Standardized tests are continually wasting large amounts of students’ time by requiring them to study and take many tests over the course of about a week or so. This waste of time does not positively effect students’ performances at all. According to The Washington Post, the amount of time used by standardized testing in the 8th grade is 25.3 HOURS! That is more than one whole day! However, there are people who say that standardized tests do positively effect students’ performances just because the students do not want to get bad grades on their tests, therefore, they work hard in school.
The score of a student taking a standardized test is not reliable and there are many factors that can affect that student’s score. One factor is cheating, a lot of kids in schools cheat off of other kids. Also, many TEACHERS help students cheat by giving them answers to the test. Quote from Procon.org: “178 Atlanta public school teachers and administrators from 44 schools were found to be cheating on standardized tests according to a July 2011 state report.” Because of this, some students might get a higher score than they normally would have on the test. Another factor
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Procon.org writes: “A five-year University of Maryland study completed in 2007 found “the pressure teachers were feeling to ‘teach to the test”’ since NCLB was leading to “declines in teaching higher-order thinking, in the amount of time spent on complex assignments, and in the actual amount of high cognitive content in the curriculum.” This quote shows that the knowledge taught to students is very narrowed down. Also, students may not find subjects interesting because they do not learn the skills to study a subject in-depth. This can lead to college being very hard for students because they lack the ability to research and have an actual interest in the subject that they are
These tests can have a negative impact on students as Columbia University recently states that “Standardized testing evaluates a student’s performance on one particular day and does not take into account external factors. There are many people who simply do not perform
Standardized testing caters to one population of people and one style of learning. These tests are supposed to measure if you are on your grade level but can be extremely ineffective. I remember taking the SAT and them asking questions that I did not know how to solve and it was so long that it made me not want to take it. This creates a problem for students because they figure why take a test I know I am going to fail and that take hours to take. The success rate for that is very low. These tests cater to people that a tolerant enough to sit down for hour and comprehend the work in one particular way but everyone is not tolerant enough for it. Just like one of my old professor said everyone learns and comprehends and has tolerance for a lot of things but taking a test that is four hours long with work that you can’t comprehend because you don’t have enough time to think in that particular section is not fair to every stud...
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
General testing in today's school systems has a negative effect upon the actual learning of the students. Standardized testing narrows school curriculum, labels children as failures at a young age, and uses money that could possibly be used in a more productive manner.
Standardized Tests are not effective at measuring student achievement (“Standardized Tests Do Not” 1). They also cannot tell what your main abilities are, or what you even know. Standardized Tests are bad for the classroom because they restrict learning, force teachers to teach to the test, and they do not effectively measure students’ abilities.
As a senior in high school, I have had more than enough exposure to standardized tests. The ACT, PSAT, ITBS, and countless others have tracked my scholastic progress for the last nine years. Each test takes weeks of preparation for just a few hours of actual test taking. Yet these tests only measure basic subjects such as math, science, and English. What these tests fail to track is students’ abilities to problem solve, empathize, and be honest. Skills that are vital parts of a functioning society. Creating a test that treats the student as an individual would yield better results, and would create a better learning experience for all.
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 testing is very stressful for students and their teachers, especially for gifted and talented students. Standardized tests affect what the teachers are teaching in classrooms and what students are learning in school. After all of this stressing from the students and teachers, and the tests aren’t even a good representation of the intelligence of students. All of these issues have led to some people believing that standardized tests aren’t as helpful as we may think.
It’s an age-old question. Do standardized tests really show what students know? Some may think they are a great way to measure education and others may think that one test does not justify a child’s knowledge. What is this test exactly? A standardized test is any test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from a common bank of questions, in the same way. They are used to “judge” or “measure” the knowledge or skills that students learn in school. The problem with these standardized tests is that they measure all students on the same material, leaving out special skills the student may have. It also puts a great deal of stress on a student to know that they will be timed on these questions that
Standardized tests, we start taking them in elementary school, we progress to tougher tests in high school to help us get into college, then there are even harder tests to help us get a job, but how useful, are they? Throughout elementary, middle, and high school they prepare us for these tests, students spend countless hours. As you will see in this paper these tests prepare you from elementary through high school and beyond.
“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.
The goal of standardized testing is not to find out how well you think through problems, or if you can express your opinions, or create a presentation, the goal is to find out what you were able to memorize. The more inconsequential details you can churn out, the smarter colleges will perceive you to be. The intense effort it takes to truly perform well on these tests means that students have less and less time to focus on their actual schoolwork in the hardest years of high
Education has slowly become less about educating and more about producing students who can take standardized tests. The classroom has become less of a place about learning and more of place that is used to prepare students for tests. Conversation in the classroom is limited, discussion with other classmates in most scenarios is prohibited, and when a student enters school, they are often entering a place with more rules and restrictions than a prison. Teachers often teach to tests rather than the real world. Rather than school being a place of free thought and discussion, it becomes a place that doesn 't have students thinking, but memorizing facts so that they can regurgitate them later on a test. Education “reform” has created a factory that
by the students score on standardized tests. Kids as young as elementary through high school take these tests. There are many kids in school that struggle when it comes to taking tests, especially ones that are required for them to pass. This type of testing is very unnecessary and it is not beneficial to the students. Many students do not learn from these tests and it does
Every year, the average American student who attends public school is forced to prepare for standardized tests even though it is not necessarily beneficial to his or her education. Standardized testing has become a main focus in modern day schools across the U.S nation, causing a monumental increase in the amount of time a student prepares for a test. On an estimate, students are expected to study a staggering amount of 60 to 110 hours a year in order to get decent, meaning and average C or higher, on the standardized tests. Not only is standardized test producing a large amount of unnecessary work in order to score the apparent intelligence of the body of students, but it also comes at a high expense. “Including the cost of lost instructional time (at $6.15 per hour, equivalent to the per-student cost of adding one hour to the school day), the estimated annual testing cost per pupil ranged from $700 to more than $1,000 per pupil in several grades that participated in standardized testing”. (Strauss). Even though standardized tests are commonly known for benefitting the country as a whole, it is not improving the education in America because it is not enabling young American students to reach their full potential.