1. Jeff O’Rear<br />DiSarro<br />ENG 103<br />3 November 2010<br />Don’t Judge Me…With Standardized Test<br />There is a saying that says “don’t judge a book by its cover,” usually used in context of making judgments of people based on their looks. People also make these kind of judgments about scores on standardize test, deciding whether people are smart or dumb based on what a pencil and paper say. The purpose of these test are to give a close to legitimate evaluation of the person taking the test. Standardize test are used in many ways to reward people like with scholarships, or college admittance. However, not every test reflects truth about students. While these tests have been crafted by educated specialist and professionals, these test alone are not effective in evaluation all student’s education.<br />First, they evaluate student’s academic progress during a certain time period, usually from one standardize test to the next. When taking the SAT, it is believed that a younger student like a sophomore who takes it in the Spring will not do as well as a senior who takes it in the Fall. The reasoning here is because most seniors have more knowledge than sophomores, making them more prepared to take the SAT and get a good score. If someone takes a test like the SAT more than once, that person would be expected to improve in the latter test, thus showing that they are growing in their education and are keeping the will to keep studying and not slack off. <br />Secondly, these tests compare students with each other to see which students are more educated. Obviously, the students with higher scores should be more knowledgeable and smarter than those with lower scores. This can help places like colleges, scholarship providers, or employers see, based on test scores, if they should accept, help, or hire a person, who set standards at certain score levels to see if the person is applicable. Scores can help to see a person’s real academic level. For example, two people are being considered for a certain scholarship. One person takes standard classes, and gets straight A’s, while the other person takes more difficult Honors and AP courses, and gets mostly high Cs and low Bs, and never scored higher than a 2 on any of their AP test. Without the scores, some may think that the student taking AP and Honors classes sounds more prestigious, and it is okay for them to get Cs and Bs because they are doing much more difficult work that is graded more strictly than the person taking standard classes. However with addition of the AP scores, one may reconsider their first evaluation of the two students. It might now seem that the first student with the straight A’s is the one who works more prestigiously. Of course a scholarship will be determined by other factors as well, but with the inclusion of these test scores we can see that the AP/Honors student may not have as huge of an advantage over the regular student.<br />Third, these test are also benefits to the schools to see where their students are in their education. A test dealing with reading skills was given to students to determine their reading abilities and see if they were on track to doing well on reading sections of bigger test like the ACT, SAT, etc. It was found that many of the students who fail these exams often drop out of school later (Mucherah and Yoder 214). Seeing how students do on these tests, schools can see which students need help and how to help them stay in school. Schools may realize that more money, time, and resources need to be invested into programs to help students with core skills, especially those that will be on big test. While I believe all schools want their students to do good on tests because it’s good for the student, I also believe that schools want their students to do well on a test so they can get continued funding for academics and programs.<br />Some problems with using standardize test to evaluate test are: the test only evaluates certain subjects the student takes, scoring can be difficult because on things like essays it’s just a person or small group of people’s opinions, schools can become greedy and think only about getting good scores for funding and not give students proper care, and sometimes teachers are using the wrong incentives to teach, teaching for the test and not for applications of the subject material.<br />Thinking about tests like the ACT, PSAT, and SAT the subjects we normally see are mathematics, reading comprehension, writing, and maybe science (biology, chemistry, and physics). What about other subjects like history, social studies, fine arts classes, foreign languages, and other science (anatomy, geology, astrology)? Are these classes not as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic? Some students may get this idea, and we would then see a decline in grades and interest in these subjects; and if these subjects lose interest, job opportunities could be lost in these areas. I see two possibilities here. Either schools become almost completely focused on the test subjects and leave all other classes as electives, or a possible revision of the standardize test to include other subjects. Making revisions would involve experts, such as professors or professionals, in a subject area getting together and discussing what information would need to be on the test, and how it would be designed. As a music major, I think it would be difficult to come up with a standardized test for music, because music is not a subject you can really bubble in answers on a test to show an understanding of its concepts. In my Music Education 100 class, my professor told us about a committee she served on when she taught in Washington that made a test for her school district, and had much success with it. One of the things I was taught in high school was to try to make myself as well rounded in as many subjects as possible, and I think the best way to motivate a student to be well rounded is to let them know that they will be tested on it. <br />