To Test or Not to Test?
By: Jakub Siska 
It all started in the third grade. Like anything in life, your first impression is often carried out and remains your only impression until a life-altering experience changes it. For me, my first impression of standardized testing is my only impression and I’ll stand by that. Until of course, I get a 36 on the ACT, then I won’t care about standardized tests anymore. But that is unlikely to happen, and my teachers knew it, my parents knew it, all from when I was 8 years old.
I remember specifically being introduced to the CogAT (Cognitive Abilities Test) and thinking “how could I take a test for three hours, why is it so long?” From that point, I wasn’t feeling so confident. And when it came time to take the test, there was just too much going through my mind. I was constantly thinking of something else besides the passage I was reading or the problem I was working on, sure, I’ve improved my testing skills since then. But not by the standards that I hold myself to. Seeing my growth in school but seeing a stagnant trend in my standardized testing is a hard reality to watch, I just have 
a hard time staying focused for that long. Part of my frustration is because I’m not naturally good at taking standardized tests. And for the people who are good at these tests and don’t exactly understand where I’m coming from. “Eh, hem,” my parents just say, “oh, that’s just an excuse” or “you don’t spend enough time working on it.” Okay, well maybe the ladder is partly true, but in my defense, it’s hard to study for something that you have consistently been performing poorly at. It’s a motivational thing, why would I want to sit down and practice something that just brings me back bad memories? But either way, standardized tests are not my strong suit, and with college coming up and having to take the ACT multiple times, I feel at a disadvantage.
Although some people believe that standardized tests give an accurate representation of where people’s education is, standardized tests actually hinder college’s ability to see intelligence in a person because they don’t measure, creativity, high-order thinking, and problem-solving. Maybe it isn’t just the test, maybe it’s how the test is viewed. With how much pressure there is on students to perform well on these big standardized tests so then they are able to get into their dream colleges, it’s pretty reasonable to make the conclusion that these tests are used to find out a person’s intelligence. And that shouldn’t be true, I, for one. Perform pretty well in school, I’m not a straight-A student but I’m not that far either. But if you saw my transcript and my ACT and SAT scores, you wouldn’t think its the same person, my tests just aren’t that good.
People nowadays view these tests as the end all be all decisions towards what school you go to and how smart you are. A conclusion that doesn’t seem fair to those who push themselves in school and can keep up on their coursework, but when it comes to a 4-hour test, they just don’t get the results they want. The problem is, “The goal of standardized testing is not to find out how well you think through problems, or if you can express your opinions, or create a presentation, the goal is to find out what you were able to memorize” (Hudlow). Memorization is not problem-solving, it’s just knowing the answers. Sure, the argument that anyone can memorize material is somewhat true, but not everyone is able to memorize four different s
ubjects of material to use all in 4 hours. And no one should have to if a test is claiming to put a number on a person’s entire academic performance, the performance should be based on problem-solving and not memorization.
Standardized tests also aren’t a perfect science, like most things, there’s room for error and improvement. Meaning that there’s also a chance that we don’t quite understand the intended purpose of these standardized tests, Although, the common stigma is that these tests are meant to predict intelligence and what college we deserve to get into. Don Heller from the Penn State’s Center for the Study of Higher Education explains that we are seeing the test wrong, he says, “designed to predict first-year college grades — it is not validated to predict grades beyond the freshman year, graduation rates, pursuit of
a graduate degree, or for placement or advising purposes” (Heller). If this is the case, and the ACT and SAT have no correlation to intelligence, then we as a community need to redefine the usage of standardized tests and change the stigma from intelligence to placement.
Even though the common theme of standardized testing is that it gives the wrong idea to students and doesn’t accurately predict intelligence, some can argue that it does predict intelligence and even success in life after college. Two researchers from Vanderbilt University “documented that the SAT predicts life outcomes well beyond the college years, including income and occupational achievements” (Hambrick). Believe me, I want to believe whatever Vanderbilt tells me as well, great school. But, I simply cannot believe this. A test about math, science, reading, and English cannot determine a person’s success after college, and here’s why.
First off, if the most popular majors were something along the lines of English or math, it could make sense that the SAT could predict occupational s
uccess for a very small percentile of students. But that just is not the case, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics 19.2 percent of college students had a business major in 2014-2015. The runner up for majors is health professions and related programs at 11.3 percent (NCES). With this being said, there’s not much reason to be good at what the SAT and ACT want you to be good at, sure, they build a solid background a foundation for any type of work. But in the end, chances are these people who are studying business won’t need to know how to find the circumference of a circle or explain the theme of the story of Jimmy and his family life.
Touching on the topic of my parents again, my dad wasn’t always great at testing or school in general. Actually, he even says I’m in a better place than h
e was as a kid. But it took him a while to figure out how smart he was and because of that, the first part of his life was frustrating. After high school in Slovakia, he first went to the military because he didn’t think he was ready to start a new academic chapter of his life. After all, most people in Slovakia never pursed a secondary education. Once he was discharged from the military, he went to what they would compare a community college to and was massively successful, eventually gaining a scholarship to come here to America and study as an engineer at Iowa State University. The point being, everyone has potential, and the ability to harness that potential isn’t always there for all of us right away. It can take years. But we can’t wait years to take the standardized tests that we are required to take, so to have someone put their future into a test they aren’t quite mentally ready for is an unfair action to take.
In a world where tests are everything, it’s hard to not be pulled into the stress of learning the things you’re not passionate about, trying to get to a place where you can study your passions. And that’s why the ACT and SAT are poor examples of expressing intelligence because they don’t test the creativity, high order thinking, and problem-solving that people use in their passions. And because of my experiences when I was younger, I find it hard to believe that 
the standardized tests that we are given determine our potential and intellect, otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to do as much as I am right now in school. So when given a standardized test, of course, try your hardest, but also remember that your score is just a number and there’s a lot more potential in your creativity, high order thinking, and problem-solving abilities.
Works Cited
Company Company. “The SAT Is A Good Intelligence Test – Nytimes.Com.” Nytimes.com. N. p.,
- Web. 14 Oct. 2019.
Hudlow, A. Hudlow, Andy. “Standardized Testing Is Not An Accurate Measure Of
Intelligence.” Knight Errant. N. p., 2019. Web. 14 Oct. 2019.
Standardized tests not always best indicator of success | Penn State University
“Standardized Tests Not Always Best Indicator Of Success | Penn State University.” News.psu.edu. N. p., 2019. Web. 14 Oct. 2019
I completely agree with you because until people stand in your shoes and face the fact that not everyone is good at standardized tests, they will not understand the true struggle that some students face. I am in the same boat as you and I understand your stress and struggle because my mom tells me everyday to study for the test. In my defense, how can you study for something that takes everything out of you? Why would we want to study and do something that we are not good at? I do not think that a test should determine how well you do in college and in life in general. I receive good grades and try my hardest in school but I am not good at standardized tests. Like you expressed, it is hard for you to keep concentration, and it is the same for me. When I go to take the ACT, I cannot sit down for almost four hours and take a test that I truly believe is meaningless. Another point that should be made is that not all colleges require test scores, so why do some require it and some do not. Also, people make the argument that it determines test taking ability, but if you do not study for hours and do not get taught everything on that test, then how are students supposed to receive a perfect score if we are not taught everything?
I like the format of your blog. You have both sides of the argument and lots of detail to support both. Personally I do not think standardized testing should exist. I am a horrible test taker, and therefore never scored high enough to get the scholarships that I needed. My grades are high, but my test scores do not match my grades. I feel that grades and gpa are more accurate at figuring out what kind of person would be going to different colleges rather than a single multiple hour long test.
My opinion on the act is that it sucks, but is the easiest way to get a general idea of your academic abilities. Since it is the exact same for everyone, it is the fairest way to compare the millions of people who take it. There will always be people who do better than they should have and others will not do as well as they believe they should. In my opinion, that is life and that is how anything goes. The ACT should stay how it is now because it is the only way to properly compare millions of students.