Testing

Test. That one word can send a teenager into an instant frenzy. There is so much weight leaning on one test. It could dramatically lower a grade if poorly done, but only slightly raise it if done well. Many teachers weight their grades so that test are over 30% of your final grade. That, is ridiculous.

Those tests are just the ones taken in the classroom during the school day. Lets think about the ones taken that decide our future. The ACT and SAT decide what funding we get for college,what colleges will accept us, and can define who we are in the educational realm of things. One four hour time period of testing could change our future, and it all lies on a bubble sheet....that's a crazy thought.

I do well on tests, but that doesn't mean I like them. I hate tests because I lose sleep, miss football, and they takeaway from my social life. But mostly because I lose sleep. I think I should be defined more by tests PLUS what I do. I have a lot of qualities that can't show up on a bubble sheet; I'm responsible, a leader, and respectful, but there is no bubble for that. That's something I think a college would want, rather than a really smart but snotty kid. Another thing that really irritates me about the importance if tests, is that some days people just have an off day, a day where nothing is going right, a day where we just don't function right, and a day where we don't have the ability to take a test while producing accurate results.

The reason I'm saying this is because I know someone who is extremely intelligent, very kind, and is just an all around great person, but they struggle on tests. They suffer from test anxiety and just never do well on tests. It is too bad because they have the potential to go far in life. But because their ACT score doesn't reflect them accurately, who knows what will happen. If only their was a supplemental exam to the ACT that reflected who a person was rather how it they performed on tests.

Aside from those standardized test, I want to come back to school tests. We do some extra work to offset the bad test scores, but I wish tests were a less influential part of our grade. I get that they are needed to keep students to attentive and so they don't just stop trying, but do they really need to be over half of our final grade? I don't think so. I think they should be the same percentage as everything else. No special weighing, just straight up points. (WC 450)