The Problem with the SAT Every day, students across the United States and beyond prepare for the SAT. These unfortunate students spend countless hours and dollars in the hopes of maximizing their scores and their futures. The SAT was designed to test a student’s academic knowledge and performance, but fails to do so today. Its credibility as an academic benchmark should be acknowledged, but the test should not be valued so highly. The SAT is far from perfect, yet high schools and colleges place much weight on it. Many prestigious universities will only accept students who have performed well on the SAT. The SAT ought to be revised or replaced in order to enable students of all types to display their academic prowess to college recruiters fairly.
…show more content…
For instance, during one of my SAT evaluations, a student was caught working on her test during a break. Rather than sending the student home, the proctor gave her a warning. The SAT committee has a strict no cheating policy and her test should have been made null and void. It can be assumed that a vast majority of proctors obey and enforce the rules, but there is no guarantee. Many of the proctors take the job of overseeing the test takers to just pick up some extra money. Their true passions are usually not to watch students take massive tests. Every proctor I ever had just read a book, or the morning paper. One particularly shocking case at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights is a prime example of how some proctors let the test takers do as they please. According to a New York Times article from Ellen Oliver, “Proctors at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights were “inattentive” and careless during the original testing on May 5, leaving exam booklets unattended, failing to check the students’ identification and allowing them to choose their own seats.” These incompetent proctors were eventually discovered, and the students’ tests were made null and void. Because the SAT is not exactly the same difficulty every time it is rewritten, it is completely unfair for the students. Not to mention, their time and money was …show more content…
It is successful as a benchmark to test students on how well they can do math and write essays under high pressure. That being said, it has no right to be so highly valued by college recruiters. The SAT score of a student does have relevance to an extent. Of course colleges want to recruit students who can pass tests. But a wider appreciation for the student as a whole should be favored. Issues such as cultural bias will always prevent the SAT from being a perfect test. So, we as academics should stop treating it as such. The SAT should be redesigned so that it focuses on more than just mathematics and writing. There is much more to a student than his or her ability to compute math problems and to persuade a reader with by the means of an essay. Even once the test is reimagined, the academic community as a whole must relax its importance. What college recruiters should look for in a student instead is what the contributions each student makes to society, their work ethics, and their consistent long term academic performances. One test score is just that, one test score. High school students take hundreds of tests throughout their four years, so we should not value one so
For instance, during one of my SAT evaluations, a student was caught working on her test during a break. Rather than sending the student home, the proctor gave her a warning. The SAT committee has a strict no cheating policy and her test should have been made null and void. It can be assumed that a vast majority of proctors obey and enforce the rules, but there is no guarantee. Many of the proctors take the job of overseeing the test takers to just pick up some extra money. Their true passions are usually not to watch students take massive tests. Every proctor I ever had just read a book, or the morning paper. One particularly shocking case at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights is a prime example of how some proctors let the test takers do as they please. According to a New York Times article from Ellen Oliver, “Proctors at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights were “inattentive” and careless during the original testing on May 5, leaving exam booklets unattended, failing to check the students’ identification and allowing them to choose their own seats.” These incompetent proctors were eventually discovered, and the students’ tests were made null and void. Because the SAT is not exactly the same difficulty every time it is rewritten, it is completely unfair for the students. Not to mention, their time and money was …show more content…
It is successful as a benchmark to test students on how well they can do math and write essays under high pressure. That being said, it has no right to be so highly valued by college recruiters. The SAT score of a student does have relevance to an extent. Of course colleges want to recruit students who can pass tests. But a wider appreciation for the student as a whole should be favored. Issues such as cultural bias will always prevent the SAT from being a perfect test. So, we as academics should stop treating it as such. The SAT should be redesigned so that it focuses on more than just mathematics and writing. There is much more to a student than his or her ability to compute math problems and to persuade a reader with by the means of an essay. Even once the test is reimagined, the academic community as a whole must relax its importance. What college recruiters should look for in a student instead is what the contributions each student makes to society, their work ethics, and their consistent long term academic performances. One test score is just that, one test score. High school students take hundreds of tests throughout their four years, so we should not value one so