exit exams, in which they have become one of the largest determining factors in the college-admissions process. Both standardized tests judge a student 's performance, in which it measures how well students learned skills to meet state standards. Although standardized tests are meant to measure what one learns in high school in order to determine
His hands are shaking, his palms are sweaty, he is afraid his heart is about to beat out of his chest. The rectangular thing is placed in front of him. A bead of sweat drips from his forehead. he wipes it away. Soon after that he faints. This is all because of a simple rectangular piece of paper that has the words standardized test written on it in big, bold, black letters. These are just some of the signs of test anxiety, all so teachers, schools, and students can be compared to one another. Standardized testing is wrong and uneducational. Some would ask why this is erroneous, when the schools get money if the students do well on these tests. This is amiss because of three simple reasons. One, standardized testing does not work. Two, standardized tests only measure a small portion of why makes education meaningful. Finally three, standardized testing causes severe stress in younger students.
Who, what, when, where, why? Curiosity is always persistent in the younger years, and society should encourage this. The trouble is, the United States education system is, unknowingly, doing everything in its power to destroy students’ natural want to learn. Much to the joy of every student in the U.S., what the educational system is doing can certainly be undone. Currently, the U.S. uses standardized testing such as the SAT, the ACT, and state mandated tests like Ohio’s AIR testing to assess an individual’s knowledge. The scores received on these standardized tests can determine if the student graduates or gets in to their preferred college, or even if a teacher gets to keep their job (“Standardized Tests” 10). Not only
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
Standardized testing is a deeply flawed system. The American government continues to throw money at a program that has little or no hope of achieving the goals it set at its inception. The important message is that no test is valid for all purposes and “high stakes” decisions should not be made on the basis of a single test score. Test scores provide only a small picture of student achievement or potential (APA 2014).
“If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guarantee you that.” This quote by Michelle Obama illustrates the idea that standardized testing should not have such a large influence on education in America. However, a majority of people are under the impression that standardized tests are an accurate method to measure a person's intellectual ability. I believe that standardized tests have developed into a very critical part of the American education system; that is hindering the growth of students and teachers instead of providing a tool that can accurately measure knowledge.
Volkswagen is a company that’s part of the world’s largest automaker group called the “Volkswagen Group”. Recently, it was discovered that for the past several years the company had been cheating on its emission inspections on their diesel power car. The company installed a computer software in the car that reported emissions much less than what the car actually produced. It was found that these cars emitted 40 times more nitrogen oxide pollutants in the environment than what the United States regulations allow. These levels of pollutants have the potential to cause many respiratory problems and other health concerns. This case resulted in Volkswagen agreeing to pay $15.3 billion dollars to its customers and regulations. The company’s engineer
Based on the Programme for International Student Assessment’s 2012 results (PISA), the United States has ranked 30th in comparison to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) participating countries. The United States, a country that has once held the ideal for educational standards, has now ranked just slightly above other countries that are just being developed. By using high-stakes test statistics to drive America’s educational standards, classrooms are beginning to lose their meaning of helping students to learn and grow as individuals. Because of classrooms just teaching the test are beginning to lose the meaning of helping students to learn and grow as individuals, results of high stakes testing which can be affected by the minutest details, are not a reasonable way to judge overall student competency; a better alternative would be by performance based assessments. “Test developers are obliged to create a series of one-size-fits-all assessments. But, as most of us know from attempting to wear one-size-fits-all garments, sometimes one size really can’t fit all.” (Popham, James W.). High stakes tests are not a reasonable way to judge overall student competency because educators can not expect to have accurate and precise results in just one sitting for 12 years of learning. Although tests pose an important role in education, they should not be given such high stakes of determining if a student should be rejected from a college “based solely on the fact that their score wasn’t high enough” (Stake, Robert.).
For many years, school systems and parents all over America have been asking- does high school testing measure a student’s knowledge fairly, accurately, and do they benefit the student. The tests do not accurately measure a student’s true academic ability. Furthermore, testing does not always fairly measure a student’s knowledge. High-stakes testing only adds stress to a student’s life. Studies have proven that testing is not beneficial to a student’s educational growth. Testing in high school is affected by different factors; therefore results can be unreliable and not beneficial to the growth of students.