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Hailey Vaughn

Professor Hunter

English Composition 1201

07 February 2019

Should Standardized Tests Still Be Used?

A student by the name of Sara was very hard on herself and always had to perfect things

and achieve the best scores possible. Her parents took her to a therapist and the therapist said that

Sara was really never able to find herself.. Sara was very empty and angry but she did not know

why. Slowly she figured out what she wants and who she is with the help of therapy. “She's

having to go back and create a self” (Weissbourd 22-27). Many researchers soon took a look at

these problems being found in many teens. The researchers discovered that there is a strong link

between these types of problems and achievement pressure (Weissbourd). These achievement

pressures are put on by schools and parents to achieve success in almost anything done by

students. One of the biggest pressures in a teenager is scoring high on the ACT or SAT, so that

they can go to the best college possible. The ACT and SAT should no longer be used because it

is not giving the opportunity to many students to reach their goals, the tests are doing more harm

than good to students, and the tests are not even effective at testing what a student has learned

and achieved.

The ACT and SAT are tests that are supposed to test your knowledge gained over your

twelve years of schooling. According to a book about the ACT, the test measures achievements

students have made throughout the years of schooling. The ACT is very important for your

college and career success. It is not an IQ test, but an achievement test. The questions also
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measure your knowledge and skill. The ACT is an effective test to evaluate a students career and

college readiness (The Official ACT Prep Guide 5). The ACT is around three to four hours long

and asks questions in english, math, reading, science, and writing (optional). The test is built to

test how prepared a student is for college or the world beyond high school. The scores range

from a one to a thirty-six. This test is what most high school students send to the colleges of their

choice, and the college can look at the score and decide from just that one number if the students

should be accepted or not.

Fig. 1 What state is the ACT more popular than the SAT is. (“ACT Scores Reveal High

School Students are Not Ready for College”)

Today the SAT is not as

popular as the ACT and not as many

students choose take it now. The SAT

is also three to four hours long and

asks questions about math and

evidence-based reading and writing.

The SAT is a little more complicated

than the ACT. Instead of just one

score in a small range of numbers,

you get a score in the range of four hundred to one thousand and six hundred. Also unlike the

ACT the sections are almost the same when talking about the topics. There are usually two math

sections and the rest are using your reading and writing skills. Just like the ACT, the SAT is also

a test to see how ready a student is for college and the world beyond high school. Most students

do not chose to send their SAT score to colleges because usually their ACT scores are better and

are easier to understand. The ACT and SAT are a lot alike and many colleges find the tests a
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very crucial part to the admissions process. There are some problems with these tests though and

many students and parents are just starting to figure them out.

The SAT and ACT are not giving students the opportunity to reach the goals that they

have made for themselves. Lets say a student named Josh was from a low income family and a

first generation college student in his family. This is the first time going through the college

admissions process and he has almost no guidance. Josh is a good student with mostly A’s. He

goes home every night and studies for the upcoming ACT. Finally the day has come and he has

taken the ACT. Josh gets his score back, but there is one problem. His score is way too low to go

to any college near him and he has to stay close to home to take care of his little brother Ryan.

Josh ends up giving up on his dream to own his own business one day and does not go to college.

Believe it or not, this is happening to way too many students today. These students feel like they

have no other choice but to give up on everything they have ever wanted. The cycle keeps going

for these students and they start to just give up hope on everything. This is one reason why the

ACT and SAT are doing no good and should not be used anymore. Think of how the world could

change and families could change if these students got chances to go to college and a chance at a

new life. This would solve so many of the problems in the world today like poverty, yet the

problem is people do not connect poverty and standardized testing together.

Many studies have been done to prove that ACT and SAT scores are limiting students

from their dreams. A study done by William Hiss explains why colleges should not use

standardized tests to determine a students future. In fact Hiss found that, students with overall

decent grades in high school and normal testing grades were able to succeed more in college than

students with very good testing grades, but lower grade averages. Students who chose not to

submit their scores tend to be minorities, women, disabled, or first-generation college students.
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Without submitting their tests, these students have limited colleges to choose from and may have

a difficult time even getting in (Sheffer 2). This study done shows the benefits of not having the

admissions process involving an ACT or SAT score. These students are missing out on so many

opportunities, but it is not their fault that they are. They almost have no control over what

colleges will accept them and which ones will decline. Now some people might say they could

have worked harder in school or they could have studied more. The problem with saying that is

maybe the students did try hard in school, maybe they just did not have the support at home or

the best teachers. Maybe some of the students did study hard for the ACT or SAT, but they have

bad anxiety and forgot everything when they were taking the test. There are so many things that

can happen to a student that no one thinks about or even knows about when looking at the

student.

Schools have started to drop the ACT and SAT scores from their admissions process.

Catherine Thorbecke, a reporter and writer for ABC News, states that colleges are starting to

drop the ACT and SAT from their requirements. The University of Chicago was one of the first

to drop the requirements and other schools are following. The vice president of the University of

Chicago says that they made the standardized tests optional because they wanted to give low

income students a chance and any others who did decent in high school, but never could prove it

on the tests. The applicants that the school is getting now are more diverse than ever before

(Thorbecke 1). This report from the University of Chicago shows that schools are starting to

realize the potential students have, and the problems with the ACT and SAT. As you can see the

vice president talks about how he wanted to give the students who struggled with the

standardized tests a chance. The school is now more diverse than ever and students are getting

the chance they have always wanted. Although schools are starting to let the requirements of
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submitting an ACT or SAT go, there are still many problems in the life of a student involving

these standardized tests.

The ACT and SAT are doing more harm than good for students. Think about Sara who

was mentioned at the beginning of the paper. Remember how she suffered because of all the

pressure put on her by her parents and teachers. It may not seem like it but students like Sara are

very common and most likely you may know one. These students can be labeled as perfectionists

because well, they simply are. These students just do not know any better. Sara was told she had

to go back and recreate herself. Students just like Sara feel too much pressure and to cope with

that pressure they perform as they are expected to. Lots of this stress comes from school related

problems or stressors. Like a math test or a speech, but they mainly come from standardized

tests. Without the ACT and SAT these students would not feel as much pressure is put on them

and they would focus more on their grades at school or ways to help cope with their stress.

Standardized tests are unfair to many students. Lower scores can be a result of a students

home life or a mental issue they may have. Many students may not have the same opportunity as

other students. They may go to poorly-funded schools where their teachers may not have the best

resources to teach their students as many other teachers can. These students usually are from low

income households (Fairtest 1). There are so many reasons a student may perform poorly on tests

and most of the reasons are not the students fault. That is why without standardized tests,

students would get more chances and maybe even go to a good college.

Students already have so much on their mind in high schools like sports, friends, and

other things going on in their lives. Lots of students would benefit from not having to worry

about the scores received on the ACT and SAT. These students could focus on other things and

they would not need to worry about what score they need to attend to a certain college. Instead
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most colleges would look at the gpa just like the University of Chicago does now. So the

students could also work on getting their gpa up. A gpa is also much easier to get up than a

testing score for the ACT or SAT. If a student simply does his homework and studies for an hour

a night, they can get their gpa up and that will help them when it comes time to apply to college.

The ACT and SAT have already caused so much stress in a students life, but what if the ACT

and SAT do not even show what has been learned by students over the years?

It is true, the SAT and ACT are not even effective at testing what a student has learned

and achieved. Judy Woodruff, a reporter for PBS Newshour, is joined by William Hiss, a former

dean at a college, to gather information on why colleges are dropping the requirements of the

ACT and SAT. A study done shows that the score someone receives on a standardized test does

not predict that person's success in the future. William Hiss conducted the study to try and find if

there was any correlation between a students score on a standardized test and how that student

performed in college. Hiss also found that if a student receives good grades in high school, then

they are most likely to succeed in college also (Thorbecke 1). Hiss’s study found that there is no

correlation with the standardized test grades and performance in college. His study even found

that students who had good grades but bad test scores, did better in college than those with good

test scores and bad grades did. This study is a major reason why the ACT and SAT should be cut

out of the admissions process.

Many professors are starting to understand that the SAT and ACT are not good indicators

of a college students success. A professor from Penn State says that there has been research done

by some testing manufactures and they even found high school grades to be a more sufficient

prediction of how students will do in life after high school. So why don’t we use these instead of

standardized tests? That is because so many schools and teachers still believe that the ACT and
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SAT are good predictors at success. They have simply not seen the research done by many

people. There are so many things a test cannot simply test. Say a student named Rachel is

thinking about going into business school. She has taking the ACT and did not get the best score,

but it is not too bad. This test is just testing what she remembered at the moment when she was

taking the test. Also the test shows nothing about what she knows about business. If the ACT and

SAT were not used for college admission, instead they could look at gpa and extracurriculars.

Then depending on if you get into the college or not, you could take a test depending on your

major and that test would determine if you got into your major or not.

Hiss’s study is most likely the most widely used and popular study done on the topic of

cutting out the standardized tests. His study is just one of many though. Nathan Kuncel and Paul

Sackett wrote that standardized tests give an incorrect measure on how students are to perform

after high school, but higher scores may actually help students outside of high school. The

research done by Kuncel and Sackett show that the students who perform better on the tests

usually take on harder majors than those who do not. Some students who received a higher score

on the ACT or SAT actually received a higher income than those who did not do as well. The

standardized tests are a measure of skills a certain student has gained over many years (Kuncel

3). The reason these students are taking on bigger and better majors is because they had the

scores to get into these majors. Maybe one student and another were almost equally as smart, but

one has better testing skills than the other. If that students gets a better score, than he most likely

will be the one to get into that major and the other student will be stuck reconsidering what to do

with his life. If the ACT and SAT where not in the process of determining students, then maybe

both of the students get in or the student who has the better gpa and has been active in school and

out. Without these standardized tests colleges will have a bigger pool of students to choose from.
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Also they will be giving very smart students a chance to prove themselves the way a three hour

test cannot.

There are so many things people do not think about when it comes the the ACT and SAT

tests and one of those things is money. Parents spend so much money on each of their children to

take the ACT and for study books that may not even end up helping. Mark Walsh says that the

ACT and SAT should not be used and it is not fair to many students. Walsh uses a video as

reference throughout the whole article. The video talks about the struggle students and parents go

through while preparing and taking the ACT and SAT. Parents pay boat loads of money just to

help their kid try and do better on the tests. Most times this does not even work for the students

and the parents end up wasting their money (Walsh 1). These tests almost trick parents to spend

fifty dollars or even more on a book that costs maybe ten dollars or less on amazon. The

companies are almost scamming us into spending extra money to go to college. Think of how

much money it takes to make one of the ACT tests. Around a dollar or two right? Then why are

we paying almost a hundred dollars each time we take it? Even though these tests are no good

anymore, some people believe that they should still be used.

Another study was done and it shows how a higher household income results in higher

scores. “There is a significant correlation between family income and test scores on the SAT,

with average scores increasing with every $20,000 in additional family income” (Layton 1). This

study shows that higher household income students are scoring better on standardized tests. This

is likely because these students have better studying material and time. If you are a student who

is living with a struggling family you may be forced to work. Therefore, you will not have as

much time to spend studying as maybe a student in a stable family who does not need to work.

Another reason they may get better scores is because parents can pay for them to take it more
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than once. For most students the SAT will cost almost fifty dollars and the ACT will cost exactly

fifty dollars. These prices are without any study materials which are most likely needed in order

to study and practice for the test.

The editorial board at The Washington Post wrote that even though college admission

tests do not truly reflect a students true knowledge, they still should not be disregarded and they

should continue to be used. A recent study that has been done shows the correlation between

standardized test scores and student success after college, but the tests still have flaws. For

example, how the ACT and SAT are not as easy to access for all students. In fact, students that

live in a lower income or in a minority household tend to receiving a lower score on

standardized testing than privileged white students do. Instead of getting rid of the tests though,

the schools should work to improve the testing system (Board 1). If the testing system is

improved it still will never show exactly how much a student has learned throughout twelve

years of their life. The test could be improved in many ways but you can never change how

certain students test better than others, or test all the things a student has achieved over many

years in their life. It is almost impossible to test all of that and although there are ways to teach

students how to test better, they could still be taking the test and go blank or not be able to

concentrate.

Just like Sara so many other students have too much stress and pressure and do not know

how to respond. Sara was overwhelmed with something called “achievement pressure”.

Achievement pressure is where a person feels the need to always meet expectations and the

result of this pressure is to become someone who is almost lifeless, just like Sara did. Lots of this

pressure is coming from school and standardized testing. Too many schools and parents rely on

this testing and it is doing the students no good. This is why not having standardized testing
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would benefit students, but it also benefits schools and parents in so many ways. One of the ways

it would benefit is that students would have the opportunity to reach their goals. The

standardized tests are really doing more harm than good to students and they are not even

effective at testing what a student has learned and achieved. A three hour test does not evaluate

what you have learned in one hundred and five thousand, one hundred and twenty hours.
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