<p>What are some advantages and disadvantages? If you do what are your sources?
I feel like they aren't needed and they hold people back. Some don't perform well on test, especially under all that pressure.</p>
<p>Well, how do you suggest people be evaluated for competency in various subject areas?</p>
<p>I think they’re much more effective than unstandardized tests…</p>
<p>What kind of standardized tests. SAT or state tests. State tests aren’t usually hard, but it is what you learned in school. SATs I feel don’t test a person that well, it tests how well a person does the SAT. But tests are need, you need to see how a student is picking up a topic and how he does amongst his peers. Its an evaluation of how well you know what you did in school all these years.</p>
<p>It definitely levels the playing field.</p>
<p>^Yea because of grades. This is why there should be a standardized grading system across the country. Because a A in one state could mean a B in another.</p>
<p>YesYesYesYes</p>
<p>yeah an a at one school could be at c at another</p>
<p>I think a student’s transcript says way more about his/her potential than any standardized test. Especially when you consider the school’s profile (i.e. the performance of other students at the school, the level of difficulty in curriculum, the school’s ranking compared to other local schools).</p>
<p>that’s why colleges nowadays stress transcript more than SAT’s fool</p>
<p>Advantage: Tests competence in various subjects.</p>
<p>Disadvantage: Makes teachers aim at preparing kids for tests as opposed to teaching them about interesting ideas and problems, making the classes a waste of time and thus ruining the education system.</p>
<p>Standardized tests as in the SAT II subject tests? Yes, definitely.</p>
<p>Yes, they are. They are the one measure designed to ensure that all are graded under the same conditions (now that schools vary widely in their grading systems).</p>
<p>But doesn’t that make the tests a bit of a Catch-22? They measure everyone by the same standards; but if everyone didn’t learn at schools of the same caliber, how is it fair to measure them all the same way? I mean, I see the point of it, but I just feel like there’s too much emphasis on it.</p>
<p>Standardized tests are the only option. Grades are way too subjective. Standardized tests are the only objective way to compare students from across the country (except for the SAT essay…that’s BS)</p>
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What’s interesting to one person might not be to the next person. People seem to want an education system that caters to individual interests, so we seem to have a mentality of “I only want to learn and get assessed on what I’m interested in. It’s not fair for teachers to grade me on subjects that I do badly on because I don’t care about them.” I don’t see how this is possible at a pre-college education level. I think that people often debate over whether such a system is appropriate at the college level, too. Chances are, if you are really interested in something you will be self-educating yourself about it. Also, while the current system is not perfect, I think that it does give people a lot of skills that they take for granted and thus don’t realize the value of said education.</p>
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Let’s say I’m racing the 200m butterfly against Michael Phelps. Unlike Michael, I was not genetically endowed with a 6’7" wingspan. Is it not “fair” to declare him the winner when he easily crushes me in the race?</p>
<p>^ I’m not sure. If you change that question from suggesting your failure is from being genetically inferior to having been coached by someone who can’t really swim themselves (or at the very least, could never win any kind of race), then I don’t know. Is that fair? Sure, the results are the results - you lost, Phelps won - but you were at a MAJOR disadvantage.</p>
<p>They are stupid. I hate them. And they dont prove that you know anything. They arent like a real test. And they waste alot of time like doing practice tests. I think they should get rid of them.</p>
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<p>Well, that’s the point.</p>
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<p>And drop the last remaining objective metric for comparison?</p>