Reviews the use of tests with deaf students, especially reading-comprehension tests, noting documented differences in test-taking abilities of deaf and hearing students and specific compensatory test-taking strategies used by deaf readers. A rationale for including a formal test-taking skills component in the curriculum for deaf students is…

A big problem with performance tests and standards is their specificity, or lack of generalizability. "Keeping no secrets" and "teaching to the test" for performance tasks and traditional tests are absolutely necessary if schools are to prepare students adequately to meet performance standards. This nontraditional approach…

Discusses appropriate ways to prepare students for performance assessments and proposes a list of six guidelines for teaching to performance assessments. The focus is on elementary and secondary education. It is believed that these guidelines will help balance the domain and sample problem. (SLD)

This Research Memo is for test users, teachers, administrators, counselors, curriculum specialists, school board members, and legislators who use tests as a means for improving education. The purpose of this report is to provide general background information about measurement and testing. The information includes discussions of the meaning…

Arguments against competency testing surface continually, and classic counter-arguments reoccur. Nevertheless, minimum competency testing and other accountability efforts have much public support. Those claiming that the tests are not relevant or do not have predictive validity, also say they are coachable and biased. Answers are given to these…

This report stems from the misunderstanding of what general standardized tests and standardized admission tests can and were designed to do, and an uneasiness with certain discoveries concerning biases in the tests. Important issues such as margin of error, predictive value, social and racial bias, and the effects of coaching are the very issues…

Three important issues related to the testing debate, particularly in the context of college and professional school admissions, are reviewed and evaluated. (Author/AL)

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of disclosing a Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) form on the retest performance of examinees who initially had been tested with the disclosed form and subsequently retested with a different form. Retest performance was compared for three random samples of examinees who had been tested with the SAT as…

This study investigated the effect of a linguistically based coaching program (with special attention given to the syntactic and semantic requirements of standardized language arts achievement tests) on the performance of selected black high school students on objective tests. The five subjects, one male and four female, were high school juniors…

Provides a sampling of recent program development ideas that show the varied nature of test wiseness instruction. Warns that teachers are unsophisticated test writers. (ARH)

Investigated the effects of instruction in test-taking techniques upon the standardized reading test scores of second-grade Black students. The experimental group performed significantly higher than the control group when administered the Stanford Achievement Test. Counselors should help students increase their test wiseness. (Author/JAC)

Test-taking skills and methods used to prepare students for taking an examination are independent of knowledge and skills in the content area being tested. Test-taking skills do not give students the correct answers, but do allow the student to concentrate on answering questions without being confused by the mechanics of the test. Students who…

This list of resources for use in classrooms and media centers as well as for individual use describes a range of materials about preparing for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). It does not include every available resource, however. Only items submitted by publishers or vendors within a specified time period and that received positive…

The authors state that this monograph provides information on how teachers and other school officials may assist students to score better on tests. The emphasis is on the development of test-taking skills, rather than on cognitive development. The contents include: (1) matching objectives, instruction, and testing; (2) assessment and test anxiety;…

A special preparation curriculum for the analytical section of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) Aptitude Test was developed and administered to self-selected GRE candidates. Analyses revealed an effect that stemmed from improved performance on two of the three analytical item types formerly included in the analytical section. (Author/PN)