Standardized Thinking: The Psychology and Price Tag of Success
- Shreyal Bhagwat & Michelle Yu
- Oct 19, 2025
- 7 min read
Introduction & Conclusion written by Michelle Yu
Psychology Paragraphs written by Michelle Yu
Economics Paragraphs written by An Le
Edited by Michelle Yu
Introduction
It’s high time for high school seniors to apply to college, and that means fixing up their application - from extracurriculars to their test scores and everything in between. Whether you’re taking the SAT in America for college admissions or the IELTS in Vietnam to prove English proficiency, these tests mean so much more than just a grade: they’re a form of social currency. Exceptional grades lead to opportunities left and right, whereas poor scores on these standardized tests can lead to negative outlooks on yourself and overall discouragement. Lying beneath all of the multiple choice questions and free response questions, however, covers a deeper question - what is success, and why do we see test scores as a gauge for it? From test anxiety to economic inequalities, we’re going to explore how our lives as humans affect our test performance, and how that impacts our lives in return.
The Mental Game of Testing: Anxiety, Mindset, and Self-Worth
Test Anxiety
If you’ve ever taken a test in your life, I’m sure you are aware of the horrors that come right before you take the test and then right before you get your results. For some people, they may experience shaky hands, shortness of breath, heart racing, a pit in your stomach, the whole shabang. And although others may not experience those symptoms as much, test anxiety is a prevalent part of student’s lives. Test anxiety doesn’t only happen during these points, however. It can happen in other times, such as during the test, which can negatively impact concentration and therefore performance. We feel anxiety when we’re in danger though, so why do we feel fear when it surrounds tests? That’s because our reputations as students and our futures are often labelled by others to have a big impact from the tests. In the United States, students have to take many tests in school, but there are also standardized tests such as the infamous SAT. Because the results of tests like the SAT have a considerable impact on things like college admissions and scholarships (big parts of our lives), we have anxiety to do well from the pressure, and are even subconsciously self-taught to associate grades to self-worth. With test anxiety in place, students aren’t able to do as well on standardized tests, which limits its efficiency at accurately testing students’ abilities.
Fixed vs. Growth Mindset
Be honest - if you were to fail a test, what would you tell yourself? Would you simply say “am i not smart?” or “am i just not a good student?” or would you tell yourself “Oh, it looks like I just need to spend a little more time on this subject to get better.” The first two responses follow a fixed mindset: a mindset where you believe that your intelligence is stagnant and has a very little chance of improving. The last response, however, follows a growth mindset: one where you believe that intelligence can increase over time and you can improve through effort and learning. It’s natural for us to fall into a fixed mindset when it comes to standardized tests. Our intelligence becomes one number, and that number looks like it can define a lot about us. It’s very easy to focus on that numerical score instead of looking at areas to improve. It may look like growth is out of reach, or that your goals aren’t very achievable anymore, but is simply your fixed mindset limiting you from reaching your full potential. To contrast this, growth mindsets see the exact same number simply as an indicator of how much and where to improve. Growth mindsets place a large value in hard work and effort instead of simply intelligence, which leads to more motivated individuals later on. Because of this mindset difference, this can heavily impact how students see standardized tests, which can contribute to their test anxiety, and therefore impact of students thrive or fall to the standardized test system.
Social Mobility and Extrinsic Motivation
We’re all about being our best selves right? However, we can’t climb the ladder to success if we don’t have a foundation to go upon. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the foundation that we have is our basic needs such as food, water, and sleep, as the other parts of the ladder are built off of other things that build our self-esteem and help us self-actualize (big word wow but it basically means grow as people). For many students, achievement in education is a great way to reach this point on the ladder, as it provides students with security of their worth and ensures them that they are truly competent and capable of many things. In Vietnam, students take the IELTS: a strenuous test students take to prove English proficiency. Vietnam greatly values English proficiency, as it provides a gateway towards social mobility (opportunities in society), yet this is often deprived in individuals who are underprivileged and have a lack of access to quality education. Additionally, the pressure imposed on students to do well on the IELTS leads to a phenomenon known as extrinsic motivation: one where a person is motivated by external rewards or punishments. Because of this, students may not necessarily participate in education to educate themselves necessarily, but rather to do well on the exam and therefore get opportunities in the future. Through the IELTS, we see how much of an impact standardized tests have on students worldwide, and how its psychology can impact their results tremendously.
The Economics of IELTS: Behind Vietnam's Craze for To-be-Expired Prestiege
Planned Obsolescence
Let’s start with the obvious question: why does a test that expires every two years still drive one of Vietnam’s biggest education markets? In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence is when products are designed to lose value over time, forcing consumers to repurchase or renew – and that’s exactly how the IELTS works. Once your score hits its two-year limit, it’s no longer valid for universities, employers, or visa applications. In practice, this means millions of Vietnamese test-takers are locked into a cycle of periodic requalification, paying a recurring fee just to stay “eligible” even if they have already achieved their target band score. This built-in expiration keeps the IELTS ecosystem alive and thriving: test centers, prep schools, and tutors all profit substantially from the steady churn of returning candidates. Think of it as a subscription economy disguised as an exam – pay, test, expire, repeat. And because English proficiency is widely treated as the ultimate “passport” to global mobility, families willingly spend millions of VND on this two-year renewal fee. What they’re really aiming for is oftentimes less about skills development and more about sustaining the market validity of a score – a short-lived credential that, paradoxically, holds enduring social weight. Over time, the band score has evolved from a measure of language ability into a proxy for opportunity, status, and self-worth.
Scoring for Status
If planned obsolescence keeps the IELTS industry alive, socially fueled prestige is what keeps it booming. In Vietnam, the IELTS has become deeply embedded in the system. Top universities accept it for early admission, and high school students can even convert their scores to be exempted from national English exams. For graduates and professionals, the score often determines eligibility for scholarships, overseas programs, or even job retention – especially as more employers list IELTS benchmarks as hiring or promotion criteria. In other words, the test is not just an opportunity filter; it’s a gatekeeper to opportunities itself. That’s why demand for IELTS is structural and inelastic – meaning it barely changes even if the cost rises. But why exactly can’t people afford to opt out, even if it may set them back tens of millions of VND for classes and retakes? Here, signalling theory gives us an answer. When schools or employers can’t directly assess qualities like competence or potential productivity, they rely on signals – tangible achievements like certificates or degrees – to prove those hidden traits. IELTS plays into this logic perfectly: it’s standardized, difficult, and expensive, so a high score becomes a credible badge of capability. Yet as more people chase that signal, competition intensifies. With more students achieving higher bands, the value of each score as a differentiator declines, pushing everyone to aim higher still – to pay for more tutoring and retake until they stand out again. In this way, IELTS has become a self-perpetuating race for distinction, where the perceived status of a certain band score depreciates as the overall bar rises, and the only way to keep your edge is to keep paying for it.
The Widened Education Gap
The deeper cost of this race isn’t just financial – it’s social. As IELTS cements its grip in Vietnam’s education system, it draws the line between those who can afford access and those who can’t. Urban families with more disposable income pour millions into private tutors, early-age prep courses, and multiple retakes until they secure a “competitive” score, while students from rural or lower-income backgrounds are effectively priced out before they even start. What began as a merit-based benchmark for language proficiency now functions as a filter for privilege. What’s more troubling is how institutions, by outsourcing their English standards to foreign certificates, inadvertently reinforce this divide. Instead of investing in stronger in-house English education, they default to an imported benchmark that favors the already privileged. The deal is simple: you either pay to sustain proof of competence, or risk getting left behind.
Conclusion
In theory, standardized tests seem like a great way to measure students’ understanding of various concepts. However, these performances can very easily be skewed by factors such as pressure, perception, and economic privilege. Psychologically, we see how standardized tests can become a mental game of anxiety and mindset that gambles our futures. Economically, we can see standardized tests and their prestige and the validation they give. Throughout the generations, we’ve seen that scores don’t necessarily measure growth or are an accurate marker for intelligence. As education starts prioritizing potential over performance, testing should adapt and measure not necessarily for performance, but for possibility.
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