Standardized tests can be a valuable part of a value-added assessment package which attempts to determine what students gain from the college experience in general, and from communications courses in particular. The critical issues concerning assessment center around who will evaluate what skills and values with which instruments. Within the communication discipline, standardized tests such as the Communication Competency Assessment Instrument (CCAI) and the College Outcomes Measures Program (COMP) can make a valuable contribution to these efforts by helping to demonstrate the "value-added" by a course or curriculum in quantifiable statistical terms. Such standardized tests do not, however, respond to all the problems associated with assessment. Their administration is costly in terms of money, time, and effort. There is also no consensus within the discipline that these instruments actually measure the critical knowledge and skills students ought to possess. An externally mandated and monitored assessment model may well reduce instructional planning to "teaching to the test." It is up to the professionals in the discipline to ensure that standardized tests are not the only tools employed to assess what students need, know, and learn in communication courses. Such tests, along with other assessment measures, can help practitioners demonstrate the quality of students' educational experience to colleagues, students, administrators, and an interested public. (Thirty-three references are attached.) (SR)