PLN 1-2

I have recently finished reading a post titled How Much Do You Value Test Scores written by Karl Fisch regarding test scores. This post was concerning test scores and there importance. I believe that too much emphasis is put on a single test score. I believe it is important for the teacher to administrate tests so they can decipher what his/her students don't quite understand, but if a student doesn’t do their best job on one test, it can lower their grade dramatically, even if they succeed at doing very well on their homework and other class assignments. Many factors besides just not knowing the answer can affect a student’s grade. They could be overly tired and not be able to concentrate, or not have eaten breakfast which also is proven to lower concentration levels. Also, the pressure for a student to do well on a test especially something like the SAT’s is so immense that sometimes students do worse then they could really do if they didn’t feel so pressured. I have recently taken a math test and did horrible on it. I was horrified to watch my grade drop so dramatically because of one test grade. I have recently read a book called “The Overachievers” and it talks a lot about how stressful tests are on students and how maybe they aren’t always the best way to prove a students intellectual ability. Take the SAT’s for example. You are allowed to take the SAT as many times as you would like, and usually you score differently. How can that prove anything if in just a month or so you can do extremely better or worse then when you first took it? Around the world, people are taking tests everyday and whether it is a huge test, small test, good grade, or bad grade, the tests are having a major impact on the grades of the kids and where they attend school. In the classroom, kids are very stressed out about tests and that can cause some down falls during test time. I still do feel that tests are necessary to make sure the students understand the material without having to look up the answers but sometimes students are studying so much and they just forget everything they learned after they are done with the test which isn’t the purpose of administrating tests.