Throughout our time in school, we have all taken tests, quizzes, exams, you name it; frankly, I am sick of them. As someone who was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, accommodations for extra time or taking the test in a separate room were never enough. I feel as though schools never understood what I, and many others, struggle with when sitting down to take a test. My hands start to sweat, my heart begins to race, and I try to hold back tears as my peers all hand their tests in before me. To me, it felt like every time I was handed back a test, my teachers would fold them as I saw all the red markings through the paper. When going to see teachers and professors, they always told me the same thing: get a tutor, come to me with questions, or even asked if I had accommodations. They did not understand what I needed and they still do not to this day. I always felt ashamed and stupid.
According to the Washington Post, students take about, if not more than, one hundred and twelve mandatory standardized tests from kindergarten to twelfth grade. This means students are taking about eight tests a year, and surely, this number has gone up by 2018. Why are we evaluating and determining how good our students are by giving them standardized tests and expecting them to all compete at the same level? Why do we not give all student’s other activities that they excel in to judge whether they are good enough or not?
What I am trying to get at is that I am more than a standardized test; I have much more to show and prove to myself than a test could ever do. I am enrolled in a great college, I get good grades, I made the Dean’s list and I can say that it was from much more than taking a few tests. Tests do not define my level of intelligence and they certainly do not define what I can accomplish. I have done much greater things in my life based on my character and how I communicate with others, not because I took a test about the Pythagorean Theorem.