A Look Inside Students’ Views on Testing By: Rachel Arrey

Schools all over the world use standardized testing to assess the performance of their students. While they play a critical role in maintaining educational standards, students at Hillgrove claim that the assessments can also appear stressful. Standardized tests not only challenge scholars, but they also allow officials to see what their scholars learned. Test results are later used to determine the areas students need to improve on and what needs improvement in teaching strategies. This system creates high success rates in exams, reputation, rankings, and enrollment, but they also increase bias, and neglect creative thinking.

Danielle, a student attending her second year at Hillgrove High School, shares her standpoint on standardized tests. “Um, definitely, they have a very big impact. Because I'm already, like, already stressed, like, a lot during the day. It doesn't take much for me to just start, like shaking. “So, I think, it really has, like, a really, really, really huge impact on nervousness, anxiety.”  Danielle expresses how the pressure placed on students during test taking can contribute to her anxiety and decrease her ability to perform well. “There are some questions, there's some things that like, up here, that I don't remember studying. And I think, like, the time usually, the time frame, like, where we have to take it sometimes, doesn't really help, because I like to think a lot more before I approach the questions. And also, I feel like I'm really slow as well, like, not slow in the mind, but like, just like, really slow paced.” 

For many students, standardized tests are a mixture of motivation and stress. Although they push students to work harder, the fear of failure can mess with their level of focus. Trying to meet academic expectations makes it more challenging for students to show their full potential. Creating better approaches to testing can help students perform with confidence and reflect on who they are as individuals.