Is Standardized Test Like Intelligence Quotient Test?
Standardized tests, which by definition gives all test-takers the same test under the same (or reasonably equal) conditions, are also perceived as being more fair than assessments that use different questions or different conditions for students according to their race, socioeconomic status, or other considerations. Standardized tests are usually one of the requirements to apply to the higher level in education, for instance college, undergraduate degrees and higher. In addition, standardized test such as SAT is usually related to Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test. IQ test measures the intelligence of an individual derived from results obtained from specially designed tests. Standardized test is only a measure to determine someone’s intelligence based on a series of problems, without assessing their full potential. Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) is required to make sure the readiness of the colleges students; or several universities usually use SAT as the requirement for freshmen to enroll in the university. SATs are used not only to measure the readiness to attend colleges or universities, but also to measure the intelligence of the test-taker. A standardized test gives the wrong symbolic messages about test. It suggests that standardized test is a simply skill, rather than an active way of thinking and learning. It also suggests that once a student demonstrates proficiency then he or she does not need to do anything. With more students taking standardized tests, most of them have attributed to meet the state’s standards for college-level entry, due to the improvements on their states standard tests, though average scores in math and verbal tests dropped significantly between 2007 and 2010.
Besides measuring the intelligence of test-takers, SAT and IQ tests have other similarities. They offer a certain amount of time for the test-takers to finish all sections, the time is dependent on the sections. Both SAT and IQ tests are constantly changing their questions every time it is conducted. Indirectly, they also tend to have cultural bias. This can be examined in way that most countries do not implement SATs as their primary college-entry examinations, but it is what students take in order to study abroad. Countries such as the United States have been using SATs for university admissions for quite sometime. This thus gives local students the advantage while taking the standardized exams compared to international students. A standardized test is like telling a fish to climb a tree. The fish, compared to other animals does not have the advantage unlike other animals to complete the task.
The fish itself represents the students, who often are unable to pass the standardized test. While some students have an extra advantage to complete such tests easily, some of them do not, regardless of the time allocated into completing the task. Everyone has different abilities and different ways of completing tasks. Thus, standardized tests would misguide the students into thinking that the their test results define their intelligence, which in reality may not be the case. In conclusion, standardized test is only a measure to determine someone’s intelligence based on a series of problems, without assessing their full potential. Some colleges and universities use standardized tests to measure students’ college-readiness, and most of them will include SATs as a requirement for admission. SAT and IQ tests have resemblance that include measuring the intelligence of test-takers using a specific set of problems. However, they are also similar in terms of cultural bias, where students who have the advantage of learning SAT related materials early on would score much higher compared to their counterparts; international students. Therefore, standardized tests are not always the best way to measure a student’s ability in academics, but merely a test designed to sort students out more easily in terms of college-readiness.
