Table of Contents
Directions
Your professor is teaching a class on Education. Write a post responding to the professor’s question. In your response, you should:
- express and support your personal opinion
make a contribution to the discussion in your own words - An effective response will contain at least 100 words. You have ten minutes to write.
Class Discussion
Professor:
“Today we examine the ongoing debate about whether standardized testing fairly and accurately measures a student’s potential. Apart from the obvious challenge of cultural bias in test questions, standardized testing is often praised for its objectivity and consistency. Assuming that these tests can equally assess students from diverse backgrounds, is standardized testing still a fair and accurate way to measure a student’s potential?”
Mark: I believe standardized tests are fair because they provide an equal platform for all students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills, regardless of their school or teacher. The tests use the same questions and grading criteria, which helps remove subjective judgment. Therefore, they offer a logical and practical assessment method.
Lisa: I disagree with Mark. Standardized tests overlook individual learning styles and abilities. Many students may have talents that standardized questions can’t measure, like creativity or problem-solving. Also, tests may be unfair to students from different cultural or socio-economic backgrounds, so I think these tests don’t fully reflect a student’s potential.
Sample Answers & Evaluation
🏆 Perfect Score – The Sniper Approach (30/30)
While Lisa argues that standardized tests fail to capture diverse talents, she overlooks the fundamental mechanism by which these tests statistically predict academic success. Standardized testing, grounded in rigorous psychometric analysis, utilizes large-scale data to measure student performance reliably across populations. For example, the SAT, despite criticism, has maintained predictive validity for college performance over decades by correlating scores with first-year GPA. This statistical probability framework facilitates objective comparison and institutional decision-making. Rejecting standardized tests due to cultural biases ignores ongoing reforms aimed at increasing inclusivity, such as adaptive testing models that tailor difficulty to individual ability. Thus, standardized testing remains a vital tool enabling autonomy in educational assessment and a necessary paradigm shift from purely subjective measures to data-driven evaluation.
Teacher’s Feedback
Score: 30/30
Logic: This student identified a specific logical flaw by emphasizing the psychometric reliability of standardized tests, offering a deep understanding beyond surface arguments. The real-world example of the SAT’s long-term predictive validity makes the essay authoritative and persuasive.
Golden Vocabulary: psychometric, predictive validity, statistical probability
🏆 High Score – The Standard Approach (25/30)
I agree with Mark that standardized testing is a fair way to measure student potential because it gives every student the same test and rules. This is important because it makes the results clear and easy to compare. For example, if students in different schools take the same test, teachers and schools can understand how well they prepare their students. However, these tests do not always show all the student’s talents or learning styles, which is a problem. But overall, standardized tests provide a simple and organized way to evaluate students on a large scale, helping schools make fair decisions.
Teacher’s Feedback
Score: 25/30
Logic: The student’s essay is logically clear and grammatically correct but lacks critical depth and specific evidence. The example used is hypothetical and general, which makes the argument less convincing compared to the perfect score essay.
Golden Vocabulary: evaluate, organized