"Putting the Test to the Test" with John Oliver

     Recently in class we were assigned to watch John Oliver, from Last Week Tonight, discuss standardized testing in the modern age.  Oliver discusses the negative affects that have begun to take place in the modern age in standardized testing.  I myself do not support standardized testing.  This form of testing is for the sole purpose of comparing students to one another, and not to learn.  However, a test to compare is not wrong, but doing poorly on a standardized test often has negative results for both teachers and students.  John Oliver is correct in the fact that standardized tests today can almost be comedic.
     This test has articles and stories that do not make sense and answers that are wrong.  Oliver uses the example of a story on the test involving a talking pineapple.  This story confused both students and teachers.  However, the students are forced to sign a contract stating that they will not discuss any of the questions or answers with anyone.  This seems like a simple anti-cheating statement, but a loophole then prevents students and teachers from approaching others with the incorrect or confusing testing questions.
     Even intelligent people preform poorly on the tests, including adults.  Oliver uses a clip of a highly intelligent man who states that he did not do well on the test and was confused by many of the questions.  These tests do not judge a persons intelligence, they are simple used for large companies to profit off of the test and different forms of test prep.  In response to this, testing officials overcomplicate their excuses to make it seem that they are the innocent ones.  However, when John Oliver plays these clips of the officials, he then simplifies it to reveal what they are truly saying.  I believe that this was his strongest form of persuasion.  He is able to take actual videos of officials saying warped and wrong things, then simplifying it and showing listeners that what they are saying proves that standardized tests are wrong.
     John Oliver uses the power of persuasion since he attempts to move his listeners to be against standardized testing and to show them how harmful these types of tests can be.  He also persuades readers when discussing the statistics of the test.  These test originated from America getting low scores worldwide.  However, instead of bringing the scores up, due to the extreme amount of standardized tests implemented, the scores have been dropping lower and lower.  Many people are already against standardized tests, but John Oliver states the main facts and brings up they key points with supporting examples.  In my opinion, the strongest example of how harmful these tests are on everyone comes in the story of a teacher who was penalized for his student getting a perfect score.  His student was predicted to earn a score above the possible highest score.  Since she preformed below there projected score, the teacher received less pay, despite her getting the highest possible score.