When everything is based on "one exam", presumably for all the colleges in the country, who determines what that exam is? I don't trust the federal government to do so.
The exams are very different overseas. First, no multiple choice. Second, students often get to choose the questions they want to answer; the paper may have 8 questions, and you only have to answer 5 (or whatever). The exams are graded by humans who are subject experts, using guidelines created by the examination commission (
here's an example from a recent mathematics exam in Ireland). If you look at that exam, you'll see that it's light years ahead of our SAT or AP exams in terms of what it measures and how it measures it.
There's typically a national curriculum and all students take the same exam. I understand that many Americans are used to the idea of local control, but this approach wastes a lot of money by repeating effort and doesn't guarantee quality anyway. A national curriculum is also transparent.
As far as I know (in Ireland and the UK anyway), the exams are written by subject experts (university academics, possibly teachers). I recall that my university tutor (in Ireland) wrote questions for the O or A levels (in the UK).
