Brycen 0:01

Two sides, but only one verdict. Welcome to a case for debate podcast. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to a case for debating podcast. Joining me today is my friend Lincoln. Are you excited to be on the sixth episode, Lincoln?

Lincoln 0:35

Hello, everyone. Uh, I'm Lincoln. Let's dive in, I guess.

Brycen 0:40

Okay, so Lincoln, are you excited to be on the sixth episode of Case 4?

Lincoln 0:46

Yeah. I'm excited to be hanging out with my friend.

Brycen 0:49

Okay, perfect. So we are going to dive in right to the debate voting results. You know how this works, Lincoln. I'm gonna tell you what the episode from last week was, and then you are going to have to guess which side won. So uh last week's episode was titled A Case for Plastic Promises: The Great Gift Card Debate. So this debate was on if gift cards are good or if they're more of a lazy excuse for a gift. So, Lincoln, do you have a guess on who might have won that episode?

Lincoln 1:47

I would guess uh two gift cards. Or actually, I'm gonna change my answer here. I actually think that they didn't win.

Brycen 1:55

Okay, um, your changed answer is actually right. Uh team no gift cards won. We only had sadly three responses. Um Lincoln, would you like to introduce what our topic is for this week?

Lincoln 2:11

All right, our topic for this week is standardized testing. I am against standardized testing. Um, and Bryson is arguing that standardized testing is good for this one.

Brycen 2:25

Okay, so this was actually a pretty hard topic because both me and Lincoln agreed that standardized testing was not the best choice for students, but uh it's fun to have these challenging episodes. So today we uh flipped the coin, which forced me to support a side that I am not fully on, but it exercises you, and it's sometimes fun to support another side. So this should be a fun episode, and without further ado, let's get into it. Okay, Lincoln, would you like to go ahead and start the debate with some core arguments?

Lincoln 3:25

Yeah. One of my arguments is is that it does not promote critical thinking, creative thinking, or any sufficient of actual intelligence and gap gathering data. It's it's really more based on map memorization rather than having all broad topics. It can also promote anxiety and stress, and it also can demote extracurricular activities and raises a very high bar for students.

Brycen 4:01

Yeah, so uh I get your point on that, but also we need to uh think about how uh standardized testing is pretty much the only way to show a student's level in relation to other students. So for things like college admissions, standardized college exams, make sure you compare everybody against each other, and you can pick out like in more advanced colleges, that's a good way to be able to pick out the people who are advanced and can actually go to that college.

Lincoln 4:46

Yes, I agree with you on that. That's good, but this is more of like a a slot machine where you s you select this, it's like just a processor, basically, and it selects the students that are best put for this specific thing and then never raises the students, and the students that might be good at maybe critical analysis or reading comprehension don't get picked because of something where that requires memorization and they have bad memorization, and and it can ri make them go to really mad college.

Brycen 5:21

Yeah, but also you're talking kind of about inaccuracy with standardized testing, but I'd also like to touch on how if you didn't do standardized testing, it can also do uh provide inaccurate results. Like there's different things like I know this shouldn't happen, but it completely takes teacher favoritism out of the equation, so uh classroom grades could be influenced by how much the teacher likes you or how good of a reputation you usually have, not really what you're able to do on this specific test. And because every student answers the same questions, the tests just offer a way to evaluate ability without any like biases or anything else that could uh affect test scores.

Lincoln 6:32

I agree with your opinion on that, but also we have to make we have to advocate for those who are just you know not being seen by the testing scores. If it's not gonna work because some students are gonna just get forgotten by it. We need to have a more of a diverse test that offers not just more memorization and just you know using your memory. We need to have like logic or something like that. Something like, I don't know, maybe creative work, like write a paper on something about how science fiction or blah blah blah. It's it's just not that diverse. It doesn't, it doesn't raise any bars really. It only raises one bar. It's it's not gonna work.

Brycen 7:17

It would be nice if they could incorporate something creative like that for some people, and maybe that would be a great addition that could maybe even fall under standardized testing. I know it probably wouldn't. Another thing to think about is that in A at one school is not an A at another school. Like at my old school, it was super easy to get an A. But at my new school now, it's a lot harder to get an A. And different grades mean different things at different schools. So if you didn't do standardized testing and just took these grades, if someone went to a super easy school, then they might not actually be fit to get into this college or this high school that they're trying to go to.

Lincoln 8:16

Yeah, I agree with that. I do want to touch on something else. This is on student stress and anxiety. Let's say, for example, let's have little Timmy here. Little Timmy loves baseball, he likes to go to the movie theater, and he likes to play Pokemon GO. And so when it comes to testing like the S BAX, I don't remember it, but if it becomes something where he has a bunch of tests, he doesn't get to do all those stuff he enjoys, and he's just forced to study repeatedly. And it it's having the standardized testing is having kids as early in third grade testing. Third grade is not something you should be testing. It should probably be out no in middle school when kids are more capable of actually putting together and using their brains. It's it's ridiculous.

Brycen 9:14

Yeah, I like your point on that, and I do think that if they're starting it so young, that would probably not be the best choice. I also don't think as you get older, uh, if you have a lot of other tests and you have a lot of homework for school, and then you have these standardized tests, hopefully you'd get less homework those weeks or something. But if you have them all on top of each other, especially at a young age, like I know that would happen further in college, but I don't feel that that really happens as a young age. Yes, little Timmy should not be getting it, but let's think more about a sixth grader. If they're not going to a school that has a ton of homework, and as I said, the the school would probably reduce homework if they were going to have these tests. And if this test is the only thing they have to worry about for a set amount of weeks, I think that that would be fine workload-wise if the students are a little older and able to handle executive functioning skills and able to manage their time better.

Lincoln 10:36

Yeah, I agree. But it's also about stress because also little Timmy has bat baseball practice. He has to go to his baseball practice. What if he can't show up? He's gonna have all this anxiety and stuff about how this test is is the most important thing in the world. He's not gonna be able to have fun, and it's just gonna, it's just gonna build up his, it's gonna take away his confidence one brick at a time. And that's how it can affect people. It affects through mental health and stress. Like what if someone's depressed about that? It's it's gonna worsen their depression.

Brycen 11:14

I do sort of agree with that, but as I said before, I don't know if the workload would actually be that high. Also, another good thing about standardized tests is without them, it kind of would just allow like a principal or a teacher to just tell the parents that their kid is just average or doing fine. And maybe their kid is falling behind and the parents don't even know. Without a standardized test like that, where they get the results, it's super easy for teachers just to tell parents that everything is fine to make them not worry or they don't want to go through trouble or anything. And I know there's some kids who will tell their parents, but there's also a lot of kids that their parents just don't know that they're falling behind until they take a test like this.

Lincoln 12:25

Yeah, that's fair. But again, it it doesn't make sense that it would it would show that uh it can have positive effects and point out that I don't know, little Timmy's suffering in subject A. It that's what already tests are for in, I don't know, pre-algebra or ELA. It's already there and it can provide support, but the tests itself cannot comprehend to actually diversify its topics and to show that they're gifted at something else. It it doesn't help.

Brycen 13:04

Yeah. So another thing with standardized testing is that it prepares you for real high-stakes tests in the future, whether that is the SAT or even further in the future, other stressful tests like even a driver's license. I know it's not exactly the same, but it's still kind of like the standardized testing. And for things like that, I know this isn't really what we're talking about when we mean standardized testing, but it is technically still a standardized test, and this is where it can be super useful. So when you take this in school, it builds the muscle for handling these high pressure moments with standardized tests.

Lincoln 14:04

I agree on that. But what you said about the driver's license is exactly why we need divert more diversity in our tests. It only raises the bar for memorization. While memorization can help you with driving, it's it's not gonna do everything for you. It's kind of like a sandwich, or without the bread, you can't have a some a turkey sandwich. It's it's not gonna work. We need multiple parts and a more diverse a more diverse test. It's not gonna work.

Brycen 14:32

Yeah, the driver's test is also standardized for a very specific reason. And uh it should, I think, be improved to make it even a higher bar for people on the road, but it's standardized for a reason because they need if the government sets a bar for what they need their drivers to be able to know, then they need to be able to test drivers somehow to make sure everyone knows those specific things and how to be safe on the road. So I can't really think of anything else that would be able to do that.

Lincoln 15:17

Yeah, that's true. I also want to circle back to the younger kids doing the tests because if look, my brother goes to a private school. If you're placed back in public school, he would be doing testing. He has really bad anxiety, so it would not make sense for someone with already really bad anxiety to um be forced to do standardized test in a school setting where you're just forced to small little cramp desk and just supposed to, you know, do the thing.

Brycen 15:54

It's yeah, so a lot of schools don't introduce th standardized testing into much later, like even those IXL tests, those are not standardized tests, those are adaptive tests. And the standardized tests, especially if you go to a private school, often aren't introduced until like high school or like right before you go off to high school if you're planning to go to a private high school.

Lincoln 16:26

I 100% agree, but it's it's start when third grader does an S BAC or something like that. It's it's starting to feel more like SAT prep. Well, look, an eighth grader should be doing SAT prep or SSAT prep. A third grader should not. It's it feels more about preparing it for it. There's there should be some sort of age gap on there. Like, I think maybe once you get into I don't know, seventh grade or you should start doing standardized testing.

Brycen 17:12

That is all the time for our main episode for this week. We hope you stick around for our post-show, which will come right after this. It's a great time to find out a little bit about me and the guest, and it's always just a fun little topic that's related to the debate, but is no longer a debate where we're just like chatting for like five to ten minutes. So hope you stick around for that. Remember to send us fan mail. Sadly, no one sent us fan mail last week, so we'd really appreciate it if you sent us some fan mail, and we hope you enjoy our post show. Okay, welcome to our post show. Today the topic is would we pass right now if we both handed in an SAT test? So here we would talk we're gonna talk about how quickly we think we would fail if we had to hand in an SAT math section right now with no prep and which and then we'll also uh think about what topic do you think you would be really good at even now it's at such a high level. So I hope you enjoy this post show. Uh Lincoln, would you like to uh kick it off and say uh what questions you think you would do really well on?

Lincoln 19:03

Yeah, I think I would do well on like some of the critical or reading comprehension, as I'm I'm pretty good with critical analysis. And I think I could do pretty good on the math.

Brycen 19:17

Maybe like a C is the worst I could get, but Yeah, I think I would do well with like the first section of math because I'm pretty sure it starts easy and then gets harder. So I think I would be I would be able to do like the algebra stuff and getting into there. But once it started to get into like geometry stuff and calculus stuff, I would probably be completely stumped and would probably fail that whole part of the test. Those reading comprehension things are more on like SSAT, those are the ones we practice, but for the SAT I know also I was also thinking they get they start easier, then they get harder. I think the first few ones I could do well with, but I think I would get a pretty bad grade right now.

Lincoln 20:13

Yeah, yeah. Probably the same as you. Gonna ace the first section, fail, maybe get like maybe get like a B on the second, and then just complete failure from there. I mean, there has been times, this is actually true, where people got a perfect score on the essay on SATs without prep, but that was only one person.

Brycen 20:36

So Yeah. Okay, so how do you think you would do on the history? So uh I've looked it up and they have uh US history and then world history.

Lincoln 20:51

I'm not really good with US history. I'm not gonna lie.

Brycen 20:54

Yeah, me neither. I think I would fail that.

Lincoln 20:56

I I'm not into my country's history, to be fair, you know, with all the all the political controversies and removing and censoring information feels like a dictatorship to me. That's why I enjoy world history.

Brycen 21:09

Okay, so I'm looking at the official SAT thing, and it seems that they have information, and then you have to like write some things that might be a little more creative. Oh, math. Okay, so apparently it starts at algebra, goes to advanced math, and then goes into hard things like problem solving, data analysis, and geometry.

Lincoln 21:37

Yeah, I think I would also do well with algebra. I'm in like an honors part of it, but okay.

Brycen 21:44

How do you think you would do on the science section?

Lincoln 21:48

That's a good question. Uh, probably it's the whole entire astro astronomy thing. Uh that's I'm really into astronomy uh and you know looking at, you know, studying space, like what how can planet E orbit star E or something like that? And just looking at it, and you know, what really makes this interesting and I like it about the astrophysics is that it connects everything and it it shows how we got here or how the universe was created. It's it's just kind of like biology, but taken up to a step way larger than we could possibly comprehend. And that's what I love about it. And I do think I would get like a B on the rest of it.

Brycen 22:41

I think for science, I would probably fail biology, probably not do great on chemistry, and hopefully answer a few basic physics questions, maybe. Like that's what I'm mostly interested in. Not sure how much I would actually know. I'd probably do terrible on all of those science sections, but yeah. So any listeners that stuck around for our post show, thank you. Share the podcast with your friends. We'd really appreciate it to get more listeners and don't forget to send us fan mail. Would you like to say anything before the episode ends, Lincoln?

Lincoln 23:28

Auf wiedersehen. So, uh yeah, bye-bye. Hope you guys enjoyed. Bye. See you guys in two weeks.