# Straight A's in HS (ace this test) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 21, 2003, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382 "2003-06-21T06:57:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![yola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/48db29/32.png) [@yola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yola)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/1 "2003-06-21T06:57:28Z")
THese test “they” are now requiring for students, for graduating from one grade to the next in my State, ALASKA, a quick google search found this at the top of the list [http://www.wisp.k12.wi.us/families/hightest.htm](http://www.wisp.k12.wi.us/families/hightest.htm) What do you really think of that? I think its up to a great debate on tests, on our education system and for an outright fun over-ride of educational endeavors. I ask (and you can know I took the G.E.D. route, graduated from BT) are these tests bowling a gutterball? How many of us can pass this test? Are we trying to find out whose the rocket scientist? Are the colleges so full, that they don’t have the time. resources and above all , ability to admit you have to pay for a piece of paper? I’m not debating colleges here. Just tests that have no use. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/2 "2003-06-21T14:22:20Z")
I’m sorry. I don’t know what test you’re talking about. The one for WI students? Or the one for AL students? Or just tests in general? ---
**Author:** ![Philly\_Style](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/977dab/32.png) [@Philly\_Style](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philly_Style)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/3 "2003-06-21T14:55:18Z")
I actually think the whole situation is ludicrous. People are bitching that we aren’t letting little Johnny graduate just because he hasn’t mastered any skills in his four years here. Of course, people are claiming it is a racist policy. You may want to start a thread that is more descriptive of the argument in question, i.e.: Competency testing as a requirement for Graduation Why stop at HS? How many undergrads would get out of college if the same requirement were applied to them? ---
**Author:** ![aesth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8c91f0/32.png) [@aesth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesth)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/4 "2003-06-21T15:25:16Z")
I’m for it; recent reports have shownhigh school students across the country to be less than proficient in areas as basic as reading. Cite: [http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/](http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/) The issue at stake here is wether or not we should pass students who are at the bottom of the bell curve. Through the eighties (and I would say, in no small part thanks to the Regan-era economic boom and increased importance placed on success), the word fail accumulated a horribly negative connontation. Surely teachers didn’t mean that students didn’t meet the requirements to pass, and there’s no way that anyone should have to repeat a grade. Well, sometimes, that’s the best option, despite parents. Our public education system has to be effective in order to be viable, and it’s hardly effective anymore. American students lag behind the rest of the industrialized world in almost all areas of study. Something should be done about this problem before it becomes irreversible and the teachers themselves don’t really understand Shakespeare. Are graduation tests appropriate? Or even necessary? Probably not, if the grading system itself more appropriately indicated where students lie on the curve. Not everone has met the requirements to pass every grade, and not everyone should pass every grade. The objective of a school is not to pass students but to teach them. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/5 "2003-06-21T16:00:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yola \* > **How many of us can pass this test? Are we trying to find out whose the rocket scientist?** Could you please provide a link to a sample version of this test? Or at least post some of the questions from such a test? The link in your OP only talked _about_ the test, it didn’t give a clear indication of what kinds of problems the test-takers were actually going to face. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/6 "2003-06-21T17:16:11Z")
Well, going by the spelling, punctuation, and grammar in your OP, I have to say that you’re likely to be one of the folks not passing the tests in those areas. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/7 "2003-06-21T17:46:47Z")
I don’t see any problem with graduation tests. Life is full of tests, and if a student can’t pass a basic skills test, then either 1) they haven’t learned what they need to learn or 2)they need to learn how to take tests. But then again, on the news yesterday they announced that only [20%](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/21/nyregion/21REGE.html) of seniors in Long Island had passed the math section of the basic skills test. At my high school, a lot of kids struggled with the reading/writing portion of the exam since they spoke English as a second language. No, they were aren’t all Hispanic…quite a few were Asians, kids who are stereotypically perceived as being “smart”. So it isn’t always the case about “smartness” versus “dumbness”. ---
**Author:** ![Ben\_Hicks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbce88/32.png) [@Ben\_Hicks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben_Hicks)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/8 "2003-06-21T17:48:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, going by the spelling, punctuation\*\*,\*\* and grammar in your OP, I have to say that you’re likely to be one of the folks not passing the tests in those areas. extraneous comma? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/9 "2003-06-21T18:17:17Z")
Why is it some “Dopers” start a thread, post a useless link and then NEVER come back to their original posting ? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/10 "2003-06-21T18:29:50Z")
Here in Alberta, there was a requirement in the early 1980’s that all University freshmen pass a ‘writing competency’ exam, because there was a perception that they weren’t coming out of high school with appropriate skills. The test was a simple 400 word essay. It was graded primarly on the student’s ability to simply get a point across in 400 words. There was much leniency for spelling and grammar errors. If you could state a concept and talk about it coherently for 400 words, you would probably pass. Huge numbers of students failed it. I was a marker for the test for a while, and it was appalling how bad they were. We’d see plenty of stuff like this from high school grads: > [@](#): > > My subject is dogs. With dogs, and then on the daytime, sometimes you will see them with people, on the street. On my thinking with dogs, I think the people walking with them are to clean them up. But the cleaning is not done. Some people are lazy. I think the lazy people with the dogs should not have them, unless they can learn to clean them up. Etc. Nearly incoherent. Students who failed the test had to take ‘bonehead’ English. Then they had to take the test again. Two more failures, and you’re out. Well, guess what? The point came where hundreds of university students were going to be kicked out of school for failing to master basic writing skills, so… The government dropped the testing requirement. Good solution, no? ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/11 "2003-06-21T18:36:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben Hicks \* > \*\*extraneous comma? 😉 \*\* Nope, that comma was correct (at least in American written English). Comma-seperated lists should have a comma seperating _all_ the items. ---
**Author:** ![Ben\_Hicks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbce88/32.png) [@Ben\_Hicks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben_Hicks)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/12 "2003-06-21T18:41:34Z")
Oops, 🙂 Maybe it’s different in the UK 'cos I was always taught that one shouldn’t put a comma after the penultimate item on a list if the word after the comma is ‘and’. Anyway, my bad. Here endeth the hijack. ---
**Author:** ![Ben\_Hicks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbce88/32.png) [@Ben\_Hicks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben_Hicks)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/13 "2003-06-21T18:44:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, guess what? The point came where hundreds of university students were going to be kicked out of school for failing to master basic writing skills, so… The government dropped the testing requirement. Good solution, no? _My God_ that is unbelievable! Why would any Govt. place such a high premium on semi-literate Uni students? ---
**Author:** ![dal\_timgar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@dal\_timgar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dal_timgar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/14 "2003-06-21T18:57:06Z")
I don’t mind the concept of tests, in fact I think te are necessary, but I think our educational system is doing a lot of stupid nonsense with the tests. I don’t think the tests relate to reality and the schools are psychologically conditioning students to be subservient to authority. I didn’t bother trying to get A’s in English and History. History is stupid propaganda and a B in English is goo enough. I reserved the effort to get A’s for math and science. Back in the 80’s I was working for a company that installed networks. We were looking to hire another tech and interviewed two CNEs, Certified Network Engineers. Ed and I decided to test them by just giving them a 286 and the Novell software and say, “Build a server.” Neither one of them could do it. Plenty of schools are just diploma mills making money wasting kids time. Dal Timgar ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/15 "2003-06-21T19:59:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben Hicks \* > \*\*_My God_ that is unbelievable! Why would any Govt. place such a high premium on semi-literate Uni students? \*\* Because all universities have an interest in keeping students enrolled and paying tuition. I teach freshman writing, and Sam Stone is 100% correct. In an average class of 27 students, I get 2-4 who write like just that. But they don’t concern me too much. I can flunk them or give them a No Credit. Many of them will decide college isn’t for them, and that’s fine. What concerns me are the 6-10 students in each class whose writing is only one notch above that paragraph of Sam’s. Most of them are good kids who do their homework and make adequate effort; they just don’t read or write outside of school, and they’ve gotten by this far with “good behavior” Cs and Bs in high school, and they get into college and now they’re my problem. Out of 27 freshman, I’ll have a few that drop the class because of personal reasons, a few that withdraw when they get their first graded essay back, and several that are smart enough, but are too busy getting drunk or whatever to bother coming to class and doing schoolwork. That means that I have a handful of kids who are not going to pass right off the bat. So what happens to the half-dozen kids that are making an honest effort, but simply are not college-level literate? Those kids will pass, for the simple reason that I can’t flunk half of my students and expect to keep my job. And they will pass the rest of their courses for the same reason, and graduate with a 2.5. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/16 "2003-06-21T20:17:37Z")
Everyone is unique. Mass teaching of preset standards is bound to fail many students. Remember that a lot of our greatest men and women had little or no formal schooling, and some did poorly in school. Edison was kicked out of school. Einstein was told he would never learn math. Disney was labeled a dreamer. Ford had a seventh grade education. Lincoln had almost no schooling. Keller taught herself almost everything. and others. Formal schooling is no guarantee of success or intelligence. It has been proven in recent tests that home schooling produces students that score higher on college entrance exams. I couldn’t wait to get out of school so I could start learning the things that interested me. I see public education as needing an overhaul with the individual student in mind – flexibility expanded. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/17 "2003-06-21T20:21:36Z")
I’m on the fence regarding graduation tests. While I appreciate the desire to measure how well a state’s schools have carried out their charge of educating students, I’m skeptical about the role standardized exit tests should play in education, the way they’re formulated, and the messages they send to students. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/18 "2003-06-21T20:33:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lekatt \* > **Edison was kicked out of school. > Einstein was told he would never learn math. > Disney was labeled a dreamer. > Ford had a seventh grade education. > Lincoln had almost no schooling. > Keller taught herself almost everything.** So where’s your example of “thus-and-such famously successful person did really badly in school, but graduated anyway because of abyssmal testing standards”? ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/19 "2003-06-21T20:34:25Z")
The problem with standardized tests is that schools and teachers feel pressure to have their students do well on the tests, regardless of circumstances(like the school being in an area populated mostly by immigrants for whom English is a second language). So the teachers teach their students how to do well on the test(like what kind of answers the evaluators expect, and how much work to show) instead of teaching them concepts and ideas and thinking. A simple example: This year, at my high school, there were two grade 12 university-bound\* English classes in the same period. In my class, we studied _A Man For All Seasons_, _The Crucible_, _Heart of Darkness_ and _Hamlet_, in addition to some short stories and poetry. The other class only studied _Brave New World_ and _Hamlet_. Students in both classes and to study one additional work for their ISU(independant study unit). The other class spent the balance of the time doing preparation for the city-wide exam, like essay writing and finding thesis, tone, or mood. Now, which class do you think got the better education? This comparison isn’t perfect, as my class was a gifted(or advanced, if you prefer) one and the other was a normal class, so we probably did better on the exam anyway. Still, I think that it’s a good example of what happens when teachers focus more on the exam than on teaching. - Grade 12 is now the final year of high school in Ontario. University-bound is a designation; there’s workplace- and college-bound English courses as well. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382/20 "2003-06-21T20:34:30Z")
George “Dubya” Bush has a Master’s Degree and he says “subliminable” and other incomprehensible utterances. So, continuing the list lekatt sarted, go to this link for a list of some famous High School and College Dropouts. [www.4Y4.com](http://www.4Y4.com) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-as-in-hs-ace-this-test/183382.md?page=2)