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Daniel Shin
Mr. Olson
English 100-008
27 April 2016
The Flaws of Standardized Testing
Thesis: Standardized testing is not an adequate measure of a student’s knowledge or academic
abilities.
I. First of all, not all schools are well equipped to prepare their students for the SATs.
a. Tests require studying beforehand and some students have a hard time
studying.
b. Some schools don’t encourage regular study habits as well as other schools
do.
c. Some schools provide preparation courses for the SATs, while others do not.
II. Next, tests can cause anxiety to students.
a. Some students may become so worried about a test that it actually prevent
them from doing well.
b. The amount of material that is required of each student should be limited and
broken into multiple sessions.
III. Lastly, the amount of time that the test takes up is unfair.
a. Some students are not able to sit still for a consecutive five hours.
b. The test should be split in to more than one testing session.
c. A student may put less effort in the test during the last one or two hours.
Shin 2
Daniel Shin
Mr. Olson
English 100-008
27 April 2016
The Flaws of Standardized Testing
For years, standardized testing, such as the SATs, have been used to determine the level
of knowledge that a student holds before he or she enters the academic level of college. A
standardized test can decide whether or not a student is going to college. Standardized tests such
as the SATs take up around 5 hours and are required for most colleges and universities.
Standardized testing is not an adequate measure of a student’s knowledge or academic abilities.
First of all, not all schools are well equipped to prepare their students for the SATs. Tests
can require a lot of studying and if a student has not been taught proper study habits, he or she
may not be able to do well on their test. Some schools do not encourage regular study habits as
well as other schools do which is unfair to each student. Also, not all schools provide a SAT
preparation course. The schools that provide this course will most likely have students with
higher SAT scores. It is unfair to students that do not have the same preparations that other
schools provide.
Next, tests can cause anxiety to students. It is common for students to become consumed
by the fear of an upcoming test. With a test as large as the SAT, the amount of anxiety may
increase which makes it nearly impossible for a student to focus and to do well. The SATs can
cause unneeded anxiety because students already have other school work to focus on as well as
the SAT’s. The amount of material that is required for a student know while taking the test
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should be limited. The department of education could break the test into multiple sessions so that
the stress is lessened for each student.
Lastly, the amount of time that the test takes up is unfair. Some students are not able to sit
still for a consecutive five hours. The quality of a students work may decrease towards the end of
the five hours because they may feel anxious to get the test over with. Some students will lose
concentration during that long period of time that they are sitting there. As mentioned earlier, the
test should be split into more than one session so that the long amount of time that it takes does
not affect the test scores of each student. Another way in which time is unfair, is that some
students need more time on each section. Each section should be separate tests in which a student
has as much time as they need. Some students may be able to think of everything quickly and do
great, whereas, other students need to take a long period of time but they still do a great job. If a
student that needs a long period of time for one section of the test is feeling rushed they may just
guess answers in the hopes that they will still get some of the right.
Over all standardized testing needs to be adjusted in order to make it fair for all students.
There are many ways in which the department of education could fix this, such as breaking into
to a series of smaller tests so that a student can focus on one section at a time. As it stands right
now, standardized testing has many flaws which keep it from working the way that it was meant
to.
