College_Essay_-_Standardized_Testing

College Essay - Standardized Testing Standardized Testing Standardized testing has become and ever important tool in measuring scholastic ability from seniors down to third grade students. Because of the dire need to improve test scores and student performance, more and more emphasis has been placed on standardized testing. As well as the stress on excelling on the tests, my high school’s administration has also strongly suggested that time is taken in each class period to teach what is most likely to appear on the tests. Time is now taken out of classroom to “teach to the test.” This new approach to improving test performance has affected all but 1 of my academic courses this year and taken time away from curriculum to account for the time needed to “teach to the test.” As I have progressed through high school, standardized testing has become much more influential in the direction that our school curriculum has taken. The Advanced Placement courses I am taking this year, which are obviously designed as a guide to excelling on the AP tests, are rather tedious and lack time to meet the needs of the individual students. The emphasis placed on the importance of doing well on standardized test has meant standardized, test, testing, time, tests, performance, teach, students, curriculum, teaching, taken, take, individual, become, academic, year, student, skill, school, placed, over, now, needs, meet, measure, improve, important, high, focus, excelling, emphasis, demands, courses, classroom, ways, wastes