By Jay Pandya

High school is a place to discover yourself. You make friends and lose old ones, join clubs, and try to do well in all your classes. However, some argue that the worst aspect of high school is standardized tests, which millions of students take every year. Standardized tests lead parents to pay fortunes just to increase their child’s score, and bring an unduly amount of stress into the lives of high schoolers who are just beginning to enter their professional careers. While some argue that these tests, the SAT and ACT, measure cognitive ability and how one will perform in a college environment, in reality, the answer is much more complicated.

I remember back in elementary school when my teachers frantically tried to get the class ready for a standardized test. At that point in the year, we still had chapters of math not taught to us, and most of the class needed to be refreshed on how to use the tools built into the test. It appeared that we were being taught how to take a test rather than lifelong, valuable skills. Heck, my teachers would even teach the class how to tackle certain questions in the ELA section. Our scores never shed light on our individually unique skills as growing students—preparation for the test was the only thing measured. I see this today with the PSAT and SAT. Some students with higher GPAs scored less than others with lower GPAs. You would think there would be some correlation, but there is little to none. The test itself is used by schools to get an indication of how they are doing. According to the American University’s School of Education, standardized tests are employed to identify strong-performing schools and provide them with additional funding. And colleges use the SAT as a sorting process, to determine which students they should take seriously and further examine, and which they should eliminate. This is a procedure that is necessary, considering the fact that schools need a way of sorting through the thousands of applications they may receive, but there is a much more effective way of determining which students to admit. 

As said before, standardized tests only measure the level of preparedness of the test taker, not their overall academic abilities. As stated in The Hechinger Report, Finland has banned standardized testing and multiple choice examinations, as it is striving to assess students based only on their unique abilities. Finland’s choice begs a question: why can’t alternative methods of testing be available for students? If a student excels at standardized testing, allow them to pursue them. But if they’re more successful in other academic areas, like writing an essay or doing a presentation, let them be assessed that way. We want to look at students holistically, and allowing this flexibility is key. 

I think colleges themselves have seen the flaws in standardized testing, given that many colleges in recent years have gone ‘test-optional’ —allowing students to choose whether or not they submit their scores. Colleges are now seeing what standardized tests truly measure, and I hope that we can start diverting from standardized testing into a more accepting system, one that has a greater consideration of our individual abilities.