NCTM Past President Cathy L. Seeley shares her messages on today's most relevant topics and issues in education. Based on Cathy L. Seeley's award-winning NCTM President's Messages, and including dozens of new messages, this must-have K-12 resource offers straight talk and common sense about some of today's most important, thought-provoking issues…

The General Computer Adaptive Test (CAT) of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) includes three operational sections that are separately timed and scored. A "no score" is reported if the examinee answers fewer than 80% of the items or if the examinee does not answer all of the items and leaves the section before time expires. The 80%…

A case study examined one college student's poor performances during timed-writing sessions to develop a method to allow students to maintain the quality and ease in writing they achieve in other writing situations. The student, assigned to write a movie review, volunteered to participate in two 90 minute talk-aloud protocol sessions to examine…

An item format incorporating pattern recognition was designed to assess medical students' abilities in the area of clinical diagnosis. A group of approximately 20 faculty members of five New England medical schools met in Worcester for half of a day to develop pattern recognition items. Teams of four to six physicians were assigned to work on…

A survey test in mathematics (see TM 000 965) was administered to all pupils in Grade 7 of the Vancouver School System. Test content included arithmetic fundamentals, modern mathematical concepts and mathematical applications in problem solving. A summary of test results is presented in three tables. (CK)

This test was designed to cover the new seventh grade mathematics course (see TM 000 964) in the Vancouver schools. The 45-item multiple choice test designed to be completed within a 70 minute period stresses arithmetic fundamentals, modern mathematical concepts, and mathematical applications in problem solving. (CK)

Two experiments examined the role that college students' verbal aptitude and evaluation anxiety play in the production of persuasive letters. Results showed that verbal aptitude should be considered when predicting the quality of students writing. Taking writing anxiety into account did not increase the predictive power of verbal aptitude scores.…

A study concluded that there were no significant differences in posttest speed achievement of students in grades 3 through 6 when pretest typewriting speed score was used as a covariate. Fifteen or fewer hours of instruction allows development of typewriting speed at the lowest level of skill acquisition. (JOW)

Examines how test anxiety affects children in certain evaluation situations and focuses on developing more valid and effective measurement procedures in school achievement testings. Third and fourth graders were divided into three anxiety groups and tested under time and no time pressures. Anxiety level, time pressure, and sex affected…

Examines the characteristics of prewriting activities of unsuccessful writers who took the Alberta Universities' Writing Competence Test. Finds that the students' limited and ineffective use of prewriting strategies interferes with their ability to generate and develop ideas in writing a timed essay. (KEH)

Investigates whether the Nelson-Denny Reading Test's time restrictions may bias the performances of marginal students. Finds that the Nelson-Denny scores alone may provide biased measures of reading ability. Recommends that test makers develop extended time norms. (MG)

One ongoing dilemma with the accommodation of extended test time is how much time to provide. Due to a dearth of research to help disability service providers with this decision, a review of the literature on extended test time for postsecondary students with learning disabilities (LD) was conducted to (a) inform service providers about the…

This study took an experimental approach to evaluating test speededness. In order to assess the benefits of extra time (or the penalty of strict time limits) on new SAT scores, sections that were designed to be administered with a 25-minute time limit were administered with a 40-minute time limit (or slightly more than time and a half) as part of…

This study examined students' essay performance on topics from the Test of Written English (TWE) under time limits of 30 minutes, as currently administered, and 45 minutes. In the main groups of the study, each student wrote an essay on one topic under the current time limit and on another under the 45-minute time limit. A total of 820 intensive…