No standardized test can truly reflect someone’s potential as a scholar or a professional. Standardized tests can express mastery of a subject, such as an AP European History test or a behind-the-wheel driving test. However, humans themselves are far too complex to have any general assumptions made about them based on a standardized test. Simply because someone is a poor reader and writer when they take the SAT does not mean they cannot develop these skills and definitely does not show their potential in that subject or any other. If a standardized test with that broad of a reach can have any conclusions drawn from it, it is the conclusion that they are better or worse at taking this test and answering these questions than the other people who have taken it and “set the bar,” so to speak. The potential is someone’s ceiling, and I have never found any line of reasoning to suggest that a ceiling’s height is finite. I have come to believe that the only relevant line of reasoning is to the contrary. In my life, I have always had a continuous goal to raise my ceiling. I find much joy in the optimization of my improvement and achievement. As I am a part of two varsity sports at my high school, I love to analyze my film and my mistakes to locate what part of my game or my technique needs work to improve and excel. For example, if one were to analyze the discus throws from my first track meet, one might think that I would never be able to perform at a varsity level, much less have a chance at championship-caliber performance. I threw seventy feet. The qualifying mark to compete for a California southern section championship is 120 feet. However, my potential was obviously not reflected because, as of February 2024, I am a junior captain and on track to take a league title. The SAT does not measure athletic performance, though. Admittedly, many factors can go into athletic improvement beyond mastery of that one sport, such as size and physical conditioning.
One may assume that the SAT is black and white. They might assume that SAT performance relies only on how well one has studied and how well they have been taught math on that test. This is objectively false. Low-income students have been proven to be at a disadvantage on the language section of the SAT because of the high-level vocabulary on the test, which they might not be familiar with because their family likely does not use this type of language is not common at home. These six-syllable words on the SAT don’t sound like English because their parents and relatives have never heard them before, either. This stems from the fact that most low-income families have a shallow rate of higher education. It is also a proven fact that children in impoverished neighborhoods do not have math skills on par with those from wealthy families and safer, more flourishing schools and communities. Though the test is the same for everyone, the 15 to 18 years before that test vary greatly. The top 20 percent are thirteen more likely to score over 1300 on the SAT than the bottom 20 percent of income distribution. In other words, the SAT can reflect and express only someone’s past, not their future.