Teaching to the test

This approach aligns teaching content and methods directly with the test format and subject matter, aiming to improve student performance on these assessments.

This may limit opportunities for students to develop a holistic understanding of subjects, often reducing learning to rote memorization and repetition of isolated skills, a practice sometimes termed "drill and kill."

Such strategies are said to restrict creative, critical, and abstract thinking and could diminish teachers' ability to engage students with a broader and more meaningful curriculum.

In mathematics, students familiar with test-like questions might fail to apply the same concepts to differently phrased problems.

[7] Some critics assert that a focus on test preparation undermines comprehensive education, as time is diverted from exploring moral, aesthetic, or creative aspects of learning.