This is why we should not use standardized tests to determine how well our children are learning, or to decide what level of higher education they receive in the future. This may seem like a stretch, but for a lot of kids and people in general, being put on the spot like this shares a lot of the same emotional and cognitive stresses as taking tests in a classroom under a time constraint.
Let's remember what education is for: teaching children the skills and information they need to succeed in the real world. And while I agree that this type of skill is necessary in the real world, it is also true that to learn, absorb, and retain useful knowledge, this type of environment is not conducive to learning. Ultimately, school should be the type of environment where students are allowed to learn as much as possible, in a way that what they learn is actually useful in a later time. And skills to deal with making quick decisions on the spot, they are bound to be put in those situations no matter what, and if anything, are better learned in the wild, anyways.
Finally, we are using these tests to determine how well our students are learning, and ultimately judging them, and their schools, based on this unreasonable standard. It's ridiculous. If we want to know how much our students are learning, we need to put them in environments where they can best draw on all the knowledge they have attained up to that point. Standardized tests do not create that environment.
I am not saying that standardized tests do not have their place in our education system. But to use the results of these tests to determine the performance of teachers and schools and award or withhold funding, and ultimately judge our children, is self-destructive.