week 15 reading reflection

High stakes test

 We Japanese have to take “the center (National) test” which is the standardized preliminary examination for university applicants. There are 5 subjects. These are English, Japanese, mathematics, science, and history. It takes extremely long time. It takes 2 days. In order to get good scores, high school students have to study harder like Korean students explained in the class. As the matter of fact, that test is “preliminary examination.” There is secondary examination in order to entrance University in Japan. It is a unique test which individual university has. It also takes about 2 days. I do not want to take those kinds of test again. I really hate these. Even though these tests are very high stakes, it never assesses proficiency level. I think that the function of these two test is just screening. This is one of issues of the test in Japan. In order to change this test, I would like to learn testing more and more.