Acronyms:
SAT – Scholastic Aptitude Test
ACT – American College Test
PARCC – Partnership for Assessment of Readiness in College and Careers
Remember when the SAT upgraded its 1600 point Math and ELA test to include a new 800 point essay portion? This was in 2005. The College Board felt that the bubble-answers did not sufficiently reflect a student’s “aptitude” for college success. The other two sections were also modified, but it was the essay section that proved to be very expensive to conduct. This, of course, is because humans had to read and score all these essays.
The SAT will now relaunch next March with the essay component being “optional”. The new test will be three hours with three parts: reading, writing and language, and math. The math portion will include open-ended short answers, but the essay portion (50 min) will be optional and not included in the overall score. Basically, the SAT will more closely resemble the ACT (developed in 1950 as a rival to SAT).
Both the SAT and ACT are now competing for state-funded contracts to offer these tests to public high school students. In fact, the College Board has begun offering tests to 8th graders to help them “address weaknesses early”. A third competitor is PARCC, designed as a for-profit organization to provide K-12 testing in alignment with Common Core. All three companies are strategizing to offer tests that will help students along the way rather than being simply a college admissions test.
So, the test mania thrives because it is lucrative business, and in some cases appropriate and helpful. But, I do not believe any of these test methods do justice to measuring how well a student will perform in college or in the work world. The tests are missing the elements that portray the student as a whole person with creative ideas, possible solutions to world problems, passions and opinions. Measuring these attributes requires a lot of human effort and resources.
Time Magazine (Oct. 12, 2015) described what Singapore does for its assessments. “The government-run test for college-bound students requires them to complete a group project over several weeks that is meant to measure their ability to collaborate, apply knowledge, and communicate – all skills both educators and employers say are critical for the future economy.”Max McGee, who runs the Palo Alto school system, suggests that a better assessment would “… look like a portfolio students generate over time that reflects their passion, purpose in life, their sense of wonder, and that demonstrates their resilience and persistence and some intellectual rigor.”
In the meantime, it is important to note that top-ranked colleges are beginning to either eliminate or diminish the focus on SAT or ACT scores. Harvard, for example, has found that the very high test scorers only do a little better than the lowest scorers. College officials feel, in general, that it is high school transcripts that can reveal what a student will do. A major test of 33 colleges found that high school GPA – even at poor schools with easy curriculums – was better at predicting success in college than any standardized test. What does impress school officials is “rigor” and “curriculum”. Getting good grades in tough courses in the field of your interest in high school will stand out as much as or more than a high entrance exam score in most colleges.
So, it may be worthwhile to start planning your portfolio and what you would like it to include that best represents who you are, what your interests are and some of the things you can envision for yourself in the future. It can contain all sorts of things: pictures, videos, reports, journal entries, volunteer activities, projects (for school or just for fun), ideas, perhaps graded papers or projects that show improvement, awards, honor role, and on and on. I would also suggest starting this as soon as you want to. Your parents can help in the beginning. I will also be glad to offer help or ideas. It can be fun and a good habit to start now. You will always benefit from having a solid portfolio in this highly competitive world.
SAT – Scholastic Aptitude Test
ACT – American College Test
PARCC – Partnership for Assessment of Readiness in College and Careers
Remember when the SAT upgraded its 1600 point Math and ELA test to include a new 800 point essay portion? This was in 2005. The College Board felt that the bubble-answers did not sufficiently reflect a student’s “aptitude” for college success. The other two sections were also modified, but it was the essay section that proved to be very expensive to conduct. This, of course, is because humans had to read and score all these essays.
The SAT will now relaunch next March with the essay component being “optional”. The new test will be three hours with three parts: reading, writing and language, and math. The math portion will include open-ended short answers, but the essay portion (50 min) will be optional and not included in the overall score. Basically, the SAT will more closely resemble the ACT (developed in 1950 as a rival to SAT).
Both the SAT and ACT are now competing for state-funded contracts to offer these tests to public high school students. In fact, the College Board has begun offering tests to 8th graders to help them “address weaknesses early”. A third competitor is PARCC, designed as a for-profit organization to provide K-12 testing in alignment with Common Core. All three companies are strategizing to offer tests that will help students along the way rather than being simply a college admissions test.
So, the test mania thrives because it is lucrative business, and in some cases appropriate and helpful. But, I do not believe any of these test methods do justice to measuring how well a student will perform in college or in the work world. The tests are missing the elements that portray the student as a whole person with creative ideas, possible solutions to world problems, passions and opinions. Measuring these attributes requires a lot of human effort and resources.
Time Magazine (Oct. 12, 2015) described what Singapore does for its assessments. “The government-run test for college-bound students requires them to complete a group project over several weeks that is meant to measure their ability to collaborate, apply knowledge, and communicate – all skills both educators and employers say are critical for the future economy.”Max McGee, who runs the Palo Alto school system, suggests that a better assessment would “… look like a portfolio students generate over time that reflects their passion, purpose in life, their sense of wonder, and that demonstrates their resilience and persistence and some intellectual rigor.”
In the meantime, it is important to note that top-ranked colleges are beginning to either eliminate or diminish the focus on SAT or ACT scores. Harvard, for example, has found that the very high test scorers only do a little better than the lowest scorers. College officials feel, in general, that it is high school transcripts that can reveal what a student will do. A major test of 33 colleges found that high school GPA – even at poor schools with easy curriculums – was better at predicting success in college than any standardized test. What does impress school officials is “rigor” and “curriculum”. Getting good grades in tough courses in the field of your interest in high school will stand out as much as or more than a high entrance exam score in most colleges.
So, it may be worthwhile to start planning your portfolio and what you would like it to include that best represents who you are, what your interests are and some of the things you can envision for yourself in the future. It can contain all sorts of things: pictures, videos, reports, journal entries, volunteer activities, projects (for school or just for fun), ideas, perhaps graded papers or projects that show improvement, awards, honor role, and on and on. I would also suggest starting this as soon as you want to. Your parents can help in the beginning. I will also be glad to offer help or ideas. It can be fun and a good habit to start now. You will always benefit from having a solid portfolio in this highly competitive world.
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