Students' Offer Their Opinions After Required ACT

by Brady Curtis

The American College Test, or the ACT, is the most used standardized test in the United States. This test is used for college admissions in the United States and is claimed to determine one's intelligence. In most cases, the juniors in each high school take it in early spring as it is a statewide and state-mandated test. Our juniors here at Potosi High School took the ACT this spring and have since gotten their scores back.

Of the juniors I spoke with, about half were happy with their scores, and the other half either thought they had done better than they did, or wish they would have done better. The consensus, however, is that most of these students do not agree with this standardized test meaning so much for your future. One student said the following: “Most of your future, when it comes to college, depends on this one single test on one single day. I do not think these scores ultimately show how smart you are because what if you were having a bad day and somebody that maybe isn’t as smart as you were having a good day?” Students can take the test as many times as they would like if they were to have a bad day on the day of the test. There is, however, a test fee of $100 to retake the test. Some may not want to retake the test because of the fee. These feelings toward this test seem to be class and even school-wide.

A senior here in Potosi who took the test about a year prior also had some similar thoughts on the test. “You are advised beforehand to just guess on questions that you either don’t understand how to do or don’t have enough time to do. Having lucky guesses compared to unlucky guesses could be a big score difference in your composite score. You can’t determine how smart somebody is when a portion of the answers are guesses.” A reason that the students may be encouraged to guess is to get the best possible score they can, but does this really determine your intelligence?

Many junior students - 12 out of 14 surveyed (about half of the whole class) - say that they would change things about the ACT if they were given the opportunity. This would include changing things like being timed, the number of problems, etc. Also of those 14 students, 10 said that they do not feel the ACT completely determines how smart somebody is. 7 of the 10 juniors wish that in the future the test will change and things will be different for future students. 1 of the 10 said this about the situation: “I would feel better knowing that when I am a parent, the test my child takes to determine their future will be better than the one we took.” Who knows, maybe in the future things will change and there will be a test that will be as powerful as the ACT that is considered to determine somebody’s intelligence a little better.

On the other hand, there are reasons why this test is given out and used with such importance. It is true that there needs to be some kind of test to evaluate all of the students on the same scale. The state obviously feels that this is the best way to determine this, and it does work for the most part. A main reason why all juniors are required to take the test is to help determine what the student is best at and possibly what career they may want to pursue. Also, not every Junior that takes this test goes to college, and this test is not only used by colleges, but also companies. The biggest factor that schools and companies use when determining candidates is how smart the candidate is. This test can somewhat help them do this. There are obvious reasons and importance for the test and everything within the test. Not everything is perfect, but in reality, somebody’s intelligence has to be measured by something and maybe a flawed system is better than no system at all.