In Florida, grades 3-10 take the FAST test three times a year, and many other students take eocs and ap exams at the end of the year too. Whether it is for math, english, science, or history, these tests determine how they are successful in school which determines what classes you are put in, how much you have grown over the school year, and can even determine the grade you get in the class. While this test seems like it can be a good way to judge how students are performing and progressing through their classes, it actually does not work as well as people may think. 

Kids around the country spend so much time doing homework, studying, and taking tests, that it makes students extremely tired and burnt out from it all. They will spend countless hours and nights staying up studying for these tests to make sure they pass, that they end up missing out on so many important things, like socializing, working jobs, practice for sports, or taking a break. A lot of times, students become extremely sleep deprived when it comes to testing season because they are so worried about passing their tests. Among high school students, 72.7% reported insufficient sleep, with about 20% reporting sleeping fewer than 6 hours a night, according to a study done by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

All it takes is one bad day or one restless night before the test for a student to    perform poorly. In all of my experiences taking tests like these, if I am extremely tired, I usually do not perform as well as I do when I am well rested. In a lot of cases, students stay up studying before the test, so they are not getting a good sleep, which could influence their performance on the exam.  

All these tests during the school year is supposed to get the students ready for the big test at the end of the year, however most of the times when students study for tests, they end up forgetting the information they just studied to make room for the new information that will be on their upcoming test. So, at the end of the year when testing season rolls around and they must study for their standardized test, it becomes extremely difficult to because of all the work and information they have to memorize, since the brain can only memorize so much. 

Standardized tests put way too much pressure on students and are not a good way for schools to gauge how their students are doing or what grade they should end the class with. These tests often just add more stress to an already stressful student’s life and can be the cause for a student to get burnt out. 

Also, these tests do not do a good job at monitoring the students’ progress or what grade they should end the class with. Students can easily get worried or forget the information that they learned because they are stressed during the test. There are so many better ways to monitor students’ progress, like looking at how the student is performing in the class or even looking at the overall grades and averages. 

There are so many other ways that schools can test and monitor their students, that does not involve a big stressful test that can determine so much for a student’s future.