The Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

Standardized testing has been the center of a debate in America for many years. Standardized testing wasn’t well-known until the early 20th century (Linn 34) It was made to see where students can improve in certain areas and how schools can improve teaching their students material. As the years went on, it has been brought to attention that standardized testing is not effective in today’s society. Standardized testing has caused problems like students not being able to afford test prep and therefore bending the rules to get a better score and schools giving too many tests which causes stress overload. Students, especially those in high school, are expected to be involved in many activities and to do enormous amounts of homework with little
People are strictly for or against standardized testing. It is difficult to be for standardized testing. How can someone be in favor of a form of testing that limits a student’s thought process and creates overwhelming stress and anxiety? “Prior to the creation of the College Entrance Examination Board at the start of the 20th century, colleges relied on their own testing procedures” (Linn 24). This made a school’s job harder because they had to teach according to certain standards (Linn 24). While this argument for standardized testing is understandable, it still is not enough to convince a non-believer otherwise. Teachers still take time out of their class to teach for standardized testing. Teachers giving out practice problems and tips during class is not effective because a majority of students do not put in effort in class whenever they hear the words, “standardized testing”. This puts a toll on teachers. Some teachers, especially those in high school, start not being fond of their job and become easily aggravated when preparing students for a standardized test (Robelen). Schools in general are responsible to prepare their students “correctly”, even though it has little to no effect on how well students do on these type of tests. It does not make sense why teachers should take class-time away to prepare students for a standardized test when they could be teaching
Most of these reasons are arguable and easy to pick out the flaws. The people who are for standardized testing believe these types of tests can easily “pick out the flaws” students may have academically and see what a student needs to improve on. These are what teachers are for. Teachers are for helping students who struggle in a certain area. They can see who doesn’t do well in a certain subject and spend extra time going over the problem area. There is no need for tests to be another reminder about what to improve on. One test shouldn’t determine what a student needs to improve on because some students have anxiety, especially in a test environment. Being rushed and anxious leads to getting answers wrong and therefore, does not accurately show what a student knows. It is extremely difficult to determine how intelligent someone is at a topic when a test is timed and the environment itself is very stressful. The questions and format on a standardized test is also unfamiliar for a student who has not taken those types of tests. For some odd reason, a typical standardized test format is different from other regular tests. Not being familiar with this format and questions can lead to a student getting a question wrong in a subject they excel at. They could have read a question wrong, not completely understand, or get too frustrated to actually think through. Because