The author discusses educational achievement tests and vocational interest blanks, focusing on the subject of sex bias and its elimination. (RP)

IQ tests are used to judge the mental capacities of black Americans, a fact which places a tremendous ethical responsibility on those involved in IQ test research and administration: most IQ test developers and administrators have abrogated this responsibility. (Author/JM)

Offers comments and suggestions for making reading comprehension test questions dependent on the material read and not on general knowledge. (MS)

Alternate versions of Hutchinson's theory were compared, and one which implies the existence of partial knowledge was found to be better than one which implies that an appropriate measure of ability is obtained by applying the conventional correction for guessing. (Author/PN)

The parent of a child who suffered from a developmental disability tells of problems with the kindergarten teacher concerning the child's placement and evaluation. Parents can provide valuable information about their children--if only teachers will listen. (PP)

Investigated the extent to which the Wechsler and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) provides items of sufficient difficulty for gifted children (N=306) aged four to six. All subtests investigated were found to have an inadequate level of difficulty, and six were inadequate for half or more of the subjects. (JAC)

The hypothesis that behaviorally disordered students would perform worse under standard, timed testing conditions than under relaxed time limit conditions was studied with 40 adolescents hospitalized for a variety of behavioral conditions. Performance increased under untimed conditions only in the area of reading comprehension. (Author/SEW)

Experts warn that only electron microscopes can see the smaller fibers of asbestos that are known to cause the most cancers, though the Environmental Protection Agency still endorses optical microscopes for asbestos removal verification. Asbestos testing methods are explained and sources of information are provided. (MLF)

The issues of language assessment and placement raise several important questions: (1) What are the basic premises upon which current language assessment instruments have been developed? (2) What is the state of the art in language proficiency assessment? (3) What implications do current research findings have for language proficiency assessment?…

Reviews the literature concerning informal reading inventories and discusses a number of issues related to them, including question choice, scoring criteria, and allowable miscues. Offers guidelines for constructing and using the inventories. (FL)

Multiple matrix sampling of items and examinees was applied to an 18-item rank order instrument administered to a randomly assigned group and compared to the ordering and ranking of all items by control subjects. High correlations between ranks suggest the methodology may viably reduce respondent effort on long rank ordering tasks. (Author/CM)