Author: Snigdha Nair
Editor: Rhea Philips
Over 2.2 million students took the SAT in 2019, a 4% increase over the students who took the test in 2018. Considering the rise in test takers and the test being a requirement in top universities, the numbers can only be expected to up. The gaokao, translating to ‘high exam’ in mandarin is a Chinese standardized test which more than 9.7 million students in the country took last year. The test is spread over 2 days and is 9 hours long in total. The Suneung or the CSAT is an eight hour marathon of back to back exams in South Korea, which more than half a million students take every year.
These numbers have a plethora of underlying issues.
According to The Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “Standardized tests seem to ignore the reality that kids are at various stages in their emotional development and maturity.”
Test anxiety has typical reactions such as helplessness, fear, nervousness, anger and disappointment. On April of last year, 20 Indian students committed suicide after failing their exams. It was later known that the results had been marred and the scores were re-verified.
Many students skip meals, have irregular sleeping patterns and even depression which leads them to confide in self harming due to testing. If these tests weren’t seen as a measure of capability and intellect and weren’t given so much importance to, students would be happier and healthier.
Standardized tests cause stress and take a huge toll on the emotional health of students, so why do so many pupils chase the perfect score over their own life?
It’s because every score you get in high school is a determining factor into where you’ll go to college, your future job, socio-economic status, and much more. When you apply to a school, you are a number, compared to thousands of other numbers.
This increased pressure causes students and parents to buy their way into getting high scores. Oscar nominated actress, Felicity Huffman, pleaded guilty to paying $15,000 to have someone either take the exam for her child or to correct her child’s answers afterward. There are 2,000 cheating cases on the SAT out of the 2,000,000 students who write the test. Moreover, these tests do not measure your intelligence, but how good you are at taking the test.
The main issue with these tests is that it is not specified or even considering people of poorer families, ethnicities or financial status. It’s been proven that kids who come from rich families get comparatively higher scores than those who come from families who don’t make as much money. Richer families mean higher quality education, tutoring options, and therefore, better scores. The tests aren’t written for people with learning disabilities or autism so that can highly lower the chance of you going to a good school, no matter how smart you are.
Cram schools or hagwon in Korean, which is popular in Asian countries is a school specifically made for catching up on exams. Even though almost every family has at least one child in a cram school, some don’t make enough money to send their child there and this isn’t scrutinized.
The lack of diversity is easily the main problem of the standardized testing system and proof of why what you get on the test doesn’t define your intellectual abilities. Furthermore, the tests are specifically designed to cover the same concepts and be predictable, lowering creativity in learners.
Why shouldn’t you trust these tests to measure your intelligence?
Humans are diverse, and unique with many different characteristics and qualities. Everyone is gifted in a different area of intellect. Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence states that people are not born with all the intelligence they’ll ever have. There are different types of intelligence as listed below:
-Naturalist (understands nature)
-Spatial (visualizes the world)
-Linguistic (expresses in words and language)
-Intra-personal (understanding yourself)
-Bodily kinesthetic (coordinating mind and body)
-Musical (understanding pitch, tone, rhythm and timbre)
-Logical-mathematical (proving and using logical reasoning)
-Interpersonal (understanding others)
Standardized testings don’t test any of them. The education system is also suffering from dependency. Not only have global education rankings lowered, teachers are being monitored based on how well students do on these tests so they often teach the test instead of the material. This creates an artificial, number obsessive learning environment. ‘A group of Harvard graduates were asked why it is colder in the winter and warmer in the summer. Most of them got the question wrong. They were good test-takers but didn’t understand fundamental principles that required a deeper comprehension.’
GIS uses MAPS as a standardized testing which is directed towards improvement and growth, and personal development. However, they aren’t given the most importance to, compared to grades. Using the MAPS and depending less on standardized test results will not only improve high school experiences, and health in students and teachers but also create a positive education system and induce less pressure.
Everyone succeeds and learns differently, and we need to accept that.
References
"More Than 2.2 Million Students Took SAT, Most Ever". VOA, 2020, https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/more-than-2-2-million-students-took-sat-most-ever/5105780.html.
"The Gaokao Is China's Notoriously Tough Entrance Exam, Which Can Also Get You Into Western Universities — Check Out Its Punishing Questions". Business Insider, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/sample-questions-from-chinas-gaokao-one-of-worlds-toughest-tests-2018-6.
Suval, Lauren. "The Psychological Effects Of Too Much Testing". World Of Psychology, 2020, https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-psychological-effects-of-too-much-testing/.
"20 Indian Students Commit Suicide After Exam Results". Khaleej Times, 2020, https://www.khaleejtimes.com/international/india/20-indian-students-commit-suicide-after-exam-results.
Youtube.Com, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjVVwMGJ9S8.
Simplypsychology.Org, 2020, https://www.simplypsychology.org/multiple-intelligences.html.
Armstrong, Thomas, and Thomas Armstrong. "15 Reasons Why Standardized Tests Are Worthless | Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.". Institute4learning.Com, 2020, https://www.institute4learning.com/2013/02/28/15-reasons-why-standardized-tests-are-worthless-2/.
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