Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Prospectus
Prospectus
paragraphs flow together. Before I had a huge problem with making my essays
flow which made them sound awkward. I feel as though I was able to use good
feel as if my conclusion is not yet very good and does not close the overall
statement. I have always had problems with writing conclusions for I cannot seem
to wrap everything up. I feel as though I did not wrap everything together and its
weak.
3. In the final draft I made two major revisions. One of these
revisions was citing the person or journal in the end of every quotation. In doing
this, I now let the reader know where I got my information and avoid plagiarism.
may have done some correct I still had a few where I simply summarized. In
explaining them I also added new ideas and included some of my opinions. These
two revisions were the ones which were most noted in my writing.
Have you ever wondered whether standardized tests effectively measure one's
intelligence? If so, recent studies have shown that standardized tests don't accurately measure
one's intelligence. For as long as the educational system has been around Standardized tests have
been part of this system. These tests are given through a student's life up until they no longer
attend school. As students begin to take more and more of these tests they begin to question
whether Standardized tests actually measure their intelligence. As various students began
questioning these tests, research and studies have been made to be able to explain and
demonstrate if these tests really measure one's intelligence. Within these extensive research
psychologist found that there are various factors that can affect on how well a student performs
on these tests. Some of the main factors that affect a student are that although you might score
high on a test your cognitive abilities do not, not every attribute is tested, there are different
learning styles, and the brain's frontal lobe is different for everyone.
An experiment done by MIT, Harvard, and Brown universities demonstrated the effects
intelligence fluid which measure a persons reasoning skills. These students were from schools
in boston; The study was able to demonstrate that the schools accounted for very little of the
variation in fluid cognitive skills less than 3 percent for all three skills combined. (Trafton).
This percentage is significantly low considering what the tests are testing a student on. Having
this in in consideration, this shows that these tests can only accurately measure one of the many
cognitive skills. But what about the rest of the cognitive skills? Are they not as important?
Measuring only one of the many skills a student has is not an effective way of measuring
intelligence because not all abilities of a student are measured. These universities were able to
conclude that although the students score were high, some cognitive abilities remained low.
As these universities continued testing the intelligence fluid-- the ability to analyze
abstract problems and think logically-- they found an interesting factor. The universities were
able to observe that programs designed to help students prepare for standardized tests increase
the intelligence fluid. This fluid is a sufficient way to measure intelligence because it
demonstrates a student's ability to understand a problem and be able to accurately answer it.
Although the universities saw how these programs can help students, their studies have found
that educational programs that focus on improving memory, attention, executive function, and
inductive reasoning can boost fluid intelligence, but there is still much disagreement over what
programs are consistently effective. (Trafton). Taking this into consideration, standardized
testings do not measure a student's intelligence because some programs may prove effective but
other may fail in doing so and that is not necessarily the students fault.. This is important because
the students in this program would not necessarily receive the help they were seeking for.
Following this information Gale Learning, part of Cengage learning, was also able to
prove why standardized testing does not measure a student's intelligence. Gale was studying the
different patterns and results of a standardized test and found that , because of the small sample
of knowledge that is tested, standardized tests provide a very incomplete picture of student
achievement. (Gale). This is a very important point because throughout the year students are
taught many different subjects. However, standardized tests do not test on all the different things
learned and focus only on some of the knowledge the students were taught through that year.
Although testing does measure some of the many attributes someone has it only relies on certain
ones. Some attributes such as creativity are left out of these testings. This is unfair because
students have stronger attributes and some that are not as strong and when taking these tests their
stronger attributes may not be included hence why standardized testing do not measure a
Following these attributes, Doreen Fioretto, a principal and psychology teacher, says that
There are different types of learning abilities in which students are able to learn better.
(Valencia). There are students who are far better when being taught visually which includes
pictures than other who may be auditory learners; For example, some students are visual
learners, other are auditory learners and other are read-write learners. This is a huge disadvantage
when taking standardized testings because only one type of learning style is used when taking
the test. Therefore, students who learn in the way the test is given tend to do better because that
is their preferred learning style but the other students have a big misadvantage because that type
of testing may be their weakness. As it has been concluded by psychologist these read-write
learners often score better than the rest for the simple reason that, that is their preferred learning
style.
Similarly, these learning styles also come into comparison with the frontal lobe.
Principal Fioretto states, The frontal lobes job, you can say, is the maturity of an individual.
You can see from this that not everybody is at the same level when it comes to maturity.
(Valencia). Although all students taking these tests may be in the same grade level and even age,
that does not mean that they are all at the same level of maturity as others. For example, some
students may be more mature than other because of the way they were raised or they simple
developed faster than their fellow classmates. Along with this maturity, When students take a
very important test they tend to become stressed and feel pressure. (Valencia). In the same way
as maturity, some students are able to control or manage this stress while others may not know
how to deal with it. This is also a disadvantage for a student because throughout the test they will
be worried or stressed and this may cause them to not do good in their test. All this stress is given
due to the standardized itself because they feel as if they do not pass then they will either be
unprepared to move on to the next school year or not have leaned all the subjects taught to them
through the year. Along with this, the stress the students are facing does not allow them to
completely concentrate on the test because the stress blocks away or makes you forget certain
things (Valencia). This however is not their fault for they do not know how to deal with stress or
they are yet not mature enough to be able to take such a serious test and this stress can lead them
to forget things when taking the test which would not reveal their true intelligence.
To conclude, When taking a standardized test students face many factors which can
prevent them from achieving the grade they desire or to measure their intelligence. All these
factors are not a student's fault for every student is different and one should cannot expect them
all to pass these tests or be able to measure their intelligence. Perhaps in order to more accurately
measure a student's intelligence they should change these standardized tests to benefit a student
instead of giving them a disadvantage. For example, standardized tests should offer different
types of testing for auditory learners, visual learners, and so on. This would improve a student's
performance because they will be taking a test in their preferred learning style. In the way in
which standardized tests are done today they cannot accurately measure a student's intelligence
for they have many disadvantages which affect a student when taking the test.
Bibliography
Anne Trafton. "Even When Test Scores Go Up, Some Cognitive Abilities Don't." MIT
Harris, Phillip, Joan Harris, and Bruce M. Smith. "Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively
Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from "Chapter 3: The Tests Don't Measure Achievement
Adequately." The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don't Tell You What You Think They