Why are we given standardized testing and what do they even prove? How can you tell a student’s ability from one test?

You can’t, each and every student is different, they need to be evaluated as a whole, their ability to write, read and their interaction in class should define their intelligence not just some state assigned test.

Students’ intelligence should be based on everything they do in the classroom, from class projects to simply answering questions in class. A standardized test that the state requires every student to pass has no proof of a student’s intelligence.

Take the SAT’s, pretty much every college requires students to get a certain score on this test so they can get into the college. But, the test consists of an essay (that colleges don’t even count anyway), and multiple-choice math and reading questions.

This one test doesn’t show who the student is or how smart they are and I know this for a fact. I have a 3.5 GPA and am in the National Honor Society and when I took the SAT’s (for the third time) I only got a 1450. That’s not even average, so a college may look at it and move on to the next application just because of one test.

Another thing the SAT’s don’t show is who the student is as a person. The SAT’s don’t show how well-rounded a student is, what extracurricular’s they do or how they are in school. For example the SAT’s don’t show that I’ve been playing varsity softball since my sophomore year, volunteer at OLSH CYO basketball every Saturday in the winter, am Editor-in-Chief of my school paper or that I get honors almost every term. It shows the college that I didn’t get a good enough score for them. This proves that these tests don’t show your full intelligence or even show who you are as a person.

The SAT’s shouldn’t be the deciding factor in how smart a student is. The College Board needs to realize that students are unique and different, and students need to be tested on their intelligence by looking at the students as a whole. You can’t base a person off a test, it doesn’t show who the student truly is.  If we base someones intelligence off of one test, how are we going to prove how smart they really are and who they are as a person?