Well, this isn't all that original, but I've been thinking about it lately for reasons that will become apparent in about, oh, three seconds.
I took my placement tests this morning. The English Test was extraordinarily easy and I finished it with about a half-hour, forty minutes to spare. Okay, fine. The Math Test, however left me flabbergasted. It took me the entire hour and a half to mostly guess my way through it. I knew the material, hell, if I'd stopped to think about it, I may have even be able to remember how to do it. I could pretty much only do simple algebra and a little bit of trig. And when I say a little bit, I mean a very little bit. Anyway, let me get to my point- is testing really indicative of how intelligent you are or what classes you should take?
I'm probably going to get put in a remedial math class because of my placement testing. Lord knows I did crappy on the ACT; I got a 23 on the math portion, which was my lowest score. The rest I had 30's and a 33. So, I'm relatively intelligent. I'm not mensa or anything, but I can hold my own in a discussion on history, literature, religion, philosophy, science (more theory than details here, especially if they pertain to math) and ethics. And you know what? It's not like I didn't know the material of the test. I have had every one of those problems in a math class at some point. Now, I'll probably have to retake all those classes in college. Is that fair if I've taken the classes, passed them, and with minimal explanation remember how to do the problems? That's always been my problem, I understand what the math is doing, and the majority of the time I can do the steps and the correct algebra, etc, but I can't make it work. I can't get the right answer. We're doing stuff in my math class right now that I've done since Sophomore year, and I can't get the correct answer!
Some people are bad at taking tests all around. They either do better orally or in essays or whatever. Am I just a bad math test taker? I'm really disappointed because I don't need math for anything I want to do, beyond the basic math levels, I mean, but I'm going to end up dealing with it for almost all four years, unless I miss my guess. I don't understand why standardized tests are how we judge capability. Most of the time I do above average on them and I can write a mean essay if I want, but I can't do math. If you sat me down with a series of problems I could explain them step by step (given that they're rather recent. Geometry's pretty much gone by now) and despite being able to explain the purpose of all that crap, my numbers would still be wrong. So, I understand math, I just can't do it. Does this mean that I'm unintelligent?
Everyone has their niche. That's evident in the theory of multiple intelligences. For one thing someone is bad at, there's something they're great at. For instance, you have people who go through school thinking they're bad at everything because they don't do well. However, they can take apart and put an engine back together blindfolded or something equally as impressive. I don't think that they should force kids to take these tests and then they're told that there below average when there are so many things within human capabilities that they may be fantastic at... there just happens to be no test for it.
I don't know. I'm barely scratching at the surface and I haven't said all that's floating through my mind. However, time is limited and I have to leave now.
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