どこの国もテスト漬け

（英辞郎）
Testing, testing, one, two, three, testing.
本日は晴天なり。ただ今マイクのテスト中

ニューヨークタイムズの記事で、大学入試に必要なテストがSATだけでなく、ACTというテストも受けなくなっている傾向を取り上げていました。

Testing, Testing
More Students Are Taking Both the ACT and SAT
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: August 2, 2013 61 Comments

AS if applying to college isn’t taxing enough, the process seems to have been ratcheted up another notch. Ambitious high school students are no longer content with just one college admissions test. Not a single college requires it, but many applicants to the nation’s most selective colleges and universities are taking — and retaking — both the ACT and the SAT.

SATが凋落したのではなく、ACTの受験者が急増しているようです。12の州で採用しているという理由だけでなく、受験生は両方のテストで高得点を取得していいところを見せようとしていることも大きな理由としてあるようです。

In fact, the ACT has pulled ahead for the first time: 1,666,017 students took the ACT last year; 1,664,479 took the SAT.

It’s not that the SAT is losing customers. On the contrary, the number of test takers has grown. It’s that the ACT is growing much faster, in part because 12 states now require, and pay for, all public high school juniors to take the test. But that’s not the only reason for the ACT’s rising popularity. There is also a real shift in the behavior of top high school students, with many more choosing to work toward impressive scores on both tests.

Of this year’s 26,000 applicants to Princeton, 13 percent, or 3,477 students, submitted only ACT scores — up from 2 percent (385 of 17,000 applicants) for fall 2006. And almost 8,000 this year submitted scores from both tests. That is just fine with Janet Rapelye, dean of admissions — maybe even desirable.

もちろん予想できる反応は、テストばっかりしてという批判でしょう。理想論を押し付けるのは当事者ではないようで、当事者にとっては自分を印象づける方法があればなんであれ取り入れたいようです。

Admissions officers worry that test prep has become the main junior-year extracurricular activity. Preparing for both tests, they say, may be overkill. They point to parents as the ones cranking up the testing pressure.

“I think the dramatic increase over the last five years in the number of ACT scores we receive comes in conjunction with the increased selectivity,” said Eric J. Furda, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania. “More and more parents think they can’t just stick with the regular road map for getting into college but need to consider every option that might help them show their child in the best possible light.”

SATとACTはタイプが少し違うようで、語彙を知らないと解けない問題が多いSAT、文脈が分かれば回答できるACTと特徴があるようです。

There are clear differences between the tests. The ACT has four long sections, the SAT 10 shorter ones. The ACT has a science section and covers more advanced math, including trigonometry.

“A third of SAT reading is vocabulary, so for students with limited vocabulary, the ACT is better,” said Sasha DeWind, director at Tutor Associates, based in New York. “The questions are passage-based, and if you understand the passage, you’ll probably get the answer right. And even though the ACT covers harder math, it’s more similar to what students have done in school. The SAT is about getting the students to understand what they’re being asked.”

テスト漬けは批判されがちですが、受験する方にとってはテスト対策さえすればよく、幅広い勉強などしなくてすむのであればテストを選ぶのではないでしょうか。どの国も大変なんですね。