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Standardized Testing Dbq

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The use of standardized testing to measure students’ knowledge is an inaccurate reflection of their capabilities. By being forced to take a test that does not effectively show their abilities, students become overstressed, and the tests themselves do not promote true academic achievement. Rather than learning about subjects in order to gain knowledge, students simply memorize facts and formulas to get a decent test score. Standardized tests are not an appropriate measure of student performance, only benefit certain groups of students, and do not prepare students for the real world. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. This is because students go by a certain curriculum in school, but the wording on the tests …show more content…

For example, students in English class at Ledford read books such as Animal Farm, and The Crucible, in addition to many others that are written in a fairly modern style. However, on the state tests the students take, most articles on the English portion are written in an older style of English, and that makes it harder for students to understand what they are reading. Standardized tests should align with the school’s curriculum to show students’ knowledge since that is what they are learning throughout the year. Also, not all students are great test takers. Four out of ten students have test anxiety and ‘freeze’ or ‘blank out’ when they are taking their tests and end up doing poorly (Source E). Many students have good grades and are intelligent but the test anxiety takes over and they do not do well on state tests. “A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year test score improvements were temporary and caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning..." (Source B). Standardized tests measure a student’s understanding on a certain subject. For example, the ACT …show more content…

Many teachers these days are “teaching to the test” and hurting their students in the process. The students are not properly taught to retain information that will be helpful in the future. Many students are taught to memorize the information for the test and to never look back on that information until an exam, where the whole memorizing process starts again. The information is never fully learned or understood. “ students ... have very little idea how they can apply the information throughout their lives” (Source F). Many students cannot remember what they have learned up to the current week, and many researchers have found that since the information is not currently being used, it has been pushed to the back of the mind and in most cases, forgotten. Researchers have found that many students forget up to 60% of material that they learned in high school before moving to a university. The information that has been consumed by students is not being applied in real life situations. And the tests will not help students in the future with getting jobs or any real-world knowledge. “Instead of being able to explain what they can DO with the information they have learned (i.e., order food at a restaurant from language class, determine appropriate change while shopping from math class), students often only cite the technical

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