Junior year is often the most stressful year of a young adult’s life. Usually, junior year is the year where you take relatively harder classes compared to your other high school years. It is the year when most students face the dreaded SAT/ACT. Controversy about the use of standardized tests exists on both sides–should it be used? Should it not? And is this standard one that should continue to be enforced? The thought of your whole future potentially relying on one standardized test can undoubtedly make a lot of people nervous. However, the only way to prove the standard of taking standardized testing wrong is by weighing both sides.
Standardized testing like the SAT/ACT can provide a scale for the student to see where they lie compared to the rest of the population. It could help a student improve the areas they need to work on more. Standardized testing can also help hold schools and teachers accountable, as the SAT/ACT is a clear measurable standard. If the school’s average SAT/ACT score is below expectations, the school must be doing something wrong. Finally, it serves as a great way for colleges to identify outliers and people who score above the rest, even though standardized testing is not necessary for college applications nowadays.
However, standardized tests have a lot of hidden challenges behind them. Standardized tests can cause unnecessary stress for the students taking them. Studies show that students spend around 5 to 20 hours each week for 3 months studying for the SAT/ACT. These types of tests also undermine the need for creativity. Academics isn’t everything–your individual voice is just as important. With standardized testing, you are only right or wrong; however, in creativity, no one is right or wrong.
There is also a whole new sector about areas and district bias. Specifically, Edison is a greatly funded district with a lot of resources allocated towards education, particularly for standardized testing preparation. On the other hand, a less fortunate district may not have the resources to teach their students effectively for the SAT/ACT, so it would be extremely unfair to test everyone on the same scale.
After looking at both sides of the coin and testing the standard of standardized testing, we can see there exists some value in it, although the concept is slowly becoming outdated. There are numerous other ways to evaluate a student, such as passion projects, where students commit to something they feel strongly about. In other words, standardizing testing is not as significant now as it was before, with different ways to demonstrate capability. Still, it shouldn’t be disregarded entirely..Changing the outdated standardized testing system into a less stressful and more personalized experience could make it a whole ton easier. This could be done by reducing the high-stakes testing pressure, so there is no requirement for a SAT/ACT score to get into a class, putting more real-world application questions, and changing the format of the test. By transforming the SAT/ACT, rather than removing it completely, a student would be less stressed, while still receiving all the benefits of taking a standardized test.
