In this way, Levine told Newsweek recently, teachers can tailor their teaching to each student. However, Uhing said there is no perfect test that will determine the extent of a student's mastery of a subject. A lot of tests, like the ACT, for example, are geared to verbal skills. A student may be very intelligent, very good at math, but if he or she does not have strong verbal skills or their overall learning skills are different, the tests can work against them. There are drawbacks in any means of testing.
Many tests are language intensive.
He also noted the negative message that testing can send because 50 percent of the students will score below average. They feel pressure from parents to do well on tests, but they almost put a lot more pressure on themselves. There is a great deal of peer pressure to do well on tests. I am amazed at how much emphasis the kids put on this. In their circles, they describe it as being thought of as a brain.