Standardized Test Advice: An Overview of Test Day Reasoning

Standardized tests are a hassle. No matter where you want to go in your education it seems like at every level you face another all important test that will have significant bearing on your future. You've been through three years of highschool or college and you've made great grades but still you have to take one of these tests. You're forced to recall vocabulary words that you never hear in everyday life. Or maybe you've pursued a liberal arts degree and haven't seen a math class in years but you're now expected to know your arithmetic, algebra and geometry (and they're not even giving you a calculator). So why do we take these exams? Or more importantly, why are we required to take them for admission to the next level in your academic career? In this article we will examine the nuisance that are standardized tests.

So why does anyone want these tests? Well let's say you're a member of the admissions board of prestigious college from the midwest. Each year thousands of applicationflood youroffice from places all across the country and every corner of the globe. You mightknow the reputations of some of these schools. You might understand what the curriculum at Phillips Exeter or Andover or any Manhattan prep school is like. You may even know the reputation of some public high schools. There is no way, however, that you can know all of the schools from which your applicants come. You don't know the difference between an A in biology at P.S. 135 and at Thomas Alva Edison High School. That's where standardized tests come in. They are the great leveler, an academic requirement that is universal to all applicants providing some guage to the abilities of the people who want to attend your school.

Standardized tests are designed to measure the reasoning ability of the test takers. They are not an IQ tests and they are not a math quizes or vocabulary assignments. Theyuse writing skills, math ability, reading comprehension ability and vocabulary knowledgeas a way to measure critical thinking ability. These tests assess one's ability to innovate solutions tounfamiliar situations.