Standardized Testing

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Most of you have experience with standardized testing, probably including PSAT's, SAT's or ACT's, as well as state testing, perhaps.

What do you think? Has this been a valuable way to evaluate your own accomplishments? Do you think it's a useful criteria for college entrance? If you've taken more than one format, do you prefer one over the other? Why?

[brownjenkins]

I did SATs when I was in high school. Now my children are subject to MCAST testing (State of Massachusetts tests designed to judge how good a school is and to determine whether or not you get a diploma).

I think they are a good idea for roughly gauging how well a school is doing and how well a student is doing, and colleges are free to use whatever acceptance tests they choose, since they are private institutions (or, at least the ones that put a lot of weight on SATs are).

I also think it's important for children to actually be faced by a test from time to time that is designed to be so difficult that no one passes it. Learning to deal with one's own shortcomings is one of the most important lessons one can take from their school years.

All that said, I don't like the "you must pass this test to graduate" thing. It gives no credit to the things children learn during their school years that have little or nothing to do with testable knowledge. It also removes the incentive for students who are not doing well to at least work towards a passing grade once they realize that even that is not good enough to earn a diploma. Dropout rates have risen in Massachusetts since the testing has become required.

Not all children have the physical capability to be A to B-grade students. You can teach them algebra for years and it still isn't going to stick. I think we have to learn to admit this and give a bit more credit to effort and a bit less to just results.

[The Gaffer]

Agree with BJ, though I've never been on the receiving end.

It's useful to a) see how your child is progressing from year to year and b) see how well the school is doing compared with what you'd expect for pupils with their SAT profiles.

In the latter case, government inspectors use it to measure "added value" from a school. In this way, schools from disadvantaged areas can get the credit for the extremely hard work they do.

[Mari]

It might be a bit different, but before going to Japan I had to take an English proficiency test. I chose to take to IELTS, because TOEFL doesn't test speaking or knowledge of the culture. At least not explicitly.
Now I want to take the Japanese Language proficiency test, but the problem is: I am very good when it comes to listening and speaking, but I completely suck at reading and writing. Off course the things that count most are the latter.
I don't think that is entirely fair.
Even if you can't read everything just like that, when I have a dictionary I am a fair reader and I am perfectly able to write on a computer, as long as I don't have to write the Chinese characters myself.
In reality, in most cases nowadays you don't write on paper and without a dictionary, you write on your laptop or cellphone which automatically shows the possible kanji (chinese characters) when you type the right pronounciation. So I don't think the things measured in the test are really the things you need to be able to do. As long as you are able to remember many kanji, you can pass. If you do not have that abillity, you can't pass even when in real life you might be better.
It was the same with the placement test: it was based only on whether you could read the text and answer the questions which off course contained a lot of kanji. The people from China who are used to using kanji all got a high score even though they could hardly speak Japanese.
In these cases I think they should look at more things.

[tolkienfan]

I am taking the SAT on the 2nd, and the ACT on the 9th. I'm so nervous. I've been studying like crazy. Since I'm homeschooled, the SAT matters more for me than for most kids.

[Tessar]

I'm surprised to hear that. I personally only took the ACT. I think I got a 25 or a 26. I scored in the top 96% on my English and Reading Comp., but I was only in the 45-50% on my Math and Science. Which was sort of alright... those dragged my score down considerably, but on the other hand I am -terrible- at math, and I never studied much science, soooo...

The score I got was good enough to get my into the college I wanted to go to, which has an excellent music program, so I definitely lucked out . If I had wanted to go to a conservatory (urgh... no thanks!) then I probably would have had to retake the ACT and possible also take the SAT.


Personally I'm not against standardized testing... I'm not a huge fan, but I can see the logic behind it.

[tolkienfan]

Hmm...that's interesting. I wasn't even going to take the ACT until the last minute. Everything I've heard says that the SAT is what's important to most colleges. I guess it would depend on the college, everywhere I'm looking at says SAT scores are a very important factor, especially for homeschoolers. (btw, it seems to me like there is a larger-than-usual amount of homeschoolers on this board. I wonder why?)

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Preference for ACT or SAT is regional. There are sites online to help you render one into the other. Tessar is right, however, in saying the importance of the scores to homeschoolers varies...some colleges don't even ask for scores. ANd most colleges will take either.

I prefer the ACT, for several reasons, particularly for homeschoolers. First, they only report your best scores, clearly an advantage if you do things to improve. Second, imo, it's a much more "fair" test. It doesn't pretend to be an IQ test, it tests standard high-school curriculum subjects. If you know the material you won't be tricked by funny (and sometimes inaccurate) choices. Also, the existance of the science component makes a weakness in math or language less critical to your scores. It's easy to study for, and the people who administer it are helpful and WANT you to study for it.

I'll be interested to hear what you think, tolkienfan.

[elffreak24]

There was a thing where I could take the SAT in the end of 7th grade, through Duke (yuck). I almost did but it cost too much.

[Count Comfect]

I took the PSAT and SAT (which I took twice - once the way elffreak almost did, although through Johns Hopkins instead of Duke, in 7th grade, and once in 11th grade for college). Plus Washington has the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning...ugh). I find them all somewhat pointless; they don't really test what you need for college or what you learn in HS. One thing they do test, though, is your ability to concentrate and put what you know (because most of the questions are, individually, not particularly complicated - it's the volume and the pressure) down under stress. Which is actually not a terrible thing to test before people go to college. Also, I guess, they do serve well as a basic test for college-readiness in terms of the minimum standard in every section. That said, I don't think a 2400 (now) is that much more prepared than a 2000, or even a 1700, say. I think in general standardized tests work best to determine whether someone has met a minimum standard, not to differentiate people up at the top.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Test taking is its own artform.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I took the SAT before I came to college. Meh.

[Curubethion]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Test taking is its own artform.

Yep. The SAT and ACT are basically just good for scholarships.

I like the ACT better, first because it doesn't have a required essay, and second because I scored better.

[Nurvingiel]

The Canadian version of the SATs are provincial government exams. As far as I know, all provinces have them.

I did fine. They are useful enough tools to see how well different schools are doing. A lot better than the Fraser Institute anyway.

Also, you have to pass a certain amount of them to graduate, and you have to pass English. In BC anyway. This was all years ago.

[tolkienfan]

I took the ACT + writing today. I much prefer the SAT. I have no idea what score I got on either. I think I did well on the SAT, but not so well on the ACT.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

I prefer the ACT, for several reasons, particularly for homeschoolers. First, they only report your best scores, clearly an advantage if you do things to improve. Second, imo, it's a much more "fair" test. It doesn't pretend to be an IQ test, it tests standard high-school curriculum subjects. If you know the material you won't be tricked by funny (and sometimes inaccurate) choices. Also, the existance of the science component makes a weakness in math or language less critical to your scores. It's easy to study for, and the people who administer it are helpful and WANT you to study for it.

I'll be interested to hear what you think, tolkienfan.

I don't agree. I thought the ACT was far trickier. The SAT tricks are easy to see through, and make sense after you see the answer. This is just my experience, but the guy who gave me the SAT was WAY better than the person who administered the ACT. She was 20 minutes late, and took 15 to set up. We didn't even start the test until 8:50. (We were supposed to start at 8:00.) She had these alarms going off, (very distracting) and was all-around annoying. I agree that it is nice that you don't have to give out all of your scores, but I don't think my mom is going to let me take it again anyway. I could give you more details on my experience, if you actually want me to.