**TL;DR: Standardized testing represents a poor predictor of student performance. Its emphasis exacerbates social inequality.** Standardized testing represents a major component of the college application process in the United States and many other countries. However, its effectiveness and its interactions with inequality threaten its legitimacy in higher education admissions. Standardized testing does not predict students’ academic performance. Studies have shown that students with higher standardized testing scores [are not more likely to perform better in college](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2020/01/29/its-gpas-not-standardized-tests-that-predict-college-success/?sh=116f601d32bd). High school GPAs represent a much better predictor. Many reasons likely contributed to the lack of accurate prediction. To start with, many students may simply perform particularly badly in test-taking environments, especially considering the significant hype around SAT or ACT scores. Furthermore, standardized testing overwhelmingly measures some of the students’ skills, in areas such as calculation, memorization, and pattern recognition. Many other skills that are crucial for academic success are not measured by these tests. Perhaps more importantly, standardized testing [perpetuates social inequality](https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/sat-act-standardized-tests-equity-socioeconomic-status-wealth-20191029.html). Since these tests require practices from the students’ side, factors such as private tutoring and school quality become especially important in determining testing scores. As a result, students from more wealthy families are more likely to access these resources for success. Low-income students and many minority students become disadvantaged in the process. For these reasons, standardized testing should be abolished.

**TL;DR - There is nothing standardized about our educational or post-educational worlds anymore, even in the maths and sciences. Tests can provide a snapshot in time, but they don't measure potential or even creativity, both of which are increasingly important factors in our educational and post-educational endeavors.** - Education is becoming [less and less standardized](https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/06/21/it-looks-like-beginning-end-americas-obsession-with-student-standardized-tests/), at least in America. - Post-education frameworks are becoming less that--less "frameworks", less "post-education." Our theoretical forms and subsequent methods of real-world application are increasingly [expanding](https://www.quora.com/Why-are-scientific-theories-getting-more-complex-and-weird) to include greater uncertainty and further proliferation, at nearly all levels of inquiry (application or pure theoreticals.) - Even if standardized tests can show some processing work (everything is process--solving a problem always exemplifies some larger process of thinking), our larger understandings, theoretical frameworks, and applications of knowledge are becoming [too complex](https://onezero.medium.com/the-modern-world-has-finally-become-too-complex-for-any-of-us-to-understand-1a0b46fbc292) to boil down to a singular, discrete snapshot in time. (In this case, I'm referring to a single test problem.) It is true that a high score on a set of problems indicates an ability to process concepts verbally and/or utilize figures nonverbally, [two](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-1698-3_354) important [categories](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-0-387-79061-9_3016) of intelligence. But if we extrapolate to an overall, much larger sense of intelligence--the type that I'm arguing is increasingly more important nowadays--those tests [don't say as much](https://lasvegassun.com/news/2021/jun/07/standardized-tests-measure-test-taking-ability-not/), since it's now a larger level of processing that's required in our hyper-fluid world, even if the test example processing and the larger world processing could still be considered a similar kind of processing at the ground level of similarities. - At least, we haven't _yet_ formulated new tests that would measure the more complex processing that happens both theoretically and experimentally, across larger levels of time, today. This is why I remain mixed. - Creativity is becoming increasingly important as well. Standardized tests don't fare well with assessing [creativity](https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/standardized-tests-narrow-dont-assess-creative-skills-sternberg-contends).

**Standardised testing is important for measuring learning, promoting equality before the law and aiding the job market. However, it is reasonable to assess the frequency of such tests to reduce pressure on students and ensure genuine learning.** Standardised testing has notable benefits, namely: • _Metric for improvement:_ Standardised testing can provide a snapshot in time of what the student knows. Thus, it provides the student with the opportunity to [discover where they have gaps](https://www.whitbyschool.org/passionforlearning/the-pros-and-cons-of-standardized-testing) in their knowledge; • _Promoting egalitarianism:_ Especially when it comes to national exams, standardised testing involves everyone in the cohort [sitting the exact same paper](https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-10/supporting-materials/garrison-on-the-origins-of-standardised-testing). This means that the grades received from students at one school will have the same value as the grades of a student from another school. Although such testing admittedly cannot tackle the inequality created by those who can afford private tutoring, it _does_ decrease the opportunity for someone to be discriminated against solely based on the school that they went to or the area that they grew up in; • _Aiding the job market:_ In an age where competition for university places and jobs is so high, it is a necessary requirement that those who select people for these positions have the metrics to discriminate candidates from one another. We can certainly acknowledge that standardised testing puts a large amount of pressure on students, regardless of age or background, and can lead educators to "teach to the test" rather than ensure genuine learning. Although I believe that these are strong cases for reducing the frequency of standardised testing, especially in England where students take their first national exam at [age 7](https://thirdspacelearning.com/blog/everything-parents-need-know-sats-guide/), there are enough benefits to standardised testing to continue using this method in the education system.

**Apart from being a poor metric of students' intelligences and capabilities, standardised tests also fail to provide accurate measures of the efficacy of an educational institution, or tutor themselves., and comparisons across students, teachers, schools, curricula, and cultures are overly reductionist.** Margaret Pastor, the principal of Stedwick Elementary School in the United States, was [once approached](https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-why-standardized-tests-arent-working-for-teachers-or-students/2019/06) by an assistant superintendent regarding the kindergarten teachers at her institution. He remarked on the disparate performance of two classes, one in which the students performed notably better on standardised tests that the other. He suggested that the teacher of the latter class work with the former to help improve the performance of their students. What the superintendent didn't realise, however, was that both teachers _were the same person_. Clearly, standardised testing is not a reliable metric for teacher evaluation. Every child learns and demonstrates their learning in individual ways and through diverse forms of intelligence, making rigid measures of intellectual ability highly reductionist assessments. [9 US states](https://www.chalkbeat.org/2019/10/8/21108964/no-thanks-obama-9-states-no-longer-require-test-scores-be-used-to-judge-teachers) have already eliminated the use of test scores as a means of judging teacher performance. When comparing between schools, states, curriculums, and countries, cultural and content-based differences arise that introduce numerous variables into the picture, making it exceedingly difficult to 'standardise' the learning experience. In turn, it becomes difficult to standardise a teacher's performance, particularly noting that students at different schools and under different schooling systems engage differently with different content. For example, the International Baccalaureate curriculum deviates significantly from the the American public schooling system, or the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) system in India, in how children are taught and how they are made to interact with the content they're taught. Going even broader, [cultural differences](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwit3cvsuJLyAhWjF1kFHYB5C0UQFjACegQIFBAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Flibjournal.uncg.edu%2Fijcp%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F301%2F856%23%3A~%3Atext%3DStandardized%2520tests%2520intend%2520to%2520measure%2Clanguage%2520backgrounds%252C%2520socioeconomic%2520status%252C%2520and&usg=AOvVaw2Bg2TJDSyRzO4e0BS5bDD5) may also play a role in making test scores incomparable. Given these issues, standardised tests arguably do not provide the insights that they are often used to obtain. If, based on additional arguments made by other users on this opinion, standardised testing does not hold up to the standards we expect it to, it must not be worth the time, resources, and [mental health concerns](https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/eap/files/c._simpson_effects_of_testing_on_well_being_5_16.pdf) associated with its administration.