Newspaper Article

PERSPECTIVES; TESTS THAT STAND THE TEST OF TIME

Scarvia Anderson, an adjunct professor of psychology at Georgia Institute of Technology, is a former senior vice president of Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J., Scarvia B. Anderson

1985

Overview

The second thing I ask about is the nature of the instruction. If the teacher asks only one question about ''Moby Dick'' and it is ''What different kinds of whales did they encounter on their voyage?'' my initial impression of the senior English course is not very favorable. On the other hand, it's a positive sign if the mathematics teacher in the middle school asks children to tell her what pi is, not just use it in calculating the circumference of a circle. Paul Diederich, a distinguished English teacher and scholar, was once asked if he understood Eliot's ''Four Quartets.'' He scratched his head and said, ''I don't know. I've never tried to write an exercise on it.'' I said ''good'' tests above. Many of the tests that teachers make up on their way to class, that are kept in fraternity-house files, or that are stored in the new computers academics are so proud of are not good tests. They don't focus on what's most important, don't inspire students to study what's worth studying, and don't present an intellectual challenge to the examinees (or the examiner). Even if the ideas for the test are sound, the translation of those ideas into questions may be weak.

• Publisher: New York Times Company