Hello i am currently taking english class over the summer..
and having trouble with English paper,
since english is my second language, as though i thought i wrote okay but
the professor gave me a D for this paper..
i don't understand its english 101 class and got a D for unclearity and lack of
explanations. and he said i need polish my punctuation which i don't know
what the hell it is, also i am too wordy?.... please guys help me to get an A.
here it is...
Even though its unfairness has been suggested from various points of
views, the standardized tests in the United States have been used for
college admission for almost 100 years. This problem-causing
standardized test, the SAT, is also known as Scholastic Aptitude Test.
The intended primary purpose of this test is to be a faculty instrument
to predict the success of students in college. Also, the SAT is
considered a measuring tool to gauge the level of students’ reading and
mathematic comprehension. Carl Brigham, who developed the SAT as an
intelligence test for the use in college admissions, once had said “the
SAT testing system ignored factors such as schooling, family
background, and familiarity with English” (Fleming). According to this
statement, the SATs must be used as a fair source to test students
because not only it affects college admission for students, but also
for equalities for all test takers. Regarding the recent scholastic
suggestions indicating the disadvantages that are followed by gender,
minority groups, and misusage of the test materials, the SAT should not
be used as a strong determining factor for the college admission.
One of the factors that results disadvantage of the SAT is gender
of the test takers. It is universally known that the learning and
problem approaching method significantly varies on gender. The SAT test
is disregarding these facts because both genders get the same tests and
be tested on it. Not surprisingly, few private schools have accepted
theses facts anaccepting only one gender students . Based on the
statistics from 270,000 students, Dr. Ken Rowe, Australian Council for
Educational Research, found that both boys and girls performed between
15 and 22 percentile points higher on standardized tests when they went
to single sexed high school (Rowe). This data proves that applying
different teaching systems to different genders has led to better
performance of students. McCullough, researcher at University of
Wisconsin-Stout, also suggested that males are more intuitive,
indirect, and abstract learners whereas females are more organized and
analytical learners (McCullough). Therefore, each gender requires
different learning approach system. And these characteristics in each
gender should be carefully considered before giving out the tests and
used as college admission.
In fact, an article titled “Underprediction of Female Performance
from Standardized Knowledge Tests” states that there is an inaccurate
prediction on the females’ performance in their freshmen year in
colleges. It informs even though the females’ SAT scores are lower than
males’ by about 34 points on each section, the females’ have higher
average grade points in their freshmen years of college (Poole). This
suggests that the SAT is not well-structured enough to address the
differences in gender learning process to represent the performance of
female students in colleges. This male-favoring biased test should be
corrected for better precision in determining the performance level of
students in colleges. More specifically, the questions on the SATs
should be changed to more analytical and organized questions for
females while questions where intuitive thinking is required should be
given out to male. Therefore, by gender, the test takers should get
different SAT test in order to achieve its purpose.
Disadvantages of minority groups should also be considered as a
factor of unfairness of SATs. The minority, African American, Hispanic,
and Asian immigrants, score significantly lower than white students.
Especially, on the verbal section on the SAT which tests college level
vocabulary and reading comprehension. This section of the SATs is more
disadvantageous for students whose English is not their first language.
Also, The National Center for Fair & Open Testing found that even
for bilingual students whose first language was English, the SAT
inaccurately predicted college performance (FairTest). Although there
is a replacement test for verbal section called ‘TOEFL’ which stands
for ‘Test of English as a Foreign Language’. It does not entirely
compensate the verbal section and represent the performance of the
students. The TOEFL, also refers as English proficiency test, does not
test college level of vocabulary and reading level, but it tests
students’ capability of learning English. Therefore, with TOEFL, the
performance of high school students further in college can not be
predicted and used. Moreover, it costs about 4 to 5 times more than the
SATs which causes to minimize the test attempts, and this factor also
can not be ignored from the unfairness of the SAT. Also, the Rigidity
usage of the SAT for college admission will automatically result in
accepting less minority freshman classes (FairTest).
Everson and Michna, professors at Columbia University, have
proposed that the family income influences on the score of the SATs. On
the data titled as ‘Observed Relationship between Family Income &
SAT Scores:’ indicates the proportioned relationship between the family
income and the SAT scores of students. It also suggests that the SAT
score of the child depends on the race of the family and interestingly
the race of the family also correlates with the family income. In that
data, a student from a white family with an income above $ 70,000 would
score above 1008 points on the SATs, and a child from an
African-American with an income of lower than $ 10,000 would score
below 675 points on the SATs (Everson and Michna). This statistic
implies that the income of the parents directly affects the SAT scores
of their children rather than their intellect. Since the income and
class of the parents is usually determined by the educational level of
parents, this could be interpreted as the SAT is designed and favors
the students with highly educated parents. Therefore, based on the
statistics, the SAT has preferential of certain ethnic race and higher
income and educational level of parents.
In addition to those disadvantages, the SAT prep courses or materials
are misused in various ways which violate the intended purpose of the
SAT. Even though most colleges say that the college does not have
specific cut-off lines of SAT scores for accepting students, there are
an increasing number of students who are studying for the SATs only for
higher scores. This is resulted from the common misconception from
people that the comparative schools only accept the higher SAT scores
and reject lower SAT scores (FairTest). McEntire, a researcher, had
proposed a flaw of the SATs because 2 to 3 months of quick preparation
of the SAT will significantly raise the scores. Therefore, those scores
lack the relevance of the prediction of the students’ performance in
colleges. Numerous test preparation materials are now on every book
stores and even certain institutions are built solely in order to teach
SATs. Even if the costs are up to $800-1000, parents are promoting
students to attend SAT prep course (McEntire).
The Flaws along with illegal act upon taking SATs are abused
globally, and this factor should be modified for a fair test. The
following problem is time related disadvantages considering the fact
that the SATs are given out to the students at the same time world
widely. Therefore, students who took the test earlier in the one side
of the earth provide information by posting the answers and discussing
the problems on a certain website. This will give time differences for
those who live in the other side of the earth and give pre-exposure to
the test before taking the test. Not only this action is illegal and
politically improper, but also raises the questions on the fairness of
the SAT. Another abuse of the SAT can be suggested from the unjust time
management. Because of the fact that the SAT also tests students time
distributions for each problem, the SATs are should be taken in strict
given time (Collegeboard). But few articles have reported the problems
that were related to poor time management that results in giving extra
times for students. Allen, a writer for home schooling, has proposed
that the extra amount of time while taking SAT will improve the scores
which disobey the purpose of the SAT (Allen). These time-related
problems could be fixed by producing variety version of the tests, and
also that test can be taken on computers which eliminate such
disadvantageous factors.
Junior and Senior high school students are frantically studying to
memorize SAT words and practice how quickly to apply mathematical
theorems to the problems. Most upper classmen high school students
undergo these rituals even though the SATs contain various flaws and
unfairness factors. Regarding to previous discussions, those flaws are
not appropriate enough to represent the potentials and abilities of
students’ performance in their freshmen years in colleges. Even
Testmakers acknowledge that high school grade-point average or class
rank is the best predictors of first-year grades, despite the huge
variation among high schools and courses (FairTest). Furthermore, the
SATs should not be used as a definitive source for college admission.
It’s urgent for colleges to raise another valid standardized test which
will eliminate such disadvantages and flaws. Such as for colleges not
requiring the SAT scores from the students who falls in to top 20
percent could be a solution. And less concentration on the SAT scores,
but put more weight on accepting students regarding their other
curriculum such as leadership, activities, honor or awards, and GPAs
would be an another solution. The current SAT materials are not apt to
measure the students’ abilities of performance with those unfairness
and disadvantages factors. Moreover, the SAT seemed it had lost its
primary purpose of predicting the performance of the students, and what
it actually stands for as Scholastic Aptitude Test.
thanks for reading this far but i am that frustrated for having freaking D.
you can email me with your revised version to
wkawk2416@hotmail.com
or leave comments feel free to correct syntax + grammarical errors. thanks!