Standardized testing has become the bane of education for many students and teachers alike due to its limitations on showcasing understanding of information. The biggest challenge has often been the need for more variety in question styles, meaning the test will only be understandable to some students and not all which inevitably affects their scores. Even with those flaws standardized tests like the SAT have become rather essential and benefit from the standardized form, here is how.
For starters let’s define what is a standardized test or what qualifies to be considered one. A standardized test is simply a test that has all students answer similar questions in the same form that is graded consistently, typically it has rules related to grading to ensure it’s done consistently in the first place. For that reason, standardized tests tend to take a multiple choice format or a bubble sheet at the least so that the answers are consistently the same.
When talking about the SAT specifically the reason this consistent form of testing and grading is so important is to make it a test that colleges can properly take scores for comparisons from. When it comes to things like GPA and credits, not every school offers advanced courses which will affect what a student’s college application looks like compared to someone possibly from a school with DC classes and more electives.
In simpler terms, it’s a way for colleges to have a statistic in admissions that’s genuinely equally comparable. Sure, some people will have more study resources than others when it comes to SAT prep but the SAT looks at more than just how many right or wrong answers you got. This statement tends to confuse people because they do not how many answers were correct to make a raw score, but when it comes to things like the reading it’s more about how much someone notices.
Incorrect answers on the SAT are normally called “distractors” and that is for the exact reason that they are designed to be fluffed up with words that lead someone to believe they are correct typically without any evidence or explanation. The goal of distractors is to check if a student is looking at all the details or just answering with the choice that sounds the most ‘academic’. People still say this is just scoring right or wrong, which in a way it is, but it’s not simply testing the skill of filling in a bubble on a scantron but testing if students have a genuine understanding of what’s being showcased.
For this reason, every answer on the SAT could be correct, it’s just a matter of picking apart the fine details. For the math portion it is more literally about was the answer correct but they tend to ignore the process by which someone got an answer. They still want students to know how to solve a question without reliance on a calculator hence the no-calc portion of the exam, but when it comes to how a student got the answer the method is not important to them. The test will still have trick questions in the math portion but it’s not every answer can be correct, but every answer is very similar to ensure someone can ween out the specifics.
Standardized tests are still frustrating as someone can just be bad at testing and better at creative forms of showcasing understanding, but they are a need. Every state and school has different education plans, resources, and staff tests like the SAT are one of the only ways colleges can compare applicants. So in turn the test isn’t something to panic too much about, do still put in effort but know it is meant to help students not harm them in applications.
