Grades, applications, test scores, and deadlines. The forefront of a high schooler’s brain. Adding to the stress of fearing the future is standardized testing. The acronym SAT brings a dark and anxious feeling to the minds of many students.
Beginning this March, College Board’s SAT will be offered exclusively in digital format. The switch comes after nearly a century of the test’s classic paper version. But with the world advancing rapidly, the need for a digital test might be overdue. Or is it?
The trials that College Board is making us go through to put on a modern look is more than concerning. Making students function as guinea pigs to the success or failure of their new format negates the values of education and growth that our countryguarantees to all students.
For those who plan on attending college, SATs can have significant benefits. Many students even depend on the test to receive financial benefits from colleges. In short, we are letting a standardized test control our future while braving the uncharted waters of digital SAT testing.
The new format of the test is significantly different from the paper test we all knew. For example, the test is set up into two modules per subject, English and mathematics. Depending on how you do on the first module sets the questions for the second module. This means that students who may have been able to excel at the second module were denied the chance of excellence as everyone learns and grows differently.
Why are we resting so much of our lives on a company whose main purpose is to gain a profit? For those of you who thought this test was free, you thought wrong. In fact, the digital SAT is the same price as the paper version of the test. According to College Board, the test registration fee remains at $60.00. Now that College Board doesn’t have to send hundreds of hard copy packets to every school across the US, what are we paying for?
The digital version of the SAT also comes with a whole new set of logistical challenges. Think about how many times our school has either lost power or lost internet connection. Not to mention, we live in an area that is prone to tropical weather systems which often cause connectivity issues. These issues are new, fresh, and will hinder our chances of excellence that we may have been on track to accomplish.
In addition to rolling out the digital version of the SAT, College Board has completely erased the option for a paper version of the test. This is a loss for students who need to be able to have a hard copy in order to conceptualize the content given. It also denies students at schools with a weak bandwidth the normalization of standardized testing. But what is normal? This abrupt
switch has caused stress, anxiety, and nerves in those who rely on it for their future.
A standardized test is a snapshot in the day of the life of a student. It neither reflects nor represents this individual as a student. So why should our future depend on one day of testing on a new, unknown format.
The future of the United States relies on the educational opportunities of our generation. Our availability into these opportunities, such as college, is dependent upon a single test. Maybe we should consider the future of our modern world before attempting to modernize a standardized test.
