Research Critical Analysis Essay

In the research critical analysis essay, I addressed a prevalent attitude in the education system that considers standardized tests as a predictor of academic success in which I argue about how unfair it is to only consider that factor to predict students’ success due to students’ logical skills, lack of resources and corruption in test administration and results. I support my argument by using multiple sources such as peer reviewed articles to give more credibility to my argument. I also use pathos and logos since certain texts help giving the reader a visual about my point on standardized tests.

The Questioning of English Standardized Exams

Standardized testing in the United States dates back to the 19th century. Exams are created to find out how students were doing in their classes. They are also used to assess students progress in specific curricular areas and to aid in a variety of administrative and policy decisions. Standardized testing are also used for many other things in the education system such as one of the largest determining factors in the college-admissions process, and to ensure students are meeting state or federal standards. In standardized testing,  students are required to read, understand, respond to a passage and write about it, do critical thinking which will provide sources of information demonstrating competence in sentence construction, sentence variety, and word choice demonstrating correct usage, grammar, mechanics and is considered a good predictor of success. However, standardized tests are biased against non-native speakers and their use supports the attitude that the ability to speak, write and understand Standard American English is the ultimate test of  students’ abilities. English standardized exams should not be the only factor considered for academic advancement because they do not assess students’ logical skills. They are biased against students without resources to prepare for the exams and they can lead to corrupt test administration and results.

The prevalent attitude in the education system considers standardized tests as a predictor of academic success. It is a common belief that if a student excel on the test, they will succeed in life. Therefore, standardized tests are being used to determine students’ eligibility to selective programs which is believed to help these students be closer to achieving success by being in a program where only people with high test scores are enrolled. Nathan R. Kuncel, a professor at University of Minnesota specializing in predicting validity of standardized tests and non-cognitive predictors, and Sarah A. Hezlett, also a professor at University of Minnesota, in their article, “Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students’ Success”, gives an example of a  study that was conducted on the correlation between test scores and various measures of student success.

In this graphical example, it’s showing  first-year grade point average (GPA), graduate GPA, degree attainment, qualifying or comprehensive examination scores, research productivity, research citation counts, licensing examination performance, and faculty evaluations of students. For all tests across all relevant success measures, standardized test scores are positively related to subsequent measures of student success. Those in favor of standardized testing being a good predictor of success interpret this graph as a brilliant way to motivate students with a lot of potential and a way of giving teachers important diagnostic information about what each child is learning in relation to what he has been taught and only in this way can the teacher know if the student needs intervention and remediation. My point here is that when people start seeing examples like this they will start to believe that standardized tests are a predictor of success due to the availability heuristic of it since that’s what they keep seeing. However, what they should keep in mind is the fact that correlation does not equal causation; just because it shows that success and standardized tests correlate does not mean that only standardized tests measure success since a lot of  factors should be considered.

Logical skills should also be taking into account when it comes to academic advancement with standardized English exams. Many students are immigrants from other countries and each country is different from another in the linguistic aspect. Therefore, a student from China thinks differently from a student that was born and raised in America. Chinese grammars is only slightly similar to English grammar. This means that making a student who was not born here adhere to the same rules as a student who was born here is very unfair because that student, when it comes to logics will not think like an American student and will likely be confused by the phrasing on a standardized exam. My point here is that do you think it is logical to make a student that just came here to take a standardized English test when first of all they do not speak the language and second of of all are not used to the culture?. To support my point, Valerie Strauss, an education writer at The Washington Post, similarly holds my position of how Standardized exams should not be the only factor for academic advancement, she asserts that standardized testing  “Are unavoidably biased by social-class, ethnic, regional, and other cultural differences.” (Strauss The Washington Post) In other words, Strauss is stressing that the policy makers are either not aware or are being ignorant when administering these exams because they should know that America is a melting pot and many different cultures live here which means that not every student’s logic skills is the same. Furthermore, the Right Angle, a bimonthly newspaper produced by the Açı High School students, illustrates an image about the idea behind test taking.

I found this image very interesting and in favor of my argument. The way I interpret it is that in this image not everybody is going to be able to accomplish the task he assigned because everybody is different and think differently, the fish for example cannot climb the tree. Subsequently, this reinforce my point on how standardized tests are not valid because not all students have same English skills so giving them the same rules to abide to in English tests is very unfair. Moreover, what really infuriates me is how these policy makers pretend to promote students’ freedom in making their own choice about their dialects when in fact their use of standardized tests is discriminatory. Rosina Lippi-Green, a limguist researcher, in an excerpt “The Educational System”  from her book “ English With An Accent “ argues that instructors are not fully aware of the consequences their remarks have over children but are aware of their power over children based on grammatical instructions. Lippi-Green quotes some statements made by the executive committee of the Conference on College Composition and Communication “We affirm the students’ right to their own patterns and varieties of language – the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style.” (Lippi Green 80) The most important question here is, why are you going to make these false promises to students when clearly students are not given the chance to express themselves in their own dialect. To the contrary, they are forced to take standardized English tests that has nothing to do with their culture or dialects so tell me where is the choice of using their own dialect? Therefore, it can be concluded that English standardized exams are really not taking students difficulties into consideration when it comes to pedagogical progress.

English standardized tests should not be the only component examined for educational improvement due to pecuniary differences. Many students are not raised in very wealthy backgrounds which might  limit the amount of resources they have access to. Higher income pupils have extra opportunity to take paid one on one tutoring sessions, while lower income students do not. Due to that circumstance, lower incomes students are more likely to score lower on their aptitude tests.  My point here is that English standardized exams are not valid because they don’t take many aspects of student’s lives into context. Strauss similarly holds my position of how Standardized exams should not be the only component for instructional advancement. In her article, “34 problems with standardized tests”, she argues about how standardized reading tests should not be the only component used to move students from one grade to another due to many issues that they might faced. Strauss mentions that standardized testing “ Unfairly advantage those who can afford test prep.”(Strauss The Washington Post)  This demonstrates how policy makers of the tests do not take some of the student’s life issues into account. They mostly care about enforcing their rules into students than looking at their personal problems.

Reliance on English standardized exams scores can also lead to corruption which then impacts a student’s educational life. This theory of standardized test.scores as predictors of success is so overwhelming on both students and schools. Schools that have lots of students excelling on the standardized exams are rewarded with more funding or better accommodations for their schools. Teachers with lots of passing scores get a raise or more respect. The thing here is that the raise given to teachers when their students excel these exams start to act as an external locus of control, which is when a person relies on external factors such as money to accomplish something. The teachers start to rely on these scores to get more money and positive recognition. If the students do well, that means they are excellent teachers and they are going to get rewarded monetarily. On the other hand, if the students failed, that means they are not going to get rewarded and they are not good at teaching. One result of this is corruption. Teachers are going to start changing students’ scores to passing so they could get more money which then destroy the student’s life because they are not learning from their mistake. They are being promoted or advanced to other grades when they are not even ready or meet the criteria for the next grade. To extend my observation, the Associated Press, a U.S.-based not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City, contributed to a report of “ Georgia cheating scandal: 11 teachers found guilty of racketeering “ in which “A 2011 report by two special investigators found that 178 teachers and principals at 44 schools had cheated. The 800-page report found that teachers at some Atlanta schools were erasing wrong answers and replacing them with correct ones. Better test scores on state tests resulted in performance bonuses for teachers and principals.” ( The Associated Press The Guardian). This is another point about  how English standardized testing should not be the the only factor for students academic advancement due to corruption because those teachers that are changing the test scores are damaging these students lives because they are not learning anything

Standardized tests are being used as a predictor of success and a measure of students abilities. It is believed that if a student scores high on their standardized tests, they are going to be successful and achieve great things in life. I suggest the education system to stop focusing too much on standardized tests and using it as the ultimate factor for a student to move to the next step in their academic life. They should start focusing more on what the students want to learn and use their report cards to advanced them since it is very unfair to be using only one factor to assess a student’s life due to students’ logical skills,  financial differences and corruption in test administration and results. Therefore, it can be concluded that English standardized exams should not be the single element considered for scholastic betterment.

Work Cited

Kuncel, Nathan R., and Hezlett, Sarah A. “Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students’ Success: Standardized Admissions Tests Are Valid Predictors of Many Aspects of Student Success across Academic and Applied Fields.” Science, vol. 315, no. 5815, 2007, pp. 1080–1081.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. English With an Accent : Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London ; New York :Routledge, 1997. Print.

Strauss, Valerie. 34 Problems With Standardized Tests.  The Washington Post. April 19, 2017.

The Associated Press. “Georgia cheating scandal: 11 teachers found guilty of racketeering “. The Guardian. April 1st, 2015

The Right Angle. “Why The SAT is Unfair”. The Odyssey. July 18, 2016

Cover Letter

During phase 3, I have improved on my writing skills. I now know how to write a good thesis statement. I am able to freely do research on the library database and cite sources using the MLA format. Due to researching for essays, I can now “gather, interpret, assess, and critically evaluate information and arguments from a variety of sources and points of view.” (Course Outcomes p 3) . Through the readings that we did in class and the essays we had to write, I was able to “recognize  the role of language attitudes and standards in empowering, oppressing, and hierarchizing languages and their users, and be open to communicating across different languages and cultures.”(p 3)

In my research critical analysis essay, “The Questioning of English Standardized Exams”, I addressed a prevalent attitude in the education system that considers standardized tests as a predictor of academic success in which I argue about how unfair it is to only consider that factor to predict students’ success due to students’ logical skills, lack of resources and corruption in test administration and results. I support my argument by using multiple sources such as peer reviewed articles to give more credibility to my argument. I also use pathos and logos since certain texts help giving the reader a visual about my point on standardized tests. My purpose is to persuade the education system and policymakers  to start considering other factors beside standardized tests to assess students’ success. I establish a persuasive tone for my audience of policy makers and the education system.