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| Landon Lauder Class of 2017 |
- A. Testing system that causes irreparable anxiety
- B. Testing system that costs students hundreds of dollars
- C. Testing system that measures antiquated methods of learning
- D. A and B
- E. A and C
- F. All of the above
The correct answer is F—the same feeling millions of students have after taking one of our nation’s plentiful assortment of standardized tests that weigh our future. And here is why.
Recently I attended a free GRE preparatory session given by University of Louisville faculty that included two distinct sessions: analytical writing & verbal reasoning and quantitative sections, which mirror the structure of the test itself. I learned two things—and two things only—from this session and neither were concerned about what the area of a circle is or methods to help with the reading comprehension section.
Instead, I learned how students fail to learn, despite being in college, and how standardized tests are by no means even close to being able to measure a student’s learning abilities. If you have taken such a test, extending from the ACT/SAT and on, you know exactly what I mean. If you have not taken such tests, you still understand what I mean. The fact how we all know our testing system to be inappropriate, yet we still embrace it and let it control our lives is quite revealing about both the relentless grasp such testing has on our lives and how we somehow allow it to persist. Yet, as you may notice, these two points are inextricably linked.
No one likes tests. No one especially likes standardized tests that basically determine our future. Yet, no matter our protest, we still all file in on test day and let our three hour or so performance basically dictate the next few years of our life. It is a horrible self-perpetuating cycle no one seems to know how to break. If anything, we seem to only be making it spin faster.
What are the characteristics of a soon-to-be test taker? I am sure that something came to your mind, picturing a nervous wreck of some sort and if not externally showing stress, then internally biding it. What about someone who is not about to take a test, but might do so in the near future? Chances are, they probably still look the same, if not worse. This is a manifestation of a machine we in higher learning have created by tying together futures and test scores. When so little controls so much, it should be of no surprise we become anxious and socially dysfunctional. If you remember the question asked at the beginning, you know that a test system does not only cost us anxiety.
To understand why B (Testing system that costs students hundreds of dollars) is also the answer to our question, I present to you this simple table:
Type of Test
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Cost Per Test (as of 2016)
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MCAT (for medical school)
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$305
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GMAT (for business schools)
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$250
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GRE (for most graduate schools)
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$205
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PCAT (for pharmacy schools)
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$199
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LSAT (for law schools)
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$175
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SAT (for some undergraduate colleges)
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$43 ($54.50 with writing section)
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ACT (for most undergraduate colleges)
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$39.50 ($56.50 with writing section)
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Hopefully you get the gist. Not only must you survive on mac and cheese for four years, but to seek further education and perhaps have the chance of landing a job that will allow you to cook decent meals, you must pay thousands upon thousands for debt (both for undergraduate and for future graduate) and $200+ for the test to see if you are even eligible.
Referring back to the original question, C (Testing system that measures antiquated methods of learning) is also correct. This part is tricky and I write only from my own experience. First, you either know it or you do not. That is how we think we should measure learning. Certainly, there is merit to this. Yet, the entire test need not be dependent on whether or not I remember some completely useless and obscure math equation I learned five years ago in Algebra II. Nor should it rely on my ability to know “loquacious” and “apocryphal” (which is quite loquacious and apocryphal). In other words, while I can give you a very detailed history of the development of urban theory from the early 1900s to the present day, complete with all of the strange intellectual battles in between (which is what I will actually need in graduate school), I cannot tell you the length of an arc on a circle (although give me a few weeks since that is on my list to brush up on before I take the GRE).
While I do have to commend the company who makes the GRE for redoing the verbal reasoning section to better asses a student’s ability to learn vocabulary by analyzing context clues (as opposed to just knowing the word outright), the quantitative section quite sadly remains stuck in a bygone era that never really was. While you can reason your way through most of the verbal reasoning section, if you do not know a certain equation at a certain time, well too bad says the test (and your future).
Yet, despite the shortcomings of standardized tests, it still does not explain the plain lack of stunted learning college students experience. Sitting in the review session made me question the academic capability of some college students. And these are the students planning to go to graduate school. I do not want to discuss the particulars, as that would be in poor taste, but if you know the meanings of the word “obscure,” you just might be more intelligent than 50% of the students that were in that room.
In addition, the leaders of this review session, and some of the graduate school applications at which I have been looking, generally set the benchmark for a good chance of being admitted into a graduate program at scoring in the 50th percentile. I do not need to explain much further that this is not nearly a benchmark, but rather a floorboard we somehow glorify to the status of a high throne.
While tests fail to measure learning accurately (and instead focuses on testing how well you can cram and short-term memorize), students are not exactly fantastic when it comes to retaining or seeking out knowledge. So while the circle of inadequate testing, anxiety, empty wallets, and lack of learning continues to roll, please do not ask me its circumference.
Landon Lauder is a junior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. He studies political science, psychology, and social change.