...ever before. The SAT and ACT are by far the most popular standardized tests today and have become one of the largest determining factors in the college-admissions process. The SAT, or the Scholastic Aptitude Test, came first, founded in 1926 by the College Board. The original test lasted 90 minutes and was made up of 315 questions that tested the students’ knowledge of vocabulary and basic math. By 1930 the test had grown into its now familiar form, with separate verbal and math tests. By the end of World War II, the test was accepted by enough universities that it became a standard rite of...
Words: 1664 - Pages: 7
...could teach well. He made a timed reading test in which there was only one truly correct answer. On his test there were questions like, which animal is most useful on the farm, and the answer choices would be cow, tiger, rat, and wolf. In 1924 Cyril Burt did some research to prove that intelligence is genetic. He used that information, and the government used it to make the U.S. immigration restriction act of 1924. In China there is a test to take if someone wanted to be a part of the government. It tests people’s knowledge of Confucian philosophy and poetry. Non-profit universities and educational organizations first made the SAT in 1926. The original test was ninety minutes long with three hundred and fifteen questions. It tested students in vocabulary, basic math, and early fill-in-the-blank analogies though in 2005 they replaced it for a writing section. At the end...
Words: 1860 - Pages: 8
...of victims of emotional trauma particularly in disaster mental health studies. In this paper the value of spirituality in providing emotional care to survivors of trauma is analyzed. Why is the value of spirituality in emotional care important to me? Conventional wisdom has held to the notion that boys are better at math than girls. Perhaps, this age old belief was responsible for Mattel the company that produced “Teen talk Barbie” in 1992 to create a Barbie doll that had among its stored phrases, one phrase that said, “Math class is tough!”. This phrase was stored with 270 other girl talk phrases such as “I love shopping” and “Will we have enough clothes!”. The result was that Mattel was soundly criticized and quickly changed the doll’s offending phrase a few months later. In spite of Mattel’s effort to correct a message that verbalized an inherent cultural bias, one wonders if the is any accuracy to the stereotype that associate math being difficult with the female gender and whether math is less difficult for males. Bryner (2007) indicated that women are still outnumbered by men in math science and engineering fields. Tachibana (2010) posited that as much as 90 percent of the engineers in the United States are male. Mathematics is considered a gateway such to the hard sciences....
Words: 2415 - Pages: 10
...that the United States has is the High School education system. Students have little or no preparation for life after high school compared to other nations which poses a disadvantage when trying to further their education. The United States is one of or the most powerful countries but continually flows short in the educational system. One of the major issues is the lack of the arts within the academic system. They focus today is typically how to take an exam. For example, Florida focuses so much on the FCAT that they typically focus only on English and Math. High Schools keep using this “Teaching to the Test “technique, which only teaches students how to prepare for the FCAT and this narrows the curriculum a lot. This issue leads to the question, “Is the Geography and Math knowledge of an American student as good as European student?” Every year a test is given to every student in High School. This test has basic questions about Geography and it measures the level of every student within their grade. Back in 2010 after collecting back the test from students and grading it, the National Assessment of Education Progress publicized that only a 25% of American schoolchildren passed the test and that only a 20% of 12th graders passed. This is probably one the saddest news America had to deal with when speaking of education. After the news was published to the public, Daniel Edelson, vice president for education with the National Geographic Society, explained in an interview with...
Words: 1882 - Pages: 8
...What is the ACT Aspire Test? Colleges accept both SAT or ACT test results for determining that a student is academically ready for college. While some students take both tests, others choose one. The ACT is described as more of an achievement exam, while the SAT requires more reasoning skills. The ACT is comprised of multiple-choice questions in the areas of English, reading, science, mathematics, and includes an optional writing test. Many school districts have taken measures to buildup participation in the ACT and optimize student outcomes. ACT Aspire is the latest curriculum-based program for elementary through high school students, designed specifically to: provide early assessment of student progress; enhance college readiness; and...
Words: 833 - Pages: 4
...Forming a Hypothesis Grand Canyon University: EDA 577 October 16, 2012 Vail District High Schools (Andrada’s Math Achievement) The Vail School District has 5 high schools in the district; Cienega, Empire, Pantano, Vail, and the newest Andrada. During SAT, Administrative, and Instructional Data Team meetings it was discovered the Math scores for Andrada High School were 10-14% below the levels of the four other district high schools. The five leadership teams began to brainstorm to identify why the scores in math were not in alignment with the four others. Below is a brainstorm list with a compare and contrast of the five high schools. |Hypothesis lists with emphasis |Cienega |Empire |Andrada |Vail High School |Pantano High School | |on compare and contrast |High School |High School |High School | | | |Period Schedules |Block Schedule |6 Traditional |7 Periods |7 Periods |4 Periods | |Has a Zero Hour |Yes |Yes |No |Yes |No | |Are Teachers following best |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes | |practices | ...
Words: 826 - Pages: 4
...educational episodes Are Our Kids Strong Enough from BBC, 5 Chinese teachers, who are deft at standardized tests, taught 50 British students for 1 month. Consequently, Chinese-education-taught students’ test scores are averagely 15 points above other British students. Also, China, a country with a long tradition of standardized testing, topped all countries in the international rankings for reading, math, and science in 2009 when it debuted on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) charts (Dillon). With the triumph of Chinese education, people are suspecting whether...
Words: 1704 - Pages: 7
...school year. While some people say having standardized testing shows teachers what their students should know to perform well on the test, I believe that standardized testing negatively affects these curriculums and focuses more time on classes that are being assessed on the tests and not on other classes. For example, here at JRG, we have 83-minute long core classes, which are language arts, math, science and social studies. We have language arts and math every day all year long, and we have social studies science and social studies every day for half of the year. Our other academy classes consist of...
Words: 881 - Pages: 4
...Breaking Through It is difficult for almost everyone to learn a new language. Not everyone achieves that goal. Some of them quit during the process, while other will struggle to achieve their goal. Each person quits for personal reasons. My experience is different from others. Before I even began the path to learn English, I thought about giving up. Later, when I was in that path, I almost gave up a couple of times. I struggled immensely in middle school; but not so much during my four years at high school. First, I gave up because I have heard that learning English was not easy. My old friends used to tell me learning English as your second language is very, very difficult almost impossible; “only few can make it,” they said. Second, my first day of school in this great nation was unpleasant. I considered that day, one of the worst days of my life. Looking back, now I consider it one of the great days of my life; because life without risks is no life. Third, my first two months at high school was like being in hell; because I was not being treated fairly by other students. The unpleasant moments I had during that two months was because of a lack of knowledge. Everything comes to an end sooner or later. When I was in Mexico. I wanted to learn English for a couple of reasons. One of them is because my parents wanted to bring me here to the United States to continue with my education. The other reason was because people that speak more than two languages have...
Words: 2080 - Pages: 9
...He was hiding his face, looking down, and having his head in his arms, but his efforts to hide the stitches that were along the bottom of his left cheek failed. Mr. Woodward, places everyone into groups the twins that have been in the same classes since kindergarten were paired together, most of the popular kids got paired with the other popular kids and my partner is Ethan, all the rest of the girls that had not been paired up yet sank back into their chairs. The question that we are assigned is difficult and I do not completely understand it, but I start writing random number on the white board, as Ethan takes a seat at the desk in front of the...
Words: 1327 - Pages: 6
...their sights on lucrative scholarships offered from universities that are often accompanied with a required GPA, class rank, and ACT/SAT score. From personal experience, a single point higher on my ACT score would earn me several thousand dollars from the Engineering School at Iowa State University. This puts tremendous pressure on testing like the ACT or SAT - so much pressure that some students are willing to commit fraud to earn those required scores. In 2012, 60 Minutes ran a story about a New York high school student, Sam Eshaghoff. Eshaghoff had a very special talent: earning perfect scores on the SAT. However, these perfect scores were not for himself. Eshaghoff was accused and convicted of fraud for taking the SAT for other students. From the outside looking in, Eshaghoff seemed like a bright student with a promising future. During his trial, it was discovered that he had taken the SAT for at least 16 different students. In China, testing has driven students to enroll in educational institutions, dubbed “cram schools”, with the sole purpose of preparing Chinese students to take entrance exams to Chinese and American universities (Larmer). While an argument could be made that testing doesn’t well reflect what the student is capable of, there is still great importance in being able to accurately interpret data, read critically, and solve math equations for real-world problems. These principles are taught in elementary, middle, and high schools around the country for the purpose...
Words: 1570 - Pages: 7
...tests predict student’s performance, like the common ACT and SAT that colleges frequently use; achievement tests evaluate teacher and school effectiveness (7). Although standardized tests are becoming significant in school curriculum, the results do not accurately represent student or teacher abilities....
Words: 1763 - Pages: 8
...complete a double major, at the soonest it will take four years but in order to do that, it’s extremely difficult to accomplish. Even if you earned two degrees, some colleges onlys award one bachelor's degree and put both of the degrees on the degree. You can have a double major with a minor. Or you can have one major and two double majors, or a minor and two double majors. There are many career paths that you can take. A career path is a smaller group of jobs within a group that uses similar skills. One way that can help you pick out the career that you want, is by picking a major that you have interest in. You don't have to have a major but in the future it will help you a lot and get you really far in life. This is accurate because if you majored in something, and one day you want to get a job, then you will be very good at that job because you already majored in it. This will also give you more job opportunities. SAT Scores SAT scores is the range from 400 at the lowest and a 1600 at the highest. If you have good SAT scores, your more likely to get accepted because your SAT scores show what you're capable of and how much you study. If you have low SAT scores and you want to increase it, there are many ways that you can make it higher, or better. To improve your SAT scores you should know what types of questions are on the test by studying. You have to take SAT scores for math, writing, and reading. All of these scores will be important because that's how you get into a good...
Words: 2038 - Pages: 9
...Common SAT Essay Themes and Archetypes The makers of the SAT use several themes from which they draw essay questions. By knowing these themes ahead of time, you can prepare several preplanned examples to use for each theme. For example, take Thomas Edison. He used over 6000 filaments before finding one that worked in the electric light bulb. You could use this example for essays on adversity, success, history, and progress. The following is a list of these themes and real examples of essay questions produced by the College Board. The questions have been paraphrased for simplicity, but they provide you with an idea of how the themes are recycled each year. Theme: Adversity Do people benefit from adversity? Do people learn more from losing than from winning? Do people learn more from difficulty or from ease? Do people learn from their effort even if their goal is not reached? Does humor help in difficult situations? Theme: Success Do people put too much stress on winning? Can people be successful and ethical at the same time? Is persistence more important than ability in achieving success? Is optimism more important than realism in achieving success? Is idealism more important than practicality in achieving success? Is success a result of choices or of luck? Do people’s expectations of themselves affect their success? Can people be successful with low expectations? Is it better to have low expectations and meet them or high expectations and miss them? Do people have to...
Words: 1538 - Pages: 7
...school student had, the more negative their attitude was toward school. Plus it takes away from their social time, which is an important part of growing up. Kids need to learn social skills. Too much homework causes stress, as you probably know very well by now. Kids need to have down time too! Why does homework have such a small effect at the elementary level? One reason is that young children have limited attention spans and are very distractible. It is difficult to do homework in a house that has many distractions. Teachers need to work with parents and help students find a quiet space to do homework. Most professional organization in education agrees that homework should never exceed 10 - 20 minutes per day in grades K - 2. In grades 3 - 6 homework should never exceed 30 - 60 minutes per day. Another reason elementary school children do not benefit much from homework is because these children tend not to have good study skills. They memorize information without understanding it. They put the same effort into studying difficult and easy material. They believe if something sounds familiar, they must know it. They do not know how to do self-tests. Teachers should show these students how to study and manage their time. Cooper did not say that homework is a bad...
Words: 6818 - Pages: 28