Should we get rid of standardized testing? - Arlo Kempf

[@TEDEd]

We're a team full of educators, so this is a topic we care about a lot. We hope you noticed the book recommendation we included at the end of this vid. You can download an audio version of the book for free at www.audible.com/teded. Every free trial created encourages Audible to continue supporting TED-Ed's nonprofit mission. For more book recommendations from the TED-Ed team, please visit ed.ted.com/books. Thanks!

[@TheDragonfriday]

TED-Ed I always feel the test feel rig, I'm good at math but I'm having so much trouble a math problem with words in it.

[@sansamman4619]

TED-Ed 2:27 : you cut the orange in half take radius or diameter/2 and a bit of math.

[@MrMisanthrope_]

I have ADHD and an IQ in the top 3 percentiles but don't ask me about my grades.

[@salwa905]

how can i refuse something u ask ted ed

[@KarolineTheEmpath]

Why don't the creators of standardized testing remove the answers? In that way, students can write down from thinking of the top of their head onto paper without being given the answers. If the students need an explanation, then it would be nice if they put real-life​ examples or hints that can help students formulate their own answers without choosing one out of the few multiple choice questions.

[@MarenAnne66]

I don't know, I feel like we need to revise the way schooling is in general. I love learning, but I hated the way tests overshadowed everything and feeling like I failed if I got less than an A. Not to mention, if you fall behind it's really hard to catch up. I don't think standardized testing should be done away with, but I think they shouldn't be the deciding factor of whether you fail or not. Kids don't learn, they memorize and cram and cheat. Learning shouldn't be stressful.

[@cestalia]

MarenAnne66 believe it or not, in the end, that learning individual will shine the most through college. Kids that memorize or cram without understanding becomes average (since cheating won't work at your thesis exam presentation in front of your lecturer). I like learning, but test is kind a important too. I am a teacher, and most of test is just a big review of your subject. What you have learn will come out all over again. I try to make my student understand instead of "cramming" it. In the end, even if they don't study near the exam, they still get good score because they have a grasp of previous material.

[@ezzeldinmohd6740]

you guys are lucky here we have arabic tests which are basically memorize the whole book there are only a few ways to get around some of which wont always work for everyone

[@danielblack4190]

The problem with this is that to have good teaching, you need good teachers. What bad teachers do is they design easy tests that the students take and pass with flying colors, give everyone an A for no reason, and point to that and say that they succeeded (they may not even realize that they're doing this) while not teaching. Good teachers, on the other hand, may teach students really well, but that almost always makes their classes harder, which lowers the students' grades. Additionally, it's really hard to motivate the administrators to design systems that teach students well because they have the same problem that teachers have. They get rewarded for good grades and punished for bad ones. Fundamentally, to fix this, we need to have a bunch of powerful people get together and decide on some system of ranking teachers so that the bad ones can be weeded out. However, this is really hard to implement. Whenever people introduce some kind of selectivity, there will always be others that will claim that it discriminates based on something. Sometimes these claims are true (this is when the process needs to be revised). Sometimes they are shouting big words into the air, knowing that people will pay attention even without fact-checking. However, this is even more pronounced in education, where teachers' unions run the whole thing. Additionally, (good) colleges and private schools are constantly on the lookout for good teachers, and they are, in fact, capable of weeding out the good from the bad, offering more money than school systems possibly could, which leaves the bad ones for the schools. What is really necessary is for schools to start implementing these systems themselves. However, as soon as they do that, they will be left with no teachers and endless amounts of bad press. To actually get the good teachers, the schools will need to start offering more money, so that they can get the people that would otherwise have become college professors (this is why private schools are usually so much better than public schools, because they can offer more money to the teachers and get the better ones). However, throwing more money at the school system isn't a solution. We need to have a good way to get good teachers and pay them well, and a good way to get rid of bad teachers. This is incredibly difficult. However, right now, I think that we aren't even trying (mainly because the teachers' unions are blocking it because this would lead to a lot of teachers being fired, which is obviously unpopular). What we really need is a wealthy donor willing to offer more money to legislators for implementing these tactics than the unions could, which would be a lot of money for an unpopular thing. In the end, I don't think it's going to happen. The politics makes it nearly impossible.

[@sp4c1ng_0ut8]

@Angel S We have this thing called the answer sheet. Besides that a lot of tests are online and I can literally problems and get the answer. also there are more ways to cheat than just answer sheets. Copying is one. the point this person was trying to make was not about "Responsibility", its about stressful situations producing kids that are good at cheating the system.

[@Alien42x]

.

[@Flanders7880]

One of the main problems with tests, is the narrow time limit, especially ones which require a lot of writing such an a History exam. It turns into a race to jot down as much as you can on a pre-practised script, rather than show much deep knowledge on a subject. I remember in my English exam in school (literature and films) we had to write 4 essays in 3 hours. So what we were taught to do was have a pre-memorised essay, that we could twist around a little bit to suit the essay question that was asked. It was entirely based on blasting out a bunch of pages in as short a time as possible, which surely isn't what tests should be about.

[@soyoltoi]

Memorizing an entire essay before an English exam sounds like the most useless thing you can do to demonstrate your knowledge in English. I think time limits can be a useful way to measure skills that genuinely require speed, but I don't think it's very useful for something like the test that you took.

[@soyoltoi]

Altai Yildirim Not always the case. If you are doing research, having deeper knowledge and insight would be more useful than reciting something as fast as possible. Of course the test can't take forever, but I don't think it should be so short that a large number of students don't finish.

[@Flanders7880]

Yep, a test with a strict time limit is often unintentionally testing for very different qualities in a student than one which has a generous time limit.

[@cestalia]

If you're doing IELTS, it's helped a lot actually. You need to do 2 essay in 45 minutes with different topic.

[@twistedsinging2952]

I'm not sure the people who've responded with things like "testing for very different qualities" understand the point being made. Who cares whether the examiners want to know whether you can think fast? That's not the result we get. The result given at the end is a mere letter, lacking all context and reasoning to back it up. You don't even get proof that you deserve the letter. Heck, I got a B and an F for English, and if life wishes to be logical I surely can't have both. No-one cares for the details they're completely unwilling to provide, and no-one seems to know whether they exist to start with. If you miss a question the effect is just as strong as if you get a question wrong. You could, say, misread a question ever so slightly in your rush to do it swiftly, and only get the answer just that slight bit wrong.. But you'll never reread it. Haha. Never. You'll never even get the chance to know *what* you got wrong so you can realise and improve on it. The kind of test the original comment is talking about isn't some specialised one to obtain a special goal, like a right to be interviewed for a job or a right to enter a certain university.. The kind of test they're talking about is the kind that ranks you as if you're naught but a slab of meat for the feasting; the kind which cares how pristine and clean and fattening you are; the kind which is - as far as the tin states - the quality of your knowledge of the subject. That's it. A single letter is it. "One letter to rule them all!", because it's certainly not a ring - what goes around comes around doesn't seem to play into the test designer's laps, after all -. ..Oh, and need I mention that the original commenter seemed to be British? Good luck finding scores relevant to everyone else's here; here the tests change yearly - the difficulty included! - and the results churned out are still mere numerical percentages averaged into categories known as "Grades". (Note: I've always wanted a risky job so it doesn't actually make a difference to me.. Making this comment is a bit more like a hobby, right? A side little thing? Ranting about life, remarking about goings on, filling up that social need.. Sure, it's not like I'll get a response, but I *like* typing (and writing!), even if it wasn't something I ever quite did in school for more than a lesson a pinch (most IT lessons avoided the keyboard entirely).)

[@savitridevi9632]

*Job Interview* employer: I see you did well in school, what are your REAL-LIFE skills? Me: TESTS. I can take tests.

[@savitridevi9632]

Fernanda Huscher LoL 😂

[@meriem9726]

So true!

[@vincent111]

BRUH reality

[@argamato]

Me too. And i get very high score

[@gz6746]

U learn time management, group cooperation, and many other

[@user-eh5wo8re3d]

ted-ed is simply one of the best channels on KZbin. The animations are always so nice, and the topics are well presented. Channels like this are the reason KZbin is such a nice platform.

[@opalstudies432]

Mimir Fonten yes !

[@shtefozoid1384]

Mimir Fonten Then, you have the other part of youtube...

[@user-eh5wo8re3d]

i would say quite a few other sides :D some of them quite disturbing too

[@alvindzaki6085]

Sorry for necro posting; I couldn't agree more!

[@delta5-126]

Yes and they deserve the subscribers because it’s informative and it’s entertaining at the same time

[@lifemythanimations6606]

Mark twain once said "Children do bad on standardized, because they don't have standardized minds"

[@saturn2855]

🔥 🔥 🔥

[@9738386903]

they had standardized tests back in Mark Twain's time?

[@nolanwestrich2602]

The only question is, did that Mark Twain quote come from Mark Twain?

[@senatorpoopypants7182]

No he didn't

[@shmepdoesthings4856]

Bruh moment

[@fornax4676]

School made me forget how much I loved to learn for a very long time. I aim to change that for myself but it needs to be addressed in schools today.

[@abhi-wi2mj]

I know right.... that's the worst part. Schools discourage curiosity and diving deep into subjects. It takes all the fun out of the process tbh

[@gibbishgiggles]

​@@abhi-wi2mj THIS!

[@MrRobotman]

"Children cheat on tests because the system values grades higher than the children value learning." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

[@colemair5367]

I don't really think any kid cares about learning. Rather miss around and not be obligated to do anything.

[@purplebooty5683]

As a highschool student ik can say, yea that is how most of us go about things

[@nolanwestrich2602]

@@colemair5367 Kids would care about learning if schools let them. Instead, "learning" is stressful, so kids want nothing to do with it.

[@timothyzhou5704]

Too true

[@miguelacero1814]

@@colemair5367 There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland apart from one exam at the end of students' senior year in high school, and yet they score higher than the united states in tests.

[@gingercat4286]

a few years ago, I got a thing called a cataract in my eyes which made me blind. at the same time, our school, as well as all the other schools, were doing standardized testing. my parents explained to the teachers that I was blind and was going to have surgery and asked if I could take the test at a later date. they said no and made me take the test anyway. the test was a reading test, but they didn't allow the teacher to read it to me. I ended up failing the test and I had to take an extra class to "help me be better in reading". the next year I scored above average and now have a passion for writing. this just shows you how little standardized testing shows the ability of a child.

[@Placjgfffffc]

Couldn't be more correct

[@laurasimpson7444]

@@Placjgfffffc Could not be more wrong. The test was perfectly accurate in showing blind people can not read. The point you missed is that the school has either teachers or administrators who are complete idiots. Further; the 73 likes of that comment show that idiocy is wide spread.

[@zemidamebris8845]

* remembers a certain math task i couldnt solve because i had no clue about football * yeah it can be bs

[@TheLawOverwatch]

Couldn't you just ask a supervisor to explain the element your missing?

[@momeifang1931]

I once had a math test that asked for the best unit of measurement for a lorry. I thought lorry was a small bird, turns out to be a truck.

[@LilChuunosuke]

In my freshman year of high school, we did one of those fake standardized tests in class the ones they give you to prep for the actual test and I got a question wrong because I didn't know conventional ovens fluctuated in the desired heat range instead of sitting at the exact temperature it was set to. Like, so I can understand everything in the equation completely, but if I don't know the mechanical workings of an oven at age 13, I could fail the question?

[@abdulsalamoladimeji9568]

depends on the teacher *SLAPS HAND ON FOREHEAD*

[@nusaibahhussain9975]

Or because I didn't have a clue about how many spades are in a deck of cards

[@ThanksHermione]

I'd like standardized tests more if they gave us enough time to finish them.

[@emilyharkness9685]

Right?!

[@Idkwhatimdoing_]

It’s sucks because we have to write timed essays and I’m like how am I supposed to construct a compelling and creative essay if there’s a ticking time bomb right above my head life tf???

[@vikashegde3212]

Also there are too many subjects.In my country there is 6 subjects for degree....😐

[@d4nkx549]

@@Idkwhatimdoing_ That's the point of tests. It tests how well you perform under pressure.

[@Idkwhatimdoing_]

@@d4nkx549 thinking under pressure is a mentality that should be taught separately. einstein didn’t construct his theories under 50 min. it took time and a deep understanding and appreciation of the science. the primary purpose in academics shouldn’t be “the time it takes to solve this problem” it should be “the creativity and innovation involved in the solution to the problem” with the additional capability in thinking fast under pressure. performing under pressure is convenient, but it’s nothing compared to a deep understanding/knowledge in the subject. it should be treated as a tool, and a “tool is only as good as it’s user”. god that was cringe af lol.

[@donnierussellii4659]

Kids aren't widgets running down a quality control assembly line. But they also can't be crafted individually to their strengths. There is, as always, a midpoint that we have to agree upon and make work.

[@genroynoisis6980]

It takes an impossible amount of work to do that, and it would be very good, yes, but it takes too much work on the teachers' part.

[@user-zo3wy4we3t]

A new system oh boy! Roll out the idea train choo choo. - fun solutions

[@muhammadharisaamir3952]

@@genroynoisis6980 That can work but teachers salary are not upto that point. If teachers salaries are increased dramatically, then teachers can focus on students a lot better as they'll face minimum financial problems.

[@amazinggrapes3045]

They could very easily be crafted individually to their strengths if people wouldn't have kids expecting everyone else to do all the work

[@chubbyBunny94]

Managed to make it through university. As someone who really struggles under exam conditions, the demoralization and the 'shame' of not doing well have really eaten at my self-esteem. But I'm on my way up regardless of what exam scores tell me.

[@senkuu433]

Same, hopefully i can get up and just be in a position to change the system

[@The-Blue-Knight]

Read 3 short stories and answer 60 questions in under 30 minutes. seems legit

[@The-Blue-Knight]

oh and this one: write a 5 paragraph essay in under 20 minutes. love that one too

[@The-Blue-Knight]

or the 100 math questions in under 30 minutes. I can go on all day about standardized bs

[@davidmarocik7506]

TheBlueKnight If you're testing the speed of someone's ability, it's a good test. You're pointing out shortcomings with your particular test, not standardized tests in general

[@themango494]

These arent memorize and vomit tests tho these are do you understand the content and have u been listening in class tests

[@cestalia]

If you can't do that, you will fail IELTS test bruh. It's long, the words advance and each question has different part.

[@allisonbilbey1948]

I love I’m watching this the day before an SAT. My GPA has always been fairly good, grades good, my attendance good, I’m very involved in after school activities like a sport and clubs, community service, and I even have a job. Yet my SAT score has always stressed me out cause it’s never been that good. There’s two reason why is one; I hate being timed when I’m given lengthy questions, and I would study more I just don’t have the time. Plus because of how it’s set up I get angry at studying for the SAT when I do have the time cause I just don’t want to deal with it. I hate how, as a senior, I have to stress so much over a set of numbers for getting into a school that will help my career.

[@pablohernandez6125]

Did you manage to get into the school you wanted to ?

[@allisonbilbey1948]

@@pablohernandez6125 I did actually! I’m currently attending and it’s been great.

[@stormy9284]

@@allisonbilbey1948 nice

[@zwerrell]

Welcome to this thing called “life” lol

[@Zach-xm5wc]

At least here in America, yes we should. The fact that the SAT's can have the potential to make or break you in deciding your undergraduate career is ridiculous. Merit should be measured on areas that measures the students' understanding of the subject such as AP scores, their discipline in studies as reflected by GPA, and their outside interests by their varying extracurricular activities.

[@shoelessb4515]

This statement assumes everyone speaks the same language and has been taught the same curriculum ( which is not the case). In addition, assuming everyone is going to college is just plain stupidity on the part of these great "educators".

[@mejhdhhicbfshihids652]

That’s an argument against the way the us uses standardized tests not standardized tests in general

[@zadeh79]

Very well said.

[@alishamastakar9870]

I mean, technically AP tests are standardized tests as well. Also, at the moment schools across the country measure GPA in different ways. My school doesn’t have weighted grades, so I may have a lower GPA than someone taking the same classes and getting the same grades at a school that weighs grades. I do agree that colleges should look at other things besides SAT scores, but these are some things to consider

[@madamemaxie881]

Bro, AP Exams don't often contribute to everyone's success. In fact, I recall an entire AP Chemistry class failing their exam with only one person passing. In addition, GPA reflects neither discipline nor intelligence; it's almost systematic the ways in which students work their way around GPA to attain a high one.

[@eiramesorina]

I'm 2 years late on this topic but I would want to express my thoughts. I want the school exams to be a measure of what you have learned in a period of time and not a measure of how smart you are and what is your rank against your classmates. Makes me remember how I was back in highschool. I had always been good at test and my goal was to ace every single one of them because failing was humiliating and having good grades get you awards and praise from your parents. So I'd rather be alone and study all the time. I'd rather stay at home than socialize & go to parties because I didn't want to be like my peers who often fail on their exams. When I got to college, i started to realize my highschool life taught me the wrong thing. In highschool, exam scores held the highest percentage of your overall grade. As long as you ace them, you'll be part of the honor roll. In college, you should be more active in participating to earn high grades. Recitation, reporting, joining clubs, & extra curricular activities. I wasn't that person and they made me anxious. I struggled on my grades. These stress of fitting in, wanting to be an ace student, anxiety from too much interaction weighed heavy on me and affected my performance. I wish my grade school and high school didn't focused on these examinations and scores so that I would actually absorb what was taught and not just memorize them for grades. Exams didn't really taught me how it is in the real world. You don't really need to remember all info in the subject to get a good job. They made be hate school at a time. One annoying fact is that your peers who didn't actually took school that seriously have a better life after school than you who dedicated so much to be a top student. I don't completely blame education, teachers, institution however the education department and school officials should modify our learning system. Anyway, I also hope someday exams will not be a factor for universities to accept students. I think it's discrimination to decline student's enrollment just because they are unable to pass a test.

[@ThePotatoSapien]

Yeah! Standardized tests shouldn't pit students against each other by comparing scores, they should measure a student's current score against their past scores to see how much they've grown.

[@Quantum_Beyblados]

Just you must have studied the right way. You can have a balance between study(or work) and social life. There's enough time for everything if you do it the right way and with maximum efficency.

[@goutamboppana961]

yeah the policy makers should definetely notice this

[@lifeofayishat.y]

i completely agree!!!

[@CONEHEADDK]

"What you have learned" doesn't mean zhit - your IQ does...

[@chaeriplease]

TL;DW: No, but we should design them in a more flexible and efficient way.

[@tabzoo7819]

Anthony Gemayel yup u r sooooooo right

[@haZedxClanz]

You genuinely consider 5 minutes and 41 seconds too long?

[@chaeriplease]

*lil den* wasn't talking about myself (how else would i know what the video was saying). it's kind of a summary for those who thought it was "tldw"

[@josephfox9221]

No we need to make people.simpler so the tests work

[@cnordbakk]

if that was too long for your attention span; you failed the test. Shut up

[@isabellasopo3555]

I feel like most tests should be open book. Since it’s not like in real life your boss is going to hand you some tax filings and tell you to file them out from memory without any help

[@CONEHEADDK]

Wrong

[@GoldGamer-pl8yt]

@@CONEHEADDK tu

[@CONEHEADDK]

@@GoldGamer-pl8yt ?

[@staringcorgi6475]

Open book tests wouldn’t punish kids who skip or are absent alot

[@slayer2608]

Open book and application based where the information from the book is used to answer an understanding question rather than a memeoriastion question

[@64standardtrickyness]

I think we should stop asking the question can we do away with standardized testing or testing in general but rather should we get rid of the for profit standardized testing that can make it's testing format with little accountability and is allowed to sell expensive courses designed specifically to teach to that test

[@64standardtrickyness]

Answer keys get your answer keys can't get into college without an answer key sorry thats suppose to be SAT prep books

[@twistedsinging2952]

Ah, how I loved this one course they 'adopted'(for a couple ten-thousand pounds) in my Maths class in Highschool. Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and even *logic holes* were all glossed over due to how much money they wasted on it since they'd been convinced it was good. No idea who was responsible for the mistake of picking it but I'm glad it was my final year and I already knew what I was doing. The "for profit" standardised testing horde is amazing!

[@baileyscarlett2964]

That’s facts. The biggest testing organization in the USA is technically a nonprofit but pulls in $1B annually anyway

[@kinoshitamairu2512]

P

[@omnitroph1501]

Ah yes... the college board... if I could burn down one institution in the entire country, it would be the college board.

[@Garling18]

One change that should be made when it comes standardized testing in schools is advanced exemptions. This will make it to where those in Honors, Pre-AP, or AP courses are exempt from a standardized test because they’ve demonstrated an even higher knowledge on a subject than the minimum allowing for a class to stay on course instead of having to set time aside for an unnecessary test.

[@guadalupereyes3079]

Yea that could be interesting

[@studypurposes4658]

hmm idk if this is college or highschool education (im not rlly familiar with your system of AP classes and all but im guessing this is highschool) wouldn't it create more hierarchy and division between students? like "oh they're in the AP class, lucky for them." it's still catering to the academically-inclined students, and even creates more pressure. its almost as if tests are treated as punishments for the other classes. but feel free to correct me if im wrong

[@danielblack4190]

It's so refreshing to see a video that actually explains this topic instead of politicizing it

[@Mooncak]

Standardize tests only work to a certain extent.

[@jennyoyster5054]

LonelyLifi Agree, lol!

[@omnitroph1501]

An extent which depends upon how well the test is designed.

[@TheSaltyLibrarian]

When I was in college, I was tutoring a younger student in Russian who was in danger of flunking out of her class. She seemed to be doing well whenever we reviewed stuff, but I could tell that whenever we met up she was nervous around me, especially when I had to look over her tests and ask her about the mistakes she made. She seemed to have really crippling anxiety about looking over her mistakes, which she probably perceived as signs of her failings. Her professor also told me that in class, she would freeze up when called on to fill out the end of a question. One day, I decided to bring in someone who lived on my hall who was a fluent Russian speaker and have them talk to each other. I recorded their conversation without telling her. It was like night and day. She moved through the conversation easily, even when she had to stop and explain that she didn't know that word. When I went back and listened to the recording, I found that she would consistently repeat the last few words spoken to her and use them to rephrase something into a new topic. She was learning in the most natural way possible, the same way a baby learns a language, and she could carry a simple conversation on a variety of topics for twenty minutes. I tried to tell the professor that she wouldn't be able to advance if she were given the same tests as everyone else because she had test anxiety and, more specifically, she was most linguistically competent at completing novel phrases inspired by minimal input, rather than being asked to complete phrases with definite answers. If she had progressed in that class, or maybe skipped to intermediate with some additional vocab studies, she might've become fluent in record time. The professor said everyone had to take the same tests so that the whole class be on the 'same level of competency.' She ended up failing out.

[@nathanholmes-king3827]

When I started university as a STEM major, I got to skip the first 2 semesters of math due to my AP Calculus test scores. I took Linear Algebra as the first math course at university ... and failed miserably, even though I was able to do all the assignments, most of which were open-book. That's because Linear Algebra was the first math course in which I couldn't get by just by memorizing formulas and algorithms; I also had to know when and how to apply those algorithms. In my professor's words, it was the first "real math" course.

[@Alzeric]

Getting completely rid of standardized tests is not the answer. Asking the questions in a clear way would go a long way to help. We could also offer alternative methods to help those who struggle with that format. If we completely take away standardized tests, then you start to punish those who excel at them and just put us in a reversed issue.

[@NathanGatten]

shadowstep7211 Excelling at tests doesn't necessarily mean you learned anything, though I admit this problem goes beyond standardized test scores

[@Alzeric]

Nathan Gatten There are going to be skewed ideas about whether you actually learned anything or not, from the scores. For me, I excelled at tests and still show that I retained much of the information to this day. So I am proof that those scores have some ability to show understanding. There are those that do cram sessions to get through a test and don't retain as much though. That is why I brought up alternate methods for those who don't comprehend something as easily, or for subjects that don't apply to the basic format so cleanly. I know a huge issue we have here in the United States is that parents are not as involved as they once were with schooling in general (not saying there is no involvement at all though). Many of my classmates who never did well were those who disrespected the teacher and did not care about learning anything. There is a lot more under the surface than just standardized tests, and I feel that those who attempt to put the entire burden of it on them are not looking at the bigger picture. Btw, I was just furthering onto my point some more. I see your agreement in the problem going beyond test scores.

[@baotran9572]

shadowstep7211 I agree with you. Getting rid of standardized test altogether is certainly a bad idea. More ways for people to prove their competent is certainly much better, but the ways toward that would almost certainly demand essay and/or other creativity-based projects that require even more people to grade/judge them. What other ways would you propose to do so? I'm not dissing on you if you feel like I am.

[@Alzeric]

Nirheim There are a lot of different ideas throughout the comment section so far, but if I had to pick one that would be helpful it would definitely be a verbal option for those that show clear signs of struggle with comprehending the written portions of some sections. I know it's hard because then you could end up with people helping with certain tones to hint to the student, but having neutral setups would help somewhat there. No matter what we choose to do though, it will have to be a slow implementation. I know it's not the most creative idea and I hope that people keep looking for more ways to improve on the system overall.

[@jascvideorambles3369]

Certainly we need standardized tests, and they certainly need to be well designed. And for that, the first thing that needs to be done is establish what exactly are we trying to measure and make sure that other factors don't screw the results.

[@jon87386]

We do need them to see just how badly the public school system is failing :P

[@vegetables1593]

They're the reason public school is failing

[@omnitroph1501]

@@vegetables1593 Not the only reason. But yes, one of them.

[@eliontodi8929]

Yeah,we need them to realize how bad the system is.The points that ate mentioned i see in my high school(its true)!!!

[@jelenavlogs4322]

Dear Ted Ed creators, I absolutely love ted Ed. Thank you for all the amazing work and being yourselves. I would love to listen to your suggested book “the end of average by Todd rose” but the audible version is not available in UK unfortunately. Is there another way to get an audible copy of it?

[@PortfolioAutomotive]

I was fortunate enough to be able to go to private school for one year so I could take algebra... the reason I had to go was because due to standardized testing I was not "smart enough" to get into algebra in 8th grade per public school standards. I feel my career has proved otherwise.

[@PortfolioAutomotive]

Engineer

[@AXLEGREASEframeset]

That's PREPOSTEROUS! Stop engineering and bang your head against rocks like that standardized test told you to!

[@angelmonroy3012]

You get to choose to do it?

[@LilChuunosuke]

I saw a video of a professor with multiple educational and challenging degrees, including a masters degree, take a standardized test (I believe it was for kids around age 15) and absolutely flunked it. Some of the smartest people out there can easily flunk the horrible standardized tests given to children nowadays.

[@aychtooo3981]

I'm in 8th and have trouble in math because I am bad at long multiplication without a calculator, but I still read AP computer science books

[@illumi._.]

If you don't "remember" this or fill out these A B C D bubbles in the right order You're gonna be living on the streets Like how does that make any sense

[@TheTrueAdept]

The sad thing is, you are screwed in general if you don't graduate and a good portion of the states in the US have these tests AS part of your graduation requirement. Don't pass these tests, you don't have a HSD and thus screwed over in terms of economic opportunity.

[@Entertainium]

"Standardized tests may help to learn a little about a lot of people in a short time, but cannot tell us a lot about a single person." This is so accurate...

[@auroraborealis-hj2zo]

I'm currently studying at university, and in high school, I always messed up on the SAT reading part -- even after winning my county short story contest (and I live in a rather large district). It's mostly because I have ADHD and get distracted easily, but even my friends who were at the top of their classes struggled. It's about the time limit, not about the students' ability to be "smart" of whatever.

[@PrinceChris93]

In high school I was super invisible and bullied my teachers hardly even noticed me but today I own my own company and. plan on being a humanitarian

[@claudiag.9307]

That's amazing! What's your company's name?

[@qwertyuiop9956]

@@claudiag.9307 He doenst have a company. He was liyng.

[@dabadc]

As long as standardized testing is for-profit, it's hard to see an improvement in the education system as a whole.

[@Promare2019]

Hi, my name is Kalvin Nue and I currently live in New Jersey with my parents. I am 17 years old and currently in 11th grade. I have problems talking when using long sentences or giving speeches, so I’ll just express myself in text form. I am actually tearing up while typing this. I just had my SAT on May 8, 2021, and the score that I got back was an 800. I had 18/52 on the Reading section, 16/44 on the Writing & Language section, 7/20 on the Math without Calculator section, and 10/38 on the Math with Calculator section. I was expecting a score like that, but at the same time I wasn’t and I’m not proud of it. Before taking my SAT, I have online tutoring classes and would sometimes do practice tests. I would normally get scores of 1000+, but this time was very different despite what comfort and advice my peers gave to me. On the day I took my SAT, I had my first panic attack. I was just so scared and stress-filled, and it’s this moment that I realized I have anxiety problems. Even though my brain told me to man up and that I can do the SAT, my body rejected it. Since I was surrounded by other people, I was so worried that I could be the only one in the room to have the lowest score. It doesn’t help that my parents and tutor really wanted me to score with flying colors. That pressure mixed with my anxiety made me fail the SAT. After they found out about my score, they were really disappointed and upset with me. Even though my dad told me that everything is going to be okay, I was really sad that Monday evening and cried in my sleep. That situation of mine reminded me of this one episode of the Casagrandes, the spin-off series of Loud House. In the eleventh episode of the first season, titled Stress Test, the plot follows the family helping a stressed, anxiety-filled Bobby pass his BAT (big academic test). Bobby manages to pass the test when he takes the test again but when he’s in a mock-up of the Mercado, the one place he feels comfortable taking the test. Now that I got my scores, I have suffered into a deep depression. These last days, my heart keeps pumping a bit faster than usual and I’m always feeling down. Now I’m really worried about my next SAT in 12th grade, I had so much potential. I am indeed jealous that some of my other peers have scores of 1000+. It’s times like this where I question if I am actually happy with my life. I know all the life lessons where “Hard work always pays off.”, etc, but I keep always thinking about whether life hates me. I don’t hate school, I really do love school. I don’t want to be a dropout, I don’t want to fail, I want to graduate high school, I want to go to college and graduate, I want to make my parents proud, but I wish I was much more successful. I’m ashamed to say that I keep daydreaming about me being more smarter and successful. Where I get straight As in every class and would graduate at a young age, but that’s just my fantasy. I don't know what's wrong with me, I really need help.

[@berserkenjoyerfromasia]

Hope your doing well in life now..

[@furrtakuXD]

personally i think standardized testing is usable method to determine a persons baseline knowledge and make necessary alterations to their education based on careful review of the answers given. post test reviews and pretest study guides are the most valuable resources when trying to determine what information is important. it is also important to inform the students of the question types they should expect on upcoming exams as this information helps guide study.

[@furrtakuXD]

though perhaps it would be better to test on a more common sense or conceptual basis rather than going into high detail, as this would better indicate whether or not they actually have an understanding of their work

[@ContinualImprovement]

Standardised tests do have their value but a more complete and inclusive test is required. One that measures as many skills as possible and creates an average grade based on these skills.

[@heatherjay8802]

As a teacher of 39 years I’ve always been of the opinion that standardised tests are ONLY useful IF - you have standardised students, with standardised abilities, from standardised backgrounds - OH, AND - having a standardised day!

[@emmytweetie2177]

In my school we are not just given grades just over a big test, but what we do a test we do every week and then they take the average, and we also do a big test in the middle of the year, giving us the overall results and the average can make the grade higher or lower. It's a new thing that we barely just started.

[@TANYA-ou7ww]

The topic is great and you realy made me thinking. It's cool that the visual representation is so enjoyable as well!

[@smorch9322]

Standardized testing for children, meaning teens and younger, seems a little strange to me. Aren’t their brains still developing? Isn’t it difficult to accurately measure intelligence if a person’s brain isn’t finished growing yet?

[@TheTrueAdept]

Because it is a measuring tool, and due to how the US is, we have to go with science because we can't change the people.

[@d4nkx549]

Brain stops growing around 25 and then it declines.

[@amazinggrapes3045]

​@@d4nkx549The human brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex, does not reach "full maturity" or "full development" at any particular age (e.g. 16, 18, 21, 25, 30). Changes in structure and myelination of gray matter are recorded to continue with relative consistency all throughout life including until death. Different mental abilities peak earlier or later in life.[795] The myth is believed to have originated from Jay Giedd's work on the adolescent brain funded by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy,[796] though it has also been popularized by Laurence Steinberg in his work with adolescent criminal reform who has considered ages 10-25 to constitute cognitive adolescence, despite denying any connection to the notion of the brain maturing at '25'.[797]

[@YokoshimaSTAR]

Intro quote... thank you. I relate so much.

[@rosebud_.1573]

im ten in year 6 i love listenig ted ed 😍😍😍

[@eskilforsberg3544]

1:28 Sweden is on the list :') . Sweden is never on the list, always forgotten, we're the middle child of the world.

[@theranger8668]

My Finnish friend disagrees with you

[@appleslover]

I wish if that was my only problem.. *cries in syrian*

[@angelyeas]

The problem is that in our school system, kids are not encouraged to learn for the sake of exploration and innovation. They are only encouraged to stuff as much knowledge into their brains in a tiny span of time in order to regurgitate them during test taking. It's more of a game memorization instead of an understanding of the subject matter. This is why as soon as we get back from breaks and summer vacation, all of the learned content is immediately forgotten. That and the fact that standardized tests completely ignore the more psychological nuances from person to person and treats testers as machines. Those that are more neurotic and anxious have a hard time.

[@patrickwheeler6362]

The circumference of a circle always equals the product of pie (approximately 3.14) and the diameter. To measure the circumference of a fruit with a measuring ruled, first cut the fruit in half, then use the ruler to measure the diameter, then multiply the diameter by pie.

[@ericshuler6300]

anxiety, literacy, cultural background ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PART!!! being able to manage those things in what makes you successful in real life!! the information on the test is almost never used in real life but the process of taking the test is. The relatively meaningless information on a 5th grade history test is not important. but the life skill associated with preparing for an important moment, along with managing your stress, being able to adapt to different writing styles, and assimilating to the new culture of a work place are VERY IMPORTANT life long skills

[@darksoals]

I’ve always hated tests, you know, the ones one a piece of paper with either multiple choice questions or long answer questions. This is because a test doesn’t measure how well you understand the subject, but how well you understand the test and what’s being asked in that specific test, in that specific instance. For example if everyone watches a movie and then takes a test on what they saw, the majority would probably be able to understand the basic plot and characters, but tests assume you’d know that, so instead you get asked a question like: what was the color of the walls in scene 1? To challenge your understanding of what you saw, even though you are usually unprepared to focus on those kinds of areas, because you were looking at the bigger pieces. The best test experience I ever had was a one in one conversation with my first aid teacher, in which I was tasked to re-teach him what he had taught me. That was the test, retelling the teacher how to handle circumstances and proper first aid procedures. Btw I took a film study course in university and that question was a legitimate example that I have experienced in a test.

[@thetntsheep4075]

A test should measure how well someone has learned without changing the focus of the learning to be preparing for the test. This is a very difficult problem to solve. Currently doing my GCSEs, I can look back and see how much time we were spending learning how to answer exam questions instead of learning new content. Half or more of every lesson was spent on practising answering questions, and in many subjects we spent whole weeks on how to play the "exam game". Don't even start me on English, which for us, at least, was pretty much 90% exam technique and learning the requirements for each essay question. For certain topics, we simple memorised answers which we would copy down in the rest itself.

[@anonymousbeing5510]

We can measure the circumference of an orange by a ruler by drawing a line along the circumference using a mareker. Then usin a ruler mark a small line every 1 mm along the circumference. Then count the total number of small lines. Multiply the number of divisions with 1 mm . And we'll get the circumference in milimeters which can be converted in centimetres.

[@helpfulhelper6854]

You can measure the circumference by using the ruler to measure the radius and they multiply it by 2 pi.

[@josephcowan6779]

the surface of the sphere curves away from the ruler, so you can't measure the true length of the radius. it would be longer than what the ruler reads when laid tangent to it. It would be more than close enough for a piece of fruit. But suppose the sphere were larger, that discrepancy would be a real problem.

[@atnandy]

Very well put video. I really hope people begin to understand this about tests. The idea of testing is not wrong, it is the way we do it.

[@fabihasaddat2719]

why are the heads sooo small?

[@claudekingstan4084]

This video is made for someone like me. A doctor with dyslexia without test accommodations. I was not diagnosed until after medical school and have struggled my entire life academically. Accommodations were refused by the NBME (National Board of Medical Examinee) because they concluded that someone with the most severe dyslexia could not have finished high school, let alone medical school without help. Because I had, they called me a liar. I also have a degree in studio arts. I am a chef and I am an aspiring surgeon with surgical experience is general surgery, orthopedic, and plastic surgery.

[@by.turquoiseblue]

As a high school senior, that's a definite "yes" from me! I second the motion, all in favor say yay

[@sergioforbes2567]

Lipika Kaul yay

[@panav2717]

yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay

[@therandomguy4292]

Yay Yay Yay Yay!!!

[@snowballeclipse4991]

yay

[@dangernoodle8376]

Yay

[@mackenzie.l-b8528]

As someone who is in exam week right now I can definitely say that I would like the system to change. 3 hour exams, sometimes 2 in one day is exhausting and I cannot concentrate for that long, after the 1st hour my mind just wanders too much. Trying to study for every subject as well, some of my subjects have 3 topics within them as well is a lot of effort. I would much prefer that the exams for a topic were just after learning that topic. Then I would remember the information much better and wouldn't be so stressed out having to learn so much in so little time.

[@CS-qy4qy]

*When women do better on standardized tests people say they are smart, and that is why they did better on the test.* *When men do better on standardized tests people say the test was biased.*

[@Tazer_Lazer]

*It's like when men get good grade at class, people say because men are smart while when women get good grade at class, people accuse them of sleeping with the teacher or make their male classmate do their homework*

[@coltonlapp4193]

The animation in this video is stunning. Thank you Ted-Ed for continuously making consistent and high quality content!

[@teanashookson3638]

I love TED-Ed!!

[@suyiyu8471]

Wait,the ruler grew back magically and also cut an orange. I never knew a ruler could cut a orange , 2:22

[@maruf16khan]

I hate standardized tests

[@bipedleek241]

My school hyped up the first on when it came the grade was disappointed at how easy it was

[@p-both2070]

Maruf Khan 🍻

[@humatariq2249]

Hissane and how did you come to that conclusion? By watching videos on KZbin?

[@lavat5186]

Same

[@lavat5186]

Hissane wtf . Was that necessary 😒😒

[@ShawnBermanBass]

Testing in general is just a pain, just had a professor give me a test with 44 questions in 50 minutes, translating sentences and words Latin to English and English to Latin. Even my final for the same class is the same number of questions but in 2hrs.

[@estebanzd9434]

Oh look at Chile, we have an standardized test for when we end school, called the PSU (previously known as PAA), which is the MAIN reason an University will pick you up or not. And it's based on how much snow YOU got, not a comparison or something like that. Some people suicide for getting a low score.

[@demonjaws6869]

The singing at 2:05 reminds me of Monokuma

[@EmilyCorradino]

It should! The song that guy sings (at least sounds like) its from Danganronpa: Another episode - Ultra Despair Girls!

[@shreyajadhav5857]

Guyz there are 2 sides to every coin even though standardized tests are bad in some aspects they are also good. They are just tests to test your knowledge not determine it. They are not that serious. But instead of blaming the school system just try and study it increases your knowledge and benefits you. Even i am a student and i cosider both sides .

[@shreyajadhav5857]

Hemanth Vijaywargi Just study and get good marks for time being it doesnt determine ur knowledge

[@AXLEGREASEframeset]

If studying harder was the solution, standardized testing wouldn't be a problem.

[@cestalia]

I agree. I mean, geography isn't that important in daily live, but people will laugh at you if you don't know where is China or England.

[@CuddlyJon]

So many comments about the relevance of questions to what the test is suppose to assess. I have my own story. Before nursing school, I was required to take the ATI TEAS exam. It's used to assess how well one will do in nursing school. It gave me a scenario that required me to evaluate methods of collecting and analyzing data on chimney swifts, a group of birds that would inhabit chimneys as an adapted method of overcoming industrialization in America. I'm sure I got some questions wrong, especially when it came to the collection of measurement data on that specific bird. I'm about to graduate from nursing school now and I still have yet to apply my knowledge of birds to patients suffering from hypertension or diabetes.

[@TMNWG]

No, but seriously, why are their heads so small? It's distracting...

[@alexis4479]

Not to mention often times what we’re taught in class is nothing like the material on our test, at least not in a program like IB where our tests come from people overseas we don’t even know.

[@hoa-gloria-pham]

Standardized tests seem like the most reliable assessment tool available to us nowadays. Just think of this unlikely alternative: a college's admission officer decides which students will be admitted wholly by looking at their grades during 4 high school years. That'd be far more unfair, cos different teachers in different schools from different areas will give widely different scores to a particular performance (especially true for social science essays) Plus, I think a *single* standardized test result may not speak up everything about its owner, but *a number of* them can really say something. Accept it - bad luck or good luck cannot always happen to you, it's your efforts to improve yourself in the long term that really matter!

[@vegetables1593]

Standardized test don't teach anything but how to fill in bubbles

[@katev9988]

Standardized tests aren't there to teach you. The tests are supposed to measure what you already know.

[@josephcowan6779]

She never said the test teaches you anything. I agree, it makes admissions much more fair. Without them, schools would be incentivized to award inflated grades to everyone in order to boost their chances at college admission. The same test delivered by an outside body, such as the SAT or ACT is a much more fair way to measure a student's aptitude. It's not perfect, but at least it's STANDARD, a basic step toward fairness.

[@violetta698]

My personal opinion is that how well you score depends on how well you can figure out what the test wants from you. It's not about what you know or how well you understand it, it's about knowing what kind of questions you're gonna get and preparing for that.

[@neshploda17]

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." A similar problem to standardized testing occurs with grade inflation. Teachers are measured on how well their students do, and how well they improve as the year goes on. So teachers will consequently be more lenient in how they grade in order to inflate how well their students are. There is no incentive to flunk a student who is actually not doing well. Or to give that 4.0 student a B when they actually deserve it. Nobody likes failure, or the realization that they aren't perfect. They are hard pills to swallow, but they are necessary if the student wants to actually legitimately improve, or if we want to make a more well-rounded testing system, and have a more realistic understanding of how our students are doing.

[@Liuhuayue]

I don't know why I keep watching videos about this issue when it's been debated forever and yet nothing will change in the near future.

[@xensilverquill2064]

Not with that attitude, no.

[@annas.5894]

Finland has probably one of the finest education systems in the world. They’ve also stopped using standardized tests.

[@michaelkindt3288]

@2:05-.-The guy singing it literally sounds exactly like a vocal track used for various songs in the video game DanganRonpa: Another Episode (Ultra Despair Girls).

[@MatthewSmith-wx9wy]

2:18 How do you break a ruler using the thin part?

[@maryrv943]

I just learned this yesterday in my education assessment class!!

[@somazwolf5714]

The answer is simple *Yes.*

[@laurenc3105]

Can we just talk about this animation? My eyes have been *blessed*

[@gabrielg2395]

“Teacher bot can’t teach, but teacher bot can TEST!” -CGP Grey

[@6471917]

You are my favorite people on the internet right now

[@josephcowan6779]

I feel that students should have a basic knowledge of certain things in each subject. If students are graduating high school without basic competency in grammar, history, science, etc. then what is the point of our education system? Standardized tests show us how well our schools are actually doing at teaching the base level. But they shouldn't be a measure of how smart any one student is, since they only measure how well a person knew the information on the test. That being said, college admission tests can be somewhat effective because they are again, measuring knowledge, something relevant to going to college. It's still not claiming to be an IQ test.

[@Thespiritmusic674]

Yes we need to

[@user-zo3wy4we3t]

New debate: what are jobs and what jobs should be and for!

[@fayedeli5627]

this should be shown to teachers!

[@axeld.santacruz4659]

We need standardized test to be a tool to measure learning difficulties among students and then help them to improve the way they learn. In that way, students can achieve more easily their goals. We want equality and equity in our society, but we use standardized test just to see what people is more valuable than others. This has gone too far.

[@CONEHEADDK]

FOOOOK equity.. Do you REALLY want the lazy, mean a-whole in your group, to have the same access to the things, that all you others have gathered or made all day, while she was gaming and playing with herself?

[@nope6908]

Short answer, YES!!

[@CAT-2323]

What's the point of me going to school to worry about studying a bunch of stuff I'll never use to work at a job to make money to get this and that so they can make more money so I can raise kids to do the same? What's the point of any of this? What's the point of anything?

[@yourlordandsaviouryeesusbe2998]

Try to answer it yourself.

[@bookishwriter9460]

Exams work differently in Germany. Tests that are solely multiple choice are illegal. Instead, we get some kind of text that we first have to summarize a certain aspect from, then analyze the issue presented in it and then we have to critically answer a question, such as "will this course of action solve whatever problem is presented in the text or does it have to be tackled differently?" For all of those tasks, we need to write long texts. (Most people write about 1000 words in every exam) That way, we actually have to think and applicate information to situations that are only similar to the ones we practiced it on other than just remembering facts.

[@alualu7805]

You are lucky you live in germany i live in bangladesh and we folliw the system of india and america

[@elsali5009]

can somebody explain to me why the 70 percentile correspond to 70 percent below? where I'm from it's the opposite way round

[@satyashrayhasabnis3825]

Ted -Ed is doing a wonderful job of creating awareness about some of the highly entrenched modern misconceptions.

[@canthischannelget15subswit6]

Why can't you put two bear together They're polar

[@osmantekcan7260]

I can use a ruler to measure intensity of pressure waves and the temperature!

[@waterrain7468]

Whenever i take a test my mind is trying to chose between "the right answer" and "the answer they want to recive"

[@Ryennekelly]

I took an education license test a few days ago, and that was going through my mind the WHOLE time: what do they want to hear? Especially because the questions were situational, so there was no objectively correct answer. It was like a horrible mind game.

[@judewarner1536]

@@Ryennekelly This is the difference between standardised & situational, not a critique of tests.

[@ThomasMusings]

Very good talk; a lot there that I didn't consider and shows that there's a lot to this debate.

[@abhi-wi2mj]

2:06 actually if we know the thermal coefficient we CAN measure temperature differences

[@Junior-zf7yy]

It’s horrific here in the UK. For GCSEs and A-levels you spend two whole years revising for the exam and you get one big final exam for each subject within a month. The exams take 1-3 hours and it determines your whole grade/ your whole future. You Americans have it easier.

[@aienbalosaienbalos4186]

Imho school has a lot bigger problems that standardise tests. It is usually centred on passing the tests, and not on learning. Because tests are far from perfect, learning is inefficient. Instead school should focus on learning first, and on passing tests much less.

[@ErfanMousavi-zd7yh]

Thanks

[@sergioforbes2567]

Last time I was this early.... Jake Paul was still on Vine

[@jashithabattula5204]

that is such good explanation no one has put it in that way everyone says that standardized tests are wrong but no one said what's wrong with them