When I was growing up I never got the sense that anyone thought test preparation was anything less than commendable. At least that was how I remembered it. I sense a change in attitude about test prep, some people seem to argue that it’s a form of cheating. Affluent parents (Tiger Mothers and Helicopter Dads too) who pay for extra test prep help are criticized for having subverted the purpose of the test. I’m inclined to think that this insane, I find it hard to find fault with anyone who wants to do as well as she can. What’s wrong with that? Yet, I’ve looked with a raised eyebrow at people who were singularly obsessed with doing well on a particular test. Was I jealous of them? They were out-competing against me.
I can’t find fault with test prep. People who do are probably hate’N.
First, do you sense this change in attitude? If so, how do you feel about it.
It’s certainly unfair that some students (or their parents) can afford better test preparation than others, but the solution to that is to make better test preparation available to everyone. I’ve never heard it described as cheating.
A lot of test prep isn’t just about learning the material on the test (though there’s plenty of that), but it’s also about teaching students how to approach the test. Good prep does give advantages to students who might be poor test takers, so I can see where there might be concern over a potential disparity.
I always thought prepping for the SATs was cheating, hiding (poorly) my being an egotistical jerk behind a sniffy attitude of “You are already supposed to know this stuff.”
My real “unfair advantage” was that my elementary school was a beta site for the company that basically invented automated test scoring. I had been taking tests with computer cards and No. 2 pencils for ten years longer than most of my contemporaries and the game held no mysteries for me. I liked taking multiple choice tests on general knowledge and saw doing it with no prep as a challenge. Plus, I was lazy and couldn’t be bothered to study, even if such a thing was available. Which it wasn’t for a couple more years.
I can’t find the article now, but I once read a history of test-prep operations which indicated that in the early years, test-prep was widely considered to be a kind of cheating. If I recall what it said correctly, some colleges would not admit students if there was an indication they’d gone to one of these newfangled test preparation academies…
I tought for a GRE prep course once. They aren’t really teaching (or reteaching) the content of the test. They’re teaching test-taking strategies. (For example, solving algebraic equations in a multiple choice test by plugging in the choices rather than actually solving the equation–stuff which, granted, you’d think a halfway intelligent test taker would have figured out already, but still, not the “content” that people were “supposed” to know already in the sense of it being what they went to school to learn.)
I cannot conceive how someone could imply that test preparation is a form of cheating. Not preparing is just being irresponsible and thats all there is to it.
Sure, some people can afford better schools or tutors. But, there is plenty of help available. I’d bet that all public schools have some form of tutoring. Websites like “Khanacademy” provide all sorts of science and math content for free.
Last but not least, life isn’t fair. Some people have to work harder than others to get ahead. That’s just the way it is.
Why is it such “weak sauce” to find it mildly ironic that a teacher for prep course for a grad-school level test would be misspelling “taught”? Do tell.
shrug Other people had sports. I had electronically-scored, multiple-choice tests, and I started taking them in first grade. And I remember the days when colleges would ding you for having used test prep. They wanted badasses.
ETA: And white kids from affluent suburbs who already knew how to play their games.
I don’t know. Ask Frylock because he remembers it, too. I assume they didn’t, really, and said it to keep some from paying a lot when others couldn’t. And that scared the kids who cared what the got on their SATs and maybe kept them from going even nuttier. It’s not like you could actually study for it, just study how to take a test.
No, there is a difference between a misspelling and a typo. I fail to see how “tought” is a typo. Sure, both are trivial matters and not worthy of scorn but considering the context in which this particular misspelling occurred, I found it mildly ironic and worthy of noting. Your opinion is also noted. Duly.
I think overly-focused “teaching to the test” cheats the students, in that rather than getting a well-rounded education and learning logical skills, how to look up information, etc. they are expected to memorize exclusively those parts which are known to come up in the test.
But test preparation isn’t cheating, nor is reading the material before the class, taking the test questions away when the teacher tells students to do so*, reading Cliff’s Notes or preparing your own version of CNs as study aids.
Standard procedure in Spain, non-standard in the US; the exams I proctored in the US were preceeded by an indication to “take the question sheets with you” but the majority of the students wouldn’t and would even be indignant when told that, you know, the teacher wants you to use them as study aids - “but it’s cheating!” “not when it’s what you’re supposed and expected to do” “it’s cheating!”
Sudden improvement in tests which does not match improvement in class. That could also be due to cheating, but you can verify which is which by asking the student a mixture of test and non-test questions: the cheater won’t know any, the preparer will know only those which come up in the test and will not be able to explain them or put them in context. “When did Columbus discover America?” “October 12, 1492” “Was that before or after Granada was conquered?” “Uhhh…”