SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test. The definition of aptitude is the “natural ability to do something or to learn something.” (1) Based on the name, one can gather that the SAT is a test that does not test your knowledge but how you attain it. College Board is the company that publishes and owns the SAT. The SAT was design based on an IQ test which means is meant to test a student’s ability they were born with not abilities gained through schooling. The SAT is said to be a predictor of how well a student will do in college academically. The SAT is administered for the duration of three hours and forty-five minutes and there are three sections being tested on. The critical reading, math and writing sections each are an 800 points and the cumulative scores range from 600 to 2400 points. Over millions of students all over the world take the SAT because colleges and universities in the United States require it in their applications.
The format of the questions in the SAT are not similar to what students are used to in school. The subjects being tested might be the same as the ones taught in schools but the problems are structured differently than the form students have experienced in high school classes. When asking a current senior in high school about the format of the SAT questions the response was, “each question on the test felt like a trick question. The questions were not straight forward and all the answers seemed to be good enough to be the right answer. All the knowledge I gained from high school felt useless to the puzzle in each question.” Over the years SAT has been more and more disconnected from the work of high schools. Students have to study for school and the SAT separately. The SAT as a whole is deeply flaw...
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...alified applicants, increase the quality of the freshman class and increase diversity in the freshman class. In 2013, one-fourth of the applications received students did not submit test score which means that 4,000 of these applicants would not have applied if it weren’t for that fact Ithaca was not requiring them. For some students, test scores “conceal more than they reveal.”(us news) Like Ithaca College and American university, many of the other colleges that became optional in terms of test scores noticed the same outcomes. One is that diversity remarkably increased in terms of geography, ethnicity and socioeconomic background. Another is that test sores don’t really matter because the ones that submitted scores and the ones that didn’t have no difference in freshman GPA or in drop-out rates.
College Board finally took the step to revise the deeply flaws SAT.
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 ...
Kat Cohen, the college admissions counselor regarded earlier, once stated, “Today, there are more than 900 test-optional schools — schools that place less, or no, emphasis on test scores when evaluating college applications” (Cohen par. 15). Basically what Cohen is implying is that test-optional schools are on the rise. Valerie Strauss, a reporter for The Washington Post, stated in article that, “With almost 123,000 students at 33 widely differing institutions, the differences between submitters and non-submitters are five one-hundredths of a GPA point, and six-tenths of one percent in graduation rates. By any standard, these are trivial differences” (Strauss par. 3). What Strauss is saying is that the differences in GPA between those who choose to submit their test scores with those who choose not to is very small, which can as well be applied to their graduate
... 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.
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.
However, in March 2014, College Board announced that the SAT will be redesigned in 2016. The College Board describes this change as “expanding its outreach to low income students and shifting from testing abstract-reasoning skills to evidence based reading, writing and mathematical skills acquired in high school.” Some believe that this is a positive change in higher education. Randolf Arguelles, conversely, is not one of them. As the title of his article suggests, in “The New SAT Will Widen the Education Gap; Everyone Who Takes the Test is Measured against the Same Yardstick. That 's Not True of High School Grades," Arguelles writes that “the new SAT will widen, not narrow, the education gap in the United States.” He explains that with the old SAT, what was important was if you had a strong vocabulary, could make inferences, and apply math concepts, not whether you had excellent teachers or not throughout the years. I agree. Although the new test is being designed in hopes of reliving tension by eliminating costly test preparation and focusing on concepts that should be learned over the course of high school, that may not be the case. The key phrase in the last sentence is “should be learned.” Teaching styles and learning styles vary all throughout the world; they often clash among
Presumably, the most widely known of these measures has been the Scholastic Aptitude Test (now the SAT Reasoning Test, or SAT). Developed by the Educational Testing Service after World War II, the test in many ways was the big idea of James Bryant Conant. Adhering to democratic, classless society, Conant thought that such tests could identify the ability of individuals and ultimately help to equalize educational opportunities (Frontline, 1999). Unfortunately, many have argued that instead of fostering equality, the SATs have become an instrument to separate the social classes, and many in the testing movement were not as magnanimous as James Bryant Conant.
The SAT, which is a national standardized test, designed to test skills, accuracy and knowledge of students has always been surrounded by controversies. It was originally created to eliminate the difference between students from different social backgrounds and provide equal level field. The test was developed by a psychologist from Princeton named Dr Carl Brigham in 1926, who also had controversial views on race, that suggested Anglo-Saxons were more intelligent than Other Races. Later in which he publicly apologized for. The SAT was designed to have impact on everyone equally, but studies have suggested the opposite. Initially the test aimed to give students from small towns in the northeast of the
Thousands of students around the country and around the world will be preparing for the SAT and ACT tests while trying to maintain a high GPA. These tests will potentially have a significant impact on students' lives. Some will be taking these tests for the second or even third time to get that 1500 out of 1600 or that 33 out of 36, that they long desire. These flawed tests are not truly able to measure 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 do in college.
So, using these long multiple choice exams are what college’s consider to be a reflection of a student’s grades during their first year at college. The test maker itself explains that grade point averages during high school paint a better picture than their tests ("The ACT: Biased, Inaccurate, and Misused" 1). College’s use these standardized tests as a quick measure of ability. However, a test cannot explo...
Strauss, V. (2014, April 22). What does the SAT measure? Aptitude? Achievement? Anything?. Washington Post. Retrieved April 30, 2014, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/22/what-does-the-sat-measure-aptitude-achievement-anything/
Since elementary school, students have been sharpening their No. 2 pencils, preparing to fill in the bubbles on their standardized tests. To younger children, these tests aren’t a very big deal. But little do they know that the tests they take in elementary school are practice for the biggest test they will take in their lives. This test is the ACT, or the SAT. These tests are a huge deal. Students’ results on these tests could change their plans for the future, and that’s a lot of pressure. So are these tests really all that they are made out to be? Are they really that important enough to stress about so much? Many people have started to say that standardized tests are hurting American schools, and that they put too much pressure on students.
Almost state has gained federal funding from accumulating the test data from all of their schools (Ravitch 107). Data collected from multiple choice questions determines the intelligence of every student and their teachers. The test data is tracked throughout their lifetime in relation to their test scores, graduation dates and other statistics companies such as Amazon and Microsoft use to evaluate different groups (by age, ethnicity, etc) as a whole (Ravitch 107). Ravitch claims there are many problems with this, mainly, tests do not measure character, spirit, heart, soul, and potential (112). Not everyone is the same, and just because one may be weak in math or writing doesn’t mean they’re not smart, resourceful individuals with much to share with the world. For schools to be even seen with a slight amount more than just their test scores, they have to be in great standings with their students’ average test results. The government’s intense focus on test results hurts schools’ ability to be a well-rounded school immensely. In contrast to federal’s pinpoint focus on what students learn, educated consumers desire their kids to have a full, balanced, and rich curriculum (Ravitch 108). Schools need to be more than housing for test-takers. The Education Board may claim students’ proficiency in their testing makes them better people, prepares them for college, and ultimately, the workforce. What they are
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
In the early 1930s, James B. Conant, president of Harvard University, decided to develop a test for admissions, that was reliable way to measure student achievement without taking into consideration who the test taker was or what background they came from. According to Kevin Finneran, editor of Issues in Science & Technology, Conant believed that through administering the same test to all applicants for admission, factors such as family wealth, which private or elite academy the student may have attended, and any benefits their attendance would bring to the university would be removed from the decision making process. While his colleagues believe this would provide a real excuse for excluding those they did not particularly want entering Harvard, they were soon proved wrong as an increasing number of underprivileged students began scoring very high on tests and ultimately earning acceptance into the university.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Placement Tests: Can They Make or Break What is Up at Stake? How would you feel if you didn’t get into you’re dream school because of a 3-hour test you took? Many colleges now are looking more at a students transcript rather than just their placement test score. However, placement tests are not an appropriate measurement to get accepted into college because they hurt students that are not great test takers; they do not show a student’s full academic potential, and they are not fair and are discriminatory to certain students. First, placement tests can hurt students who are not good test takers.