Pro:

As many colleges across the nation move back to requiring standardized test scores in the application process, students are becoming more motivated to try their hardest on these exams. While many people claim that these standardized tests should cease to exist, they fail to see all the merits that come with standardized testing.

Requiring standardized tests in a college application creates an objective test that all students have to take, no matter what opportunities are available to them. This allows college admissions officers to look through an even scope and view how students perform against one another on a test that looks practically the same for everyone. 

When looking at the fact that some high schools only offer 5 AP courses while others offer 20, standardized testing allows students who do not necessarily have the same opportunities as others the ability to truly showcase their talent in regards to academics.

Additionally, standardized testing allows students to focus on core skills that are essential in higher education and many careers in the workforce. While these tests do require one to memorize certain nit-picky grammar rules that they might not always utilize in their future, it still requires and tests students on knowledge of basic skills that people will end up using in almost all majors of college and many careers of their life. 

The testing of these skills and the fact that the test is so important pushes students to try and learn these skills that will be essential in their future lives. While studying to achieve a perfect on the test will require one to learn lots of information that they most likely will not use in their futures, it is the basic skills that come in handy for the future.

All in all, colleges use standardized tests to be able to equally look at their applicants and have a universal test that they all must take. It also provides an outlet for students to be able learn essential skills that they will need in their future.

Con:

Standardized testing is not merely a score on a piece of paper, but rather a potentially life-altering set of numbers. However, this score is not only unfair, but unnecessary. 

“Such tests reward quick answers to superficial questions. They do not measure the ability to think deeply or creatively in any field,” The National Center for Fair and Open Testing said.

Standardized testing is not a fair assessment of a student’s intelligence or college readiness, as it does not effectively measure the genuine creativity or problem solving skills of an individual. As such, it is completely unfair to attempt to evaluate a student’s intelligence by their SAT, ACT or any other standardized test score. 

“A recent paper released by Opportunity Insights, a Harvard-based team of researchers and policy analysts, found that children of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans were 13 times likelier than the children of low-income families to score 1300 or higher on SAT/ACT tests,” the Harvard Gazette said. 

According to one of the top schools in the country, not only is standardized testing, such as the SAT, not an effective indicator of intelligence, but it also may fluctuate based on the household income of the test taker. 

“Because so much emphasis is placed on standardized test results these days, teachers are spending more and more time ‘teaching to the test,” psychologist Thomas Armstrong said. “If there is something that is interesting, compelling, useful, or otherwise favorable to the development of a student’s understanding of the world, but it is not going to be on the standardized test, then there really isn’t any incentive to cover this material.” 

Not only is standardized testing harming the minds of students taking it, but it also has the potential to hurt the valuable in-class time students are provided for a true development of important real world experiences. 

In conclusion, standardized testing is not a realistic or fair exemplification of a student’s intelligence, but is rather nothing more than an arbitrary way for big corporations to perpetuate the endless cycle of mindless pattern recognition, and not true intelligence or creativity.