In about two months, I am going to take a standardized test known as the GRE (Graduate Record Examinations). It’ll go something like this: I’ll walk into a room with little cubicles or dividers, sit down, get a sharpened yellow number 2 pencil, and be handed a test prep booklet that’s doom green. Then, for the next four-odd hours, I will prove, through a series of fill-in-the-bubble questions, that I am capable of going to grad school for the next two-five years for an MFA in poetry and then a PhD in literature or creative writing.

The silly part? I will already be halfway through my first graduate degree when I take this.

Now, one would think that because I am proving my capacity to handle graduate school, teaching, creative writing, professional service and scholarly writing at the same time, I would not have to take a test that says I might be able to do those things. Then again, one would also think that if a clinical teacher is capable of conducting a lesson over geography that finally helps students understand how nations interact, that teacher would not be required to sit down and answer arcane questions about 1960s treaties to prove that he or she is capable of teaching students.

Silly. That would be logical.

Standardized testing like the Praxis and GRE doesn’t give a hill of beans if you’re capable of teaching eloquently or writing a dissertation on Joyce that would make the man rise from his grave and cry (and then attend his own wake again, with much exclamations of ladders and mythology—English major joke). It measures what all standardized tests measure: can you fill in our bubble and answer this question? Can you eliminate enough choices to take a good guess?

I shouldn’t complain. I’ll prepare for the GRE like I would any other test and get it done, because it’s just one more step in the process. But for those who argue that using standardized testing is more objective than, say, looking through a portfolio of student or teacher work, I say: grade 400 papers and then tell me there’s not a clear difference between excellent, mediocre and poor work. And tell me it’s meaningful when so many programs openly declare, “No, we really don’t care what GRE score you get, but take it anyway.” Come on, guys. I would rather put together a portfolio of my academic, creative and teaching work that demonstrates my capabilities as a graduate student and a teacher, not pay for a test score that’ll be paired with five of my poems and a ten-page paper. I know it takes more time to go through—but if it’s more meaningful than a score that’ll essentially be pushed aside for the other items, then I think it’s worth it.

Please, to those it may concern: switch to a portfolio-based assessment system. Be the change you want to see in teaching. Fill the bubble in with logic.