Testing

Those having reservations about the current large‐scale use of machine‐graded multiple‐choice tests as an objective statistical means of measuring individual ability may be interested in the views of Banesh Hoffmann, a skeptical professor of mathematics at Queens College in New York, whose article, “The Tyranny of Multiple‐Choice Tests,” appears in the March 1961 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The particular targets are the College Board tests and the National Merit Scholarship tests, both of which are intended to operate on a mass scale in selecting the most able candidates among the hundreds of thousands of high‐school students wishing to attend college. The author’s contention, fortified with examples and with the supporting views of other critics, is that questions used in the tests are in fact likely to discriminate against the most gifted individuals, those who are outstandingly original and intelligent and capable of doing creative work. Dr. Hoffmann, who concedes that the problem of large‐scale testing offers no easy solution, advocates a thorough inquiry, perhaps by a committee appointed by such organizations as the National Academy of Sciences and the American Council of Learned Societies which “should include creative people of commanding intellectual stature who could bring fresh vision to the testing situation, especially as it affects those gifted young people whose talents do not conform to the statistically based norms of the multiple‐choice testers”.

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