From another perspective

Based on my experiences, standardized tests do not accurately represent a student’s potential.

Two weeks ago, I explained how my SAT score didn’t correspond with my high school GPA of 4.0 in my editorial. Now let me tell you another story.

Everyone knows a student that graduates from a well-noted East Cobb high school in Georgia with a 4.0, including honors classes, and a current GPA of 3.69 can read, right? Well, not according to the Regent’s Reading Test I took last year. I failed the test two times, and since I had accumulated over 45 credit hours, I was forced to take the class. After satisfactorily completing the class, I took the test for the third time and finally passed it.

The first thing that angers me about this test is the remedial class. The class counts for three credit hours and is pass/fail. Those three hours are a considerable amount to lose of the allotted 127 credit hours that HOPE pays for. I could have used those three hours for one of my minor classes. Instead I’ve lost them to a class that only helped me with a test that didn’t recognize my reading skills in the first place.

The only thing a few students in this class, including me, found beneficial was the practice tests we took. I think more practice tests should be added to the web site, and books of exercises should be sold at the Paw Prints Bookstore, so more students will pass this before they have completed 45 credit hours. This will allow students to use those three hours for another class. If a student decides to wait and be required to take the class, the class should only count as one hour, so the other two hours can be contributed to another class. Students forced to take this class more than once because of continuously failing the test lose at least six hours to studying for one test. That is a considerable amount of your credit hours. One test equals one hour.

The class only needs to meet twice a week or hold two one-hour sessions. Each practice test takes an hour to complete, which in essence is one of those sessions. Then the other session can be spent discussing the practice and completing exercises. When I took the class, we received homework assignments each week. Each of these assignments took around an hour to complete. To add insult to injury, a student performing a great amount of work in the class can only achieve an ‘S’ (satisfactory). Therefore, no merit is given for the three used credit hours towards one’s GPA. Besides, an ‘S’ doesn’t mean you will pass the Regent’s Reading Test the next time you take it. Rather than pass/fair or ‘S’/ ‘U’ (unsatisfactory), the professor should be allowed to give more of an indication of how much effort the student gave in order to receive the ‘S,’ without using letter grades such as A, B, C, D and F.

I am not the only victim of this test’s inaccuracies. I have come across many students in the same predicament, including my roommate and a number of fellow students in that class. This test as well as all standardized tests should be reevaluated for the sake of those who are more than capable yet unable to perform well on standardized tests.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 18 2002. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry