A study of scores on England's General Certificate of Education (GCE) examinations suggested that, compared to females, males perform better on objective tests than they do on other forms of assessment. The fact that nonobjective tests emphasize written communication skills, which tend to be more highly developed in female candidates, may explain…

To study sex differences in test performance, the performance of males and females on 16 General Certificate of Education exams was analyzed in England. Results show that males perform better on objective tests than females. (Author/JJD)

In a Monte Carlo simulation, a methodology was developed to investigate the existence of radex properties among objective test items. In an experiment with items covering four categories of Bloom's cognitive domain taxonomy, the items did not have the factorial properties of a radex with four levels of complexity. (Author/BW)

The methods of examining in the sixth form of secondary education in England and Wales is the basis for discussion by subject committees of the Schools Council. Special reference is made to internal examinations, oral assessments, teacher's assessments, the relaxing of the time limits for examination, and the use of aids during examinations. The…

The advantages and disadvantages of the objective-type tests considered for use in Britain for the Certificate of Secondary Education are presented. The objective test is a form of examination in which every question is set in such a way as to have only one right answer. Of the four types of assessment, objective, conventional written (or oral),…

This is a preliminary report concerning the development of tests which measure the linguistic ability in Spanish of English students at the beginning of their post A-level courses. The Palspan (Post A-level Spanish project) pilot test battery is comprised of five sub-tests of between 45 and 90 minutes in length which test for speaking, listening,…

This bulletin describes a trial examination for the geography curriculum as specified by the Certificate of Secondary Education. The total examination is composed of a 2 hour objective examination to test factual knowledge learned in the geography courses. A second part of the total examination consisted of: 1) a paper by the student on some…

The state of the art of language testing in England is examined through the conference proceedings presented in this text. The nine chapters, written by individual authors, include discussion of the General Certificate of Education examinations, nonschool examinations, oral tests, research by examining boards, continuous assessment, and…