Gazing Into the Crystal Ball of Testing

Students today are faced with a never-ending barrage of testing: quarterlies, mid-terms, finals, PSATs, state assessments linked to core standards.  One might question when students have time for just plain old learning or recreational reading!  Two of these tests, the SAT and ACT, are in a dynamic shift, and students need to be aware of the potential changes to these instruments in the coming years – as early as 2015.  Students who are currently sophomores or younger are in for a “new era of  college admissions testing,” according to Jed Applerouth of Applerouth Tutoring Services.

The new president of the SAT was instrumental in helping to construct the Core Curriculum State Standards; he is also keenly aware that the ACT has now surpassed the SAT in popularity in the United States.  Consequently, the new SAT, being beta tested in Princeton now, will focus more on a student’s mastery of content material, including vocabulary in context (no more of those extraneous and  never-to-be-seen-again vocabulary words to memorize!), inference skills in longer reading passages, more advanced mathematics that go beyond the current eighth and ninth grade concepts, and science literacy tested in both reading passages and graphic interpretation.  In other words, the test will look more like the ACT but with some added rigor.

The ACT, not to be left out of the standardized testing horse race, is planning some changes of its own.  Rather than a shift from its content, ACT is designing a digitized version – at least for some geographic areas.  The GRE and GMAT currently use this format, and it will not be an easy jump from a paper and pencil test for high school students to make.   Certainly, some students in more affluent areas may be comfortable with manipulating data on a screen, but this is not the case everywhere or for every student.  In addition, last year’s abundance of perfect scores on the ACT will likely lead to a ramp-up in the level of difficulty.

 So, what to do with this information? 

As a parent,

·      Continue to demand the best from your schools – at every grade level

·      Provide reading material at home that varies in length, content and difficulty

·      Concern yourself with your child’s thorough understanding of material – not just leaping ahead for “honors” sake

As a student,                            

·      Read every assignment and explore additional material

·      Pick up something you wouldn’t necessarily read when you have the opportunity; in other words, practice reading!

·      Seek extra help when you need it so that you thoroughly understand concepts (that means doing the odds as well as the evens for math homework some nights!)

As families seek additional assistance for test prep, be sure to ask the provider how knowledgeable he or she is regarding these changes.  Since standardized testing is here to stay, it is important to understand the content, focus, and relative importance of these instruments.  In the end, what really matters is a student’s love of learning, a focus on understanding, and a goal to apply this knowledge in the real world.