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The Pros And Cons Of Testing In Schools

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High school students all over America are taking the ACT in hopes of doing well to go to the college of their choice. However, most students resort to smaller colleges, because they performed in the lower percentile of the ACT. Luckily, there are more than 4000 colleges in the United States that give every student a chance to apply and attend college. When applying to college a majority of the colleges require ACT scores. The scores will help or hurt the chances of a student being accepted to a college. This seems to be an effective and efficient way to admit students into college, but the problems with the ACT are commonly overlooked. Because of arguments between the positives and negatives of the ACT, the college board should rethink …show more content…
The college board doesn’t realize how difficult this test is, but the difficulty increases if the student struggles with English or reading or if a student has special needs. So, “Standardized tests are unfair and discriminatory against non English speakers and students with special needs”(Is the Use). There wouldn’t be a problem if the college board didn’t focus so much on reading. Not just the reading portion, but each individual section, which relies heavily on reading ability. With all these reading sections, how can a college understand what other strengths or the type of person they are letting in their school? They can’t, which is why “these tests aren’t able to show some of the skills and character traits that are a key part of success”(Rorie). Reading can’t tell whether a student can adapt to college-life, such as the ability of making new friends or making tough decisions when the opportunity comes. It may not even be just reading ability, but how fast a student can read. Just because a student doesn’t read fast enough in the timed ACT test doesn’t mean the student won’t perform well in college. So, students should have the chance to sell themselves to the college of their dreams, no matter what their ACT scores …show more content…
Focusing on the students, not just for their ACT scores or their grade point average. The colleges could look more for who they are as a person, which makes them more inclined to attending a specific university that fits their abilities instead of their ability to take a test. This would strike the interest or every student and encourage more students to apply for college or a university. Having more students applying and going to college will help the country grow, and ensure a better future for each student. Apparently the ACT is supposed to predict how well a student is going to perform in college. Students GPA seems more adequate for the job, but “the ACT is a standardized multiple-choice test meant to predict first-year college grades”(The ACT). Prediction is only an educated guess, and guessing how students will perform in college or what their future holds doesn’t sound appealing. If students were evaluated on their work ethic and past performances that would seem more reasonable. So, there should be a better way to predict a student’s future, and not use the ACT for that

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