Should Testing be an Important Part of the Grade

Carrie Egging
5-17-07

Tests have been used for many years to determine how well the information teachers are teaching is being learned. However there have been many arguments as to how well these tests actually help students learn. Paul Goodman, Howard Garner, and Diane Ravitch all have very different ideas on the usefulness of tests.

Paul Goodman believes that grading should be abolished and that tests should only be given as an entry exam for colleges. I both agree and disagree with this. I feel that it is important to take tests so that a student has a need to keep up with the school work and actually try and learn what the class offers. However, I sometimes feel like too much of the class grade is based on tests and a persons ability to take a test. I also find that it may be unfair that admission to a college be based just on a test grade. The person may be very smart but be horrible at taking tests and thus they don’t have as many opportunities as someone who is good at taking tests and might not be as smart.

Howard Gardner shares some of the same views as Goodman. He doesn’t think that testing should be such a huge part of a person’s grade. He believes that people shouldn’t be pressured by the time they have to take tests. They should be giving the full time they need to actually think through things and not be pressured into answering too fast. He also believes that a person should be able to use dictionaries or have access to the web while test taking. I believe that although supplementary tools are sometimes used in “the real world,” there are a lot of instances where a person needs to be able to know things off the top of their head. Occupations such as surgery or athletic training there may not be time to look up information in order to make a decision. I also think that time constraints are needed for the fact that people need to be able work under pressure. Depending on what a person’s occupation is, there can be very stressful and time demanding jobs where a person only has a certain amount of time to accomplish something.

Diane Ravitch has a totally different view from both Gardner and Goodman. She believes that testing is extremely important. She believes that without testing, more students would be left behind in the schooling systems. She also argues that testing shows whether a program is making a difference. I once again both agree and disagree with Ravitch. I do think that testing is important to check a student’s progress and as one form of a way to see how to grade someone for the class. However I do not think that testing should be the only thing used by teachers for grading.

Another thing that I have thought about was just the way that a person was tested. From personal experience I have found that in a multiple choice test, a person doesn’t have to learn their material as well. It is all true that if someone knows how to take a multiple choice test, they really don’t have to know too much about the material. I feel that although essay tests are more difficult, generally speaking, it gives a test taker more of an opportunity to express their selves and show that they do know at least part of the information. It also shows that a person is able to think on their feet and be able to come up with an answer from their knowledge rather than picking an answer from a group of answers. I also think that lab based items should be giving more credit. Labs are there for people to actually apply what they have learned, and if someone is able to apply what they have learned then they have to have a fairly good understanding of what they have learned.