You sit there with sweat dripping down your face and your legs shaking under the desk. You look around at the other worried faces and think about how unprepared you are for this test. Time moves in slow motion as the proctor gives you your pencil, paper, and login information. 

When it is time to start the test, you look at the clock and see you have one hour to complete 45 multiple choice questions on multiple stories you have never read before. Then, you begin to panic even more as you realize that there are three more sections with many more multiple choice questions for the next few hours. You have never felt more unprepared for a test in your life.

This is how the “more than 1.78 million graduates” felt while taking the ACT in 2019 (“About the ACT Test”). The overwhelming anxiety along with the realization that standardized tests do not actually measure intelligence plague students throughout their high school careers. 

Now, with COVID-19, multiple schools are asking the question: Do we really need standardized tests? The answer is no. Standardized tests give students stress and do not show how intelligent a student really is. On top of this, COVID has proven that schools do not really need standardized test scores in order to admit students into their programs.

A News Leader article about how states are considering test-optional admissions says, “80 percent of students opted out of taking standardized tests in New York the same year” (Williams and Moore).

If 80 percent of those students opted out of the tests, what is the point of the rest of the students taking it? Those students most likely opted out to get rid of the stress that was caused by the tests.

Standardized testing lacks the ability to test for all the different skills a student may be talented in. “For example, a student who struggles to answer a multiple-choice question about grammar or punctuation may be an excellent writer” (“Effects of Standardized Testing on Students & Teachers: Key Benefits and Challenges”). It is not fair for a student’s academic level to be determined by a standardized test.

It is especially unacceptable for students to be mistreated this way because COVID has proven that these universities do not need standardized tests. In the midst of coronavirus, students have continued to apply and get accepted into their dream schools, even without taking the SAT or ACT because of quarantine. A majority of colleges and universities have declared their schools as test optional and have been this way for a few years now. 

So, why would anyone even think about bringing standardized tests back as the coronavirus dies down?

Some may argue that these tests are needed as they can help schools with finding ways to improve. However, every student is different and the needs of one student are different than the needs of another. “Improvement” is different for every student and cannot be generalized to all children in all grade levels.

Students shouldn’t have to go through all of the avoidable stress from standardized tests that inaccurately evaluate intelligence, especially when COVID has proven their uselessness and has shown that higher education can function without them. So no, we do not really need standardized testing.