Five Ways SATs Fail

Standardized Testing Method Might Jeopardize Smart Kids

By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

I have a daughter who is a junior in high school and she is stressing herself crazy about the SATs. Worse, I am stressing her crazy. My daughter is a gifted, deeply creative girl who is so capable and hard-working, but how ever could the SAT gauge that? Is jumping through the hoops of prep courses the only way of securing my daughter into a good college?

Sincerely,

Trouble with Tests

Dear Trouble with Tests,

Do expensive SAT Prep Test courses give people who can afford them an unfair advantage? You betcha! Many SAT prep courses show that their students can boost in test scores up to several hundred points with the courses. The courses often involve one on one tutoring where the test questions are explained, gone over many times, and practice tests are administered regularly.

Does this mean that a hard-working, very bright student without the money to afford this tutoring can do just as well? Probably. But those students are rare.

People with resources have an advantage in life -- and that includes getting into colleges.

But what is important is to remember what these tests are about:

Where Testing Flunks

1. What is actually being tested is rarely divulged. Tests that measure intelligence usually just measure how well the test taker takes the test, first and foremost. Whether or not a test measures intelligence depends on the definition of intelligence.

2. A test measuring intelligence assumes the test makers are more intelligent than the test takers. Not always true. Therefore, the tests don't always measure intelligence. Following this theory, they're flawed.

3. Schools receive funding based on test scores which motivates the schools to teach testing at the expense of educating. Occasionally the two overlap.

4. Testing creates a testing industry. There is now, and as long as testing flourishes, there will grow a testing industry with competitive testers, tests and ways for test takers to do well on tests. Testing will become an industry in and of itself.

5. Competitive test taking and a competitive industry will foster fraudulent test takers or ringers who take tests for others for a price -- and that's just the start. There will be lots of cheating combined with advanced technology making cheating an industry as well.

April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.

© 2004-2009 AskApril.com, LLC. All rights reserved. AskApril®, AskApril.com®, and Ask April® are registered trademarks owned by Masini Enterprises, Inc. This material can only be republished and redistributed if it is kept in it's original form, including, but not limited to, all AskApril branding, banners, links, books, and credits.