Should we really allow three letters to judge how much we know? Whether these letters are ACT, SAT, or MCA, we find ourselves slaving over practice books and sample tests to stretch our scores to their full potential. But as we sit, hunched over bubble sheets with our backpacks neatly stowed and our cellphones completely off, are we being tested on our true abilities, or simply our ability to work around trick questions and time constraints?
Printed on the front of the ACT are the words “There is NO penalty for guessing. IT IS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE TO ANSWER EVERY QUESTION. EVEN IF YOU MUST GUESS.” If you, like many students, have put time and money into an ACT tutor or class, you already know this. Blindly bubbling in every question if you run out of time gives you a better chance of getting more points. And isn’t that what this is all about, points? When preparing for the ACT and SAT tests, we aren’t learning how to analyze literature, generate scientific hypotheses, write engaging essays, or solve high-level mathematics. Instead, we’re learning how to refer to lines in a text, eliminate answers, and crank out an essay in under thirty minutes, all to improve our scores. Our goal: to meet or exceed the reported average ACT or SAT scores of students attending our dream college. Although standardized tests may measure practice and speed, they don’t measure the true abilities of a student. Yet, we consult these scores like fortune-tellers, thinking that they somehow define our futures.
The ACT and SAT tests are not the only evaluations that detract from our time as students. The MCAs, given throughout the state as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, are a major focus of teachers and administrators, who take time out of our curriculum to prepare us for them. While these tests are given to make sure that teachers are teaching and students are learning, preparing for them takes time out of both. In the end, our results should reflect what we’ve learned in class, not what we’ve reviewed in the weeks leading up to the MCAs.
Many students and teachers recall the GRAD writing test that we had to take as a graduation requirement. Ninth grade English teachers spend an immense amount of time on preparation for this test each year. Throughout the year, we were shown prompts and sample essays to prepare us for the test in the spring. If you don’t recall this preparation, it’s because you transferred to Edina from a different school after ninth grade. Although the test is a graduation requirement for all Minnesota high school students, those who transfer to EHS skip the tedious preparation. Senior Peter Smith, who transferred from Holy Angels before taking the test, said that he “didn’t prep at all,” and that the test was easy. Our school doesn’t spend time preparing a handful of students like Peter. However, most high schoolers pass the test with ease, making us wonder if all of those practice prompts and essay examples were really necessary.
Principle Bruce Locklear is working to shift the high school’s focus away from “snapshot tests” such as the GRAD Writing Test and other MCAs which assess “a singular group of students at a singular point of time on a singular set of skills.” While these assessments are primarily for measuring whether the student body is meeting educational benchmarks, Dr. Locklear would like to utilize them to see how we have improved over time. By looking at scores from previous years, educators can see how the same students have improved or declined, something that’s much more meaningful.
Like Dr. Locklear, most of us are aware that standardized tests aren’t perfect. That being said, we’ll continue to work hard to achieve high scores, whether or not we think they reflect how “smart” we are. However, we can’t let scores define us or our futures. The notion that a 36 on the ACT is a ticket to any college is not only false, but misleading. Many colleges don’t have a formula for how they admit students, and our dependency on test scores has shifted our views of a truly well-rounded student. We’ve become so obsessed with numbers that our attitudes toward learning revolve around speed and careful bubbling, rather than questioning, insight, and true understanding. We shouldn’t shift our focus from high-level thinking to high-stakes scantrons. We’re smarter thank that.
