“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid” (Quote attributed to Albert Einstein). This quote describes the horror that is standardized testing. These tests do not adequately assess a student's level of educational success. They challenge students to extremes and cause substantial consequences for learning. The burden of standardized testing has placed too much pressure on students to succeed. All students are expected to take identical tests to determine how much they have learned, even if they have been educated in different ways. These tests have several flaws and are not as credible as we believe. A standardized test is any type of test in which all aspects are identical, such as the questions, scoring method, and format. They are used to compare schools, students and measure intelligence (standardized tests). The tests are formed by state educators who decide what information and skills are important for each student. The result of these decisions is unfortunately “curricular wish lists” rather than “realistic goals” (Popham, James). This can be problematic, with such requirements teachers do not have the time to teach students each standard in sufficient depth for them to master it before the test. This also poses a problem for students, since as a student you are learning what your teacher believes is important and perhaps not what state educators believe. Additionally, with different types of students come different learning methods, backgrounds, and cultures (Popham, James). And the tests do not take into account other factors that can hinder learning, such as a bad family life, which must be taken into account if "you don't want to have children... middle of the paper... higher influences" level of thinking , creativity and strategies for solving problems (Popham, James). Instead of getting students to regurgitate information when it's test day. In conclusion, standardized tests are not an accurate measure of a student's educational success; different factors from the student's teachers and identical testing situations cannot correctly measure how much the student is learning. Additionally, the consequences of preparing for and teaching for the test cause severe stress and anxiety for some children. The tests also have many flaws, some can be fixed but it would be a high cost. If these tests taxed students and did not correctly measure intelligence, they should not be a predominant source for measuring educational growth. These things may never have changed, but it's a big problem in today's school systems.