I am wondering now that you are seniors what is your take on Standardized tests. Tests such as SAT's and CAPT help some students get into better colleges, qualify for scholarships, and assess your knowledge equally against other students your age. Others would argue that they are unfair and put undo stress on students. Which do you think it true?
Would standardized tests be better if they were subject specific (meaning after taking US History for a year all students would be expected to take and pass a test on US History). The state of CT is considering making this the new graduation requirement. What are your thoughts?
As part of my "Summer of doing things for me" I have decided to review my readings. As you can see below I am part of the summer reading challenge. The first book that I read was a classic book by Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper. I would have to say that this was one of the best books by Picoult that I have read. I really do enjoy her style of writing, where she writes from multiple character's perspectives, but she did an extraordinary job in this novel. Her character work was outstanding. I particularly enjoyed her character work with the older brother Jessie. She made him such an interesting character and a great addition to the main story line. I think I connected to this because I see everyday how student react to the various situations in their life. I also loved the ending. I of course won't give that away here, but it was a classic twist Picoult ending.
24 comments:
I think that the SAT is a test that some kids haven't even learned all of the material on the test. It depends when they take it and how well they are at taking a long test. I like the idea of taking a test right after the course because you still have the information fresh in your mind. While the SAT has information from almost all of the years in high school.
I do not have a problem with standardized testing, but I do not find it that useful. I think that your grades in high school tell much more about you as a student than the SATs or CAPT. I don't believe that the SATs give an accurate depiction of your intelligence and who you are as a student. I do find it an added stress to our already packed school schedules. But then again, if standardized testing has been used for such a long time and has been successful in college decisions, then why change it?
I do think that subject specific tests would be useful and a good idea. I don't understand how so many students can take the SATs while they all haven't taken the same classes. If you are tested on a specific class that you have taken, then you are being tested on what you have learned in that class.
i believe that standardized tests are unhelpful. Someone with all A's and makes honor every quarter, could do really bad on CAPT and SATs and that could jeprodize her chances for college. But the grades that truely tell wether a student is able to handle college goes un-noticed. standardized tests i feel aren't good, some kids are bad at those tests but are really good in classes.
and i feel that standardized tests should definately be specific subjects like US history because you could actually study and do better because you have some background knowledge on the subject. Who remembers the things they did back in freshman year?? they should test on the things learned the year you take the test.
I feel that taking the SAT's are not only difficult to take and understand but i feel that they dont help in boosing grades or helping people get into college. I felt that when i took the SAT's not only the first time but the second time as well tht i wasn't prepared for it and i had no idea what most of the things they were taking about it on. It may help some people get into a good college, but for me i felt tht it was a waste of time and money becasue i didn't do very good on them and i was still able to fet into college whether they were bad or not.
I think that testing such as the SAT is not a measure of what you are capable of.i think that a better judgment of you is your school records, like GPA attendance records and behavior. alot of the tests like capt or the sats are over peoples head or we have not even learned. so if a test was specific to a subject it would be a better judgment of what knowledge a student retained over the course of a year.
I think it is better to make it a graduation requirement because it would motivate every student to do better in school in general. I also agree with standardized tests because the students who do well in school and put forth effort should have no problem with them. I can see how some people would see that it does not help students. However, I still believe that it motivates students to do better in school and learn the material well. For example, I support having CAPT be a graduation requirement in Connecticut because it is rather simple if you try hard in school.
i personally think that standardized are dumb. I hate them because you dont know what to study and you get all stressed out. When i had to take my SAT's i was so scared i barely got any sleep th night before ,so then i was tired and i couldnt concentrate on the test. So i think they are a waste of time becuase colleges can tell what kind of student you are just by looking at your high school grades.
-Nisha
I think the SATs are ridiculous, i mean yes, it shows how smart you are, i know that. But i mean for people like me, i look at it like a mid-term or final, its just another way to bring your grade down. thats why im trying to get all my classes above a a-, because i know if i have to take an exam im going to come close to failing and my grade will drop like a rock. and thats basiclly what the SATs did for me. its like my grades show that im smart, but then i take SATs and colleges look at it thinking im less intelligent. And about the US history test people are going to have to take, i think that's totally not cool. every year there always adding something else to make everything harder. My CAPT year was the year they raised the writing score to pass from a 3 to a 4! I was so upset about that. they keep making everything one step harder for everything. i mean its good that your pushing the students but if your gonna make something difficult, do it from the beginning. don't just randomly make it harder cause you think it should be harder.
I can see how standardize testing can be a good thing. I understand what Courtney is saying above but class grades really aren’t totally fair for colleges to look at either. The fact of the matter is a class at one school can be the same as another school on paper but a teacher may be easier and have a curve system that makes it look like the students do better than they really do. Me and my sister are in the exact same math class with different teachers, we have very similar test scores and identical standardize test math scores but she has a high grade and I have a low grade. Many times I help her on homework and yet she has a higher grade than me? Although on paper our classes are exactly the same her teacher checks homework while mine grades homework. Therefore, my homework grade in a C while hers is and A. Colleges will think she is better at math than me but they have no way of telling that my teacher is harder than hers.
I think that standardized tests are unhelpful because there are many students who have bad test anxiety, making them do horribly on tests even if they knew the material. Tests such as the SAT or even CAPT tests only add to stress because there is alot that depends on them. If you do badly on the SAT, you may not get into the school that you want even if you are a good student. Also, those tests are only held on one day and there are many things that could have gone wrong for the student on that day that would affect their ability to do their best. Then their score would not accurately reflect their skill level.
i think standardized tests help and hurt students. Both sides are true, it helps students get into better colleges and qualifiy for scholarships, but it also stresses the students taking it think it's so hard. I took the SATs recently and I thought it wasn't anything I haven't remembered in at least sophmore geometry.
Making subject specific tests is not a good idea because most of the time, trying to remember what happened in the beginning of the year is like askign what you had for breakfast last week. There's a lot of other things going on besides that one subject. Even though we're expected to remember everything, we don't because we can't. Bottom line: subject specific tests aren't a good idea.
Responding to Matt’s comment, I am in agreement that many test’s lower grades and that it cam make you look bad. Personally, I am a very bad test taker and test’s/quizzes tend to lower my grade despite hours of homework and effort at my part. At the same time, I don’t think it is good to look at the midterm and final as “another way to bring you grade down”. While I HATE them I think you have to think positive if you want to succeed. The cognitive approach is psychology would be to change your thinking which would result in higher grades. If you tell yourself you will do well you will, granted you studied.
I dont believe that these test are unnecessary. Its important to see where students fall compaired to others. When trying to get into colleges its going to be stressful, if you cant hadle it then you probably wont do to well in life because stress is all around. Once we get into the working world there are going to be stresses everywhere that we need to be able to deal with.
i feel that the SAT's and the CAPT is a waste of time and unneeded stress for students. the SAT's test you onthing that you have learned years ago and also things that you havent learned. not all student are able to take test the same ways and to have one test determine the college you go to isnt right. you have to cram in everything you have learned in years of schooling in one test that is also timed. it is unnecissary stress added to student that already have enough stress.
i think standardized tests are sometimes unfair. I think your grades and potential in school show more about how good of a student you are rather then a test. its also unfair because we all have to take the test at the same time,though you might not have taken a class that covers the information on the test yet, not giving you the chance to show what you learned.
i dont think that standardized tests give an accurate view on people's intelegence. One reason is some people dont work well under pressure and when they have to sit and take a long test, that thier future depends on, it gets the best of them and they crack under pressure, leaving them with a bed score. Another reason why i dont elieve that standardized tests give an accurate view of students is they are so ong and the SAT's are only one day. What happens if your sick that day, your not going to be able to do you best, causing you to get a bad grade. This happened to me with two of the Capt exams. They were both taken on the same day and i was sick or was having a bad day, so i ended up failing and having to redo both of them. If this happened on the SAT's i would have been in much bigger trouble.
I believe that the SATs are a good way to measure a students "intelligence", if a student has the ability and the chance to take higher lever classes to take college/honor classes then they deserve to do well on these tests,as most do.
Also even though some students didn't learn all the material on the test, all have a cheet sheet in their had called a Graphic Calculator. If you know how to use the device properly, you can get any answer even if you dont know how you got the solution.
SAT's are important to get into a good college but they can be very hard and some people can get distracted easily. I for example during the whole thing thought about should i get either mcdonalds or subway for lunch. I didn't take the SAT's seriously because Tunxis Community College doesn't look at them.
I hated the SAT's and i am so thankful they are over for good. I do think it is good though on assessing what you know because it hits on all the subjects. I have always thought that i dont know why our 4 years was not enough and why they couldnt evaluate on what we have accomplished in highschool.
I think that SAT testing is unnecessary. Yeah the SAT's determine how much you know and what kind of level of education your on, but the kinds of questions on the SAT's are not even learned in school. People who have good grades mess up on the SAT's all the time and they don’t get into colleges because of them. That really sucks because a students GPA should be looked at more and the SAT's should be just an extra, if that.
I think standard tests are great they may give some peole stress becase you cant realy study for them but they are just gradeing us on our inherent knolege anyway. I almost always do really well on standard tests and that could be why i like them more than other people.
TESTS SUX!!! I am going to tell you and any other teacher there is out there i can not take a test to save my life without some kind of worksheet to help along with that test. I feel that teachers should not even give test because everyone has different strengths and weaknesses
I think that Standardized Tests such as the SAT's are good for what they are meant to do... They are made in order to try and find out which students either by taking harder classes or studying harder or extra curricular work know more in which fields... It's a ranking to see how much you have learned in which areas by a certain time much like an IQ test. So, i think that theres nothing wrong with standardized tests theyre just really boring to take and when kids do bad on them then its a shame but students should learn how to do standardized testing...
Standardized testing is what shows the different level of knowledge between peers. I also think that SAT's dont give an acurate score of the students knowledge either. but if thier were to be standardized test for liek history all year I think that it wouldnt be too bad.
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