Personal Essays

1. However 'big' or small the subject is, however important or trivial it might seem on the surface, make sure you set it in a frame that allows your reader to identify, empathize, and be involved.
2. If you're writing about the "small" personal occurrence - a move, your first pet - put it in a context that gives the reader insight to both the small moment and the wider perspective.  
3. 
   
1. Personal essays by definition contain a personal perspective. You should be there. Watch your construction. If every sentence begins "I", you need to rephrase to provide a better rhythm and pace to your piece.
2. Writing essays is a great way to get your opinions off your chest, but avoid philosophical rants which make no connection to your reader's experience. Again, keep it personal while relating to a wider world.
3. Think of your essay as a camera lens. You might start by describing a fine detail (your personal experience of perspective, a specific moment in the narrative), then open up the lens to take in the wide view ( the general/global backdrop), then close the piece by narrowing back to the fine detail. Or go the other way. Start with the wide view, focus in, then open up to the wide view again.

Standardized testing is what American Schools use to see if a student is "smart" in a subject.

I believe that standardized testing is inefficient and shouldn't be used. They are based mostly on memorization and not a true test of a student's knowledge.

Because students know that test scores may affect their future lives, they do whatever they can to pass them, including cheating and taking performance drugs. Teacher also encourage cheating and or cheat themselves because it affect their salaries and job.

So much emphasis is placed on standardized tests. Teacher are spending more and more time teaching specifically for the test. It causes the student to learn only a portion of the material needed, or none of it at all.

During the time that a student takes a standardized test, they are wasting valuable time. Instead of causing stress and forcing them to learn limited material, they could instead spent all that time focusing and actually learning the content for the class.

These tests also categorizes students and cause loss of self-esteem because they didn't do as good as they were expected to. It creates winners and losers in an environment that is supposed to be built for gaining education for the future.

Students with a socio-economic advantage also are favored by standardized tests. Companies that manufacture the test also manufacture the courses and programs that can be taken to prepare for them. If you have the money, you can get tutoring and these lessons to do well on the test, where if you don't it can be a struggle and give you a disadvantage.

Standardized testing does create a guideline for curriculum though. It gives teachers a structure of what needs to me taught and keep the material consistent across the country.

The solution for standardized testing is simple, don't give them. Taking them out completely means that students wont need to take them, fixing the problems.

Instead of standardized testing, other methods that are more interactive and actually test the student's knowledge should be used. For example, in Science, labs can be used to test the students, instead of a multiple choice test.

Another alternative to standardized testing is game-based assessments that cause the student to have to think about how to win.

Inspections are also a way to replace standardized testing. Instead of students answering questions at one point in the day, the student can observe and inspect how the student does with schoolwork, and judge them based on that. This way, a single test wont determine someone's grade and their capability in a set of content, but instead overall view their achievement with the material.

These standardized tests are horrible ways to test the knowledge of a student. They cause problems, don't work, and are inefficient with a student's resources.