By: Yasmine Elbeblawy, Maria Rodriguez, and Juliet Rodriguez-Perez
There comes a time in the school year where we all feel all over the place. That dreadful time is what we know as testing season. When we think of March we think of spring break, the time when we are liberated from schoolwork for a whole week. However, many of us see this week as the last week of peace before we begin testing. April comes around and we are all pulling hairs out of our heads, biting our nails, and stuffing our textbooks under our pillows expecting for the year’s content to enter our brains as we sleep.
Here in the dog pound, all students are being drowned in essays and packets since the first day back from summer break just to be bombarded with tests from March to May. When they were asked if they feel prepared for testing, we received a range of answers.
Junior, Justin Alvarez, says he is somewhat prepared for his tests, but it depends on the subject. He also stated that his teachers “don’t care” if their students are stressed out, and “testing has become harder and unnecessary” including how he works efficiently in class yet is a bad test taker. That goes to show you that even as you grow as a student the number of tests that you take doesn’t change the fact that you can be a bad test taker and “more practice” isn’t really going to change how you take a test. Cambridge sophomore, Ashley Fong, said “I feel prepared for the majority of tests because I know my teachers have taught me what I need to know…my method of studying will help me when it comes to reviewing for my exams.” She also included that, like many others, she is stressed out because of the vast amount of material there is to cover for the tests. On the other hand, we have students like Melissa Barraza who have the opposite feeling when it comes to preparation. She claims that she does not feel prepared for her tests because in her classes they “are still learning” and “haven’t covered all the material” they need for the exams and she also stated that she is stressed for the tests to come. Regardless if we feel prepared or not, many of us can relate to the fact that we are stressed for our tests. And we all ask ourselves the questions; are standardized tests really necessary? Have they become more challenging?
“I think testing is a way to measure how you are doing and what level you are at, but I don’t think that one standardized test should determine our intelligence,” said Melissa.
Sebastian Perez, a Sophomore in the Cambridge program, stated, “I genuinely feel that testing has become more difficult because tests expect you to know most, if not all, of the material in the subject.” Besides Cambridge students, others like Emily Deolmo also feel like they’re not prepared for testing and when asked if it has become harder and more excessive, she agreed saying that she feels like she’s taking college level courses while she’s in regular level classes due to the stress being put on her. In Coral Park, sophomore Aleyka Ayon agrees with the overwhelming stress testing season gives and that “tests have become more difficult.”
We can all pretty much agree with this. Standardized tests have been used with the purpose of evaluating our intelligence and they disregard the fact that many of us are simply not good at that certain subject or the fact that we might not be good test takers. The importance that is given to standardized tests is just absurd. Students become extremely overwhelmed and filled with anxiety because of the pressure that testing brings and how their futures depend on a two hour testing session. Standardized tests measure students’ intelligence and define the most important years of their lives. But is this fair?
The Watchdog 