The Pros And Cons Of ACT And SAT Scores

It may surprise you that ACT and SAT scores used for admission is a controversial issue. Although, many people take a high ACT or SAT score for granted, individuals oppose it on the grounds that many people are not good test takers and might not have been aware of what exactly to study to prepare for the exam without paying for an expensive class to help them study. According to school systems, what’s at stake in this issue is having a base line understanding of certain topics per student. For me, however, what is most important is that the student is looked at for more than just their test scores and school systems shouldn’t have a baseline of knowledge. People who have test anxiety and cannot perform well and are not taken into consideration
whatsoever. I’m concerned about the people who have test anxiety, bad test takers, and those who cannot afford to increase their chances. The students who think they aren’t good enough or smart enough because of one test that decides their future. There should be multiple even several options for everyone who all learn differently or don’t have the resources. The reliance on the ACT and SAT scores for admission to colleges and universities must be abolished due the to regards of students with test anxiety and the unfair advantage of wealthy students. The SAT and ACT are exams that require extensive tutoring in order to do well on them; with the abolishment of the important exams colleges and universities could replace it with the students GPA.

Students that aren’t able to pay for expensive classes to prepare for the ACT and SAT are disadvantaged.
They’re barley able to pay to take the test itself. To take ACT just once costs $46.00 without the writing section and $62.50 with the writing section. People who are more privileged are able to take the test more than once and increasing their chances on getting a better score. SAT and ACT preparation classes teach different methods for mathematics that aren’t taught in a regular in school class. Classes teach more of trial and error which takes the longest of all the math methods and having the test being timed the chances of a student completely finishing are very low. These classes are so focused on getting a good score and how you are able to do so. Due to this it is questionable on whether it’s a test of the students’ knowledge or how well they studied for the
test.
I realize it is more difficult for larger schools to be able to be able to provide help to all students the same way, but it is critical that each student is seen for more than just a single score on one test. Some people don’t have the privilege to get a tutor for the college determining test and to be more prepared for taking the exam. The ACT and SAT are supposed to test your knowledge in general, but specifically studying and preparing for the test with a tutor who already has general knowledge gives students an upper hand in doing well on the test. At the very least the tutors or ACT and SAT should have a way to receive free help.
The people who don’t believe in abolishing reliance on SAT and ACT scores in admissions are most likely the people who had gotten a good test score because of many reasons or were able to get help studying for the test.
Some insist ACT and SAT scores are necessary to have a baseline score to know if a student is capable of keeping up with the curriculum. Which is not true because an alternative to using ACT and SAT scores would be to consider the students grade point average (GPA). All schools have some type of way to calculate a GPA. GPA’s are used to calculate how a student has progressed over time as well as it is calculated at the end of the year giving the student a chance to progress and improve their grade. According to Schmitt, “there remains a large portion of unexplained variance in college student performance measures”. It is also stated that there are already changes being made for universities such as, “changing the role that standardized tests (SAT or ACT) play in the selection process. For example, the University of California has begun to use the SAT-II, an instrument more directly tied to high school curricula, for admission decisions.” These changes are necessary and are slowly going to catch on with other Universities when this change proves to be
successful.
Continuing on, in spite of their good intentions, some students that are fully capable are rejected because of their ACT or SAT score not being high enough. I agree that schools need a baseline to know how much financial aid will be given or if the student is capable is important. I believe that students should be judged on more than just one test score. Schools should be looking at the students’ progress and extra-curricular activities. The only thing these tests show is how much the student knows on that particular day instead of progress throughout the year.
High test anxiety according to Fernandez-Castillo is associated with a bias in selective attention due to the reduced capacity of attention control which means that the amount of anxiety a student has directly effects the attention they will be able to put into a task. There’s a higher chance of undergraduates having test anxiety because of their lower level education and being unprepared for a test. There is no difference between men and women on their attention function. Also, according to Fernandez-Castillio higher levels of anxiety are directly linked to lower results, selective attention, and concentration. A Sample test was done by Fernandez-Castillo, which involved 403 students with ages ranging from 18 to 46 years old. I want to focus more on the 169 (41.9%) students who were aged from 18 to 19 years old. They had participated in this study before the final exam. This exam was to test specifically state-anxiety and trait-anxiety (Spielberger, Gor- such, & Lushene, 1983). Sate-anxiety is to measure anxiety in a particular situation. This test was multiple choice and test stations were selected randomly. The results indicate , “that 61% of participants had a high or very high level of selective attention, and that 69.5% obtained high or very high scores in mental concentration.” and “(15.9%); the medium-anxiety group was comprised of subjects with scores between the 25th and 75th percentiles” lastly,” lower levels of anxiety had higher levels of selective attention and mental concentration”. Proving his previous statement that there is a higher chance of undergraduates having test anxiety to be correct.
In conclusion, the reliance on the ACT and SAT scores for admission to colleges and universities must be abolished due the to regards of students with test anxiety and the unfair advantage of wealthy students. The SAT and ACT are exams that require extensive tutoring in order to do well on them; with the abolishment of the important exams colleges and universities could replace it with the students GPA.