Standardized Testing Argumentative Essay

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Standardized testing is used to assess how much students have learned in schools throughout the United States. The real question is: Does standardized testing hurt or help students in terms of educational value? Many argue that these types of tests are an easier and more efficient way for the government and school boards to monitor the educational progress of schools and their students rather than trying to find a fair way for teachers to assess their students’ progress. While these tests are very useful tools for the government and school boards, the truth is students do not benefit educationally from standardized tests.
Many teachers do not cover all important information in their subjects as a result of focusing their curriculums only on material that is likely to appear in standardized tests. Consequently, students do not retain all of …show more content…

Higher order thinking requires the student to not only retain information, but also apply it to real life situations and force the student to justify his or her answer with fact and reasoning. Multiple choice questions do not require students to develop original answers but instead give them a list of possible answers to choose from. Because these multiple choice questions require only an elementary level of thinking, these tests only measure a student’s basic academic ability. Standardized tests such as the ACT can positively or negatively impact the rest of a student’s life in that they can determine what university he or she attends, what the student majors in, and what career he or she takes up in the future. Can we rely on these simplistic tests to decide our future for us? In this way, the format of standardized testing does not help students by providing an inaccurate assessment of his or her intellectual

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