User:Cognitivecamel/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
High-stakes testing

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article because it talks about high stakes testing within all school levels and ages. These tests include rewards of a drivers license all the way to a doctorate degree. With these rewards, come high stakes including the risk of failing. Some of these tests have high risks, such as going to and paying for medical school, while others have lower risks such as the AP credit exams. I think this article did a good job of defining what a high stakes exam is, and giving examples including the risk versus rewards. When first looking at this article, I noticed there are a lot of criticisms and not many advantages. This article clearly focuses on the critiques with the bolded bullets as well as mentioning them in the summarization sections.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

One thing I noticed when reading this article is that there are a lot more high stale testing examples than I initially thought before reading. For example, I never thought about a drivers license test, a sports tryout, or a job interview as being a high stakes test even though I have been through all of those already. When I think of test, I usually think of sitting down with a pen and paper, but there’s a lot more that’s included in this subject. For this reason, this article is a lot more broad as the advantages and disadvantages have to apply to all of these.

I believe one big this this article forgot to talk about is the advantages and disadvantages some people face. For example, some people who are financially capable may hire tutors or private coaches for these tests which gives them a huge advantage. Conversely, those who struggle financially not only can’t afford a private tutor or coach, but they also may not be able to afford taking it numerous of times which increases the risks associated with the test.

The article also has a whole section dedicated to stakeholders which I thought was interesting and something people don’t usually think of. I think this section can be written a bit more clear and with more detail as it was a little hard to understand. It says that some tests may have low stakes for the test taker but high stakes for the university or company. I think this section needs to talk more about the result of this. For example, if a university has high risks associated with a test, how do they change their program to ensure everyone passes, and how do they motivate students to do well if there isn’t a high reward for them to begin with? Does this affect their budget. This section also states that these tests are sometimes used to benefit people other than the test taker, using a medical exam as an example. If a aspiring doctor fails the board exam, it theoretically prevents someone who is not fully knowledgeable from practicing their profession. However, this article doesn’t consider the viewpoint of someone who isn’t good at test taking but is knowledgeable.