High-Stake Multiple Choice Tests

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For years the United States and many other countries have been using high-stake multiple choice tests, which on average will miss an accumulated 35,947 answers out of a possible 57,873 (Feuer, Michael J), to determine whether or not a student understands all the basics that they are required to learn while in high school. Students, schools, and teachers are judged based on the scores received and in many cases a student’s educational future will depend on their score. Also, schools that are already considered failing will be punished with less funding which only makes the problem worse because the school no longer has the funds to properly educate their students. Test scores do not equal merit because tests—like most technologies—are imperfect, which means that some results will overstate while other results will understate the true state of a child’s learning ability or potential (Feuer, Michael J). Just like not all students learn in the same way, not all students are able to demonstrate their knowledge in the same way. For example, a student with strong oral skills may be able to demonstrate their knowledge in that way in a class room, but have a difficult time when working with written contexts and vice versa. Reasons for a student to perform better orally may vary, but a big contributor is test anxiety. Betty Caldwell, a Columbia therapist, had something very intriguing to say on the subject of test anxiety: “Studies show that test anxiety interferes with the ability of an estimated one out of three students to perform their best on tests, even though they know the material.” (CITE) This means at least 33 percent of students have the tendency to “freeze up” during a written test. Even though the student may know the information, they may suffer from an inability to demonstrate it through a written test, especially one where the stakes are high, and will not

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