How Individuals Can Benefit from Standardized Exams

How Individuals Can Benefit from Standardized Exams

Testing's worth is a topic that is frequently debated today. In order to determine if taking an exam is racially or economically biased or even helpful in predicting college achievement for candidates, the overall picture is what is explored. The debates consistently appear to leave out a critical component: the elements of the exams themselves, despite the fact that both sides present persuasive, data-supported arguments.

Standardized examinations assess test takers' knowledge of important academic concepts that are essential for their success as students in K–12, college, graduate, and professional settings. All questions, taken individually, need the fundamental academic abilities outlined by teams of knowledgeable instructors.

When an exam is standardized, an individual student’s progress can be tracked; additionally, their performance relative to that of their peers can be objectively measured. At the K-12 level, mastery of specific skills is a metric that must be determined and met before, for example, a student moves on to a new unit or grade. All states employ some form of state exam to evaluate programs and progress at the student, class, school, and district level. These ‘backward looking’ exams can reveal academic proficiency or identify the need for more academic support.

Looking forward, standardized exams contain specific questions that assess useful, demonstrable real-life skills necessary for many college classes, degree programs, occupations, and everyday tasks. For example, many exam questions require knowledge of percentages. Calculating percentages is a skill that will be required in nearly every financial transaction for the rest of a person’s life, from the tip on a restaurant bill to the interest rate on a mortgage. Understanding your student loans requires a knowledge of percentages! Unsurprisingly, almost every standardized test, from SSAT to SAT to GRE, features numerous questions on percentages.

In other examples, exam questions that ask for interpretations of bar graphs, histograms, circle graphs, or scatter plots model graphical representations are commonly found in textbooks, newspapers, periodicals, and research papers. Still other questions require knowledge of vocabulary: typically these are pervasive, essential words found in a range of texts from the social sciences to the natural sciences. Selecting the correct definition of a word in context is an exercise most people engage in subconsciously many times on any given day.

Many students have concluded that they’ll never have the need for algebra in their adult lives. But that’s simply not the case. Cooking is an activity – a life skill – that incorporates principles of algebra, as well as chemistry, geometry, time management, executive functioning, and a basic knowledge of nutrition. “Teaching to the exam,” in this instance, is teaching to real life.

For the most part, standardized exams employ questions that assess easily identifiable and essential skills for academic and career success in many to most fields. Therefore, it would be in everyone’s best interest to determine whether students can understand and apply these concepts. Perhaps one could argue that grades demonstrate student academic mastery instead. But with an issue such as percentages, for example, is this true? The student may have mastered the topic at one time but has mostly or completely forgotten it since. They may have achieved a grade whose value is obscured by test corrections, undervalued or inflated as a result of the subjectivity of grading or even tutoring. But students must utilize certain skills on a regular basis in order to participate in academia and function successfully in society.  

Standardized exams can assess whether a student comprehends, can bring to mind, and apply the essential skills they’ve learned over long periods of time. Without the exams, students, teachers, and administrators lose valuable information about whether students need specific remediation, are right on track, or are ready for more advanced subject material.

Standardized exams provide current and relevant information about a student’s profile of academic skills. And this assertion rests not on broad ideals, but on the test questions. Critics should examine individual exam questions and explain what it is that is objectionable about asking students if they know the material contained therein. The appropriate and sensible use of standardized exams can be a critical indicator of a student’s academic performance. Exam scores provide an objective and accurate representation of a student’s ability and help identify actionable areas of need for students and cohorts of all sizes.