Standardized Tests Essay

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Recommended: The Causes and Effects of Pressure on Students to Get Good

Suzie Kim

Standardized Tests: Are they Really Necessary?
How to deliver best education to students is a question that has been debated for decades. The definition of having a “good” education may differ for many—is it receiving a satisfactory report card? Is it being accepted into an appraised university? Or is it achieving an adequate score on a nationwide standardized exam? These exams are becoming more and more popular in various nations. Colleges in the United States are gradually increasing the emphasis of the importance of the ACT and the SAT; South Korea is continuing to pressure its students to excel on its Scholastic Aptitude Test; but Finland, on the other hand, rejects the idea of pushing these exams. Tests are used to compare students and schools to others and maintain a consistent way of measuring education levels throughout a country, but they are mainly used to roughly gauge a student’s competence. At times, a student’s future could be reliant on a single test score. This type of testing may be doing more harm than good, proving that this is not really necessary for students to be fully educated. Standardized tests, instead of promoting the achievement of an education, are in fact doing the opposite by limiting learning and deemphasizing the significance of characteristics such as individuality and creativity, ultimately having a harmful effect on students.
Standardized exams like the ACT in the United States are mandated partially to motivate students to work harder in school and to promote a better education throughout a nation, categorizing the students into various levels of competence and distinguishing the elite few. But these tests—or any heavily weighted tests that compares students—are not completely n...

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...e educators and a happy environment for students instead of spending so much time and money on standardized tests that will only worry students more. There are certainly ways to improve the system without the use of standardized exams.
It is clear that standardized tests can truly be damaging to students by limiting what they learn and how they develop into innovative and brilliant people and also by discouraging them to be passionate about learning. Finland has proven that it is possible to deliver the best education without mandating these exams and by eliminating aggressive competition. Standardized test scores may mean nothing if the students are only learning to score well instead of really learning the material and how to succeed in the future, which is only the opposite of having a successful education. Should the focus of education really be on these tests?

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