First Things First: An Aptitude for Achievement Tests

The National Endowment for the Humanities has published a portfolio of tests given to high school students in England, France, Germany and Japan under the title: “National Tests: What Other Countries Expect Their Students to Know.”

NEH points out that these are achievement tests, rather than aptitude tests like the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) given in the United States. They test what the students know, not their mental ability.

NEH argues that universal achievement testing in the United States would raise American education to a parity with that in those foreign countries.

I don’t know how I would do in a SAT, but I doubt that I could pass any of the achievement tests sampled by NEH.

As an example of an aptitude test it offers the following:

Select the lettered pair that best expresses a relationship similar to that expressed in the original pair:

YAWN; BOREDOM

(A) dream: sleep; (B) anger: madness; (C) smile: amusement; (D) face: expression; (E) impatience: rebellion.

OK. The answer, as you know, is (C) smile: amusement. That proves we’re not dumb, doesn’t it?

But what do we know?

In England, for example, students are given three hours to answer any four of 11 questions on American history. They are cautioned that answers must “maintain strict relevance” to the questions and are reminded of the necessity for “good English and orderly presentation.”

(For some of the historical questions, summaries of the material to be covered are given.) Ready?

Question: Assess the extent and significance of opposition to Western expansion in the pre-Civil War period.

Answer: Well, the Indians were against it, for one thing. There must have been other reasons.

Q: “It was necessary to free the slaves to win the war; the war was not fought to free the slaves.” Discuss this judgment of the Civil War.

All I know is that Lincoln said that if he could win the war by keeping slavery he would do it, and if he could win the war by freeing the slaves, he would do that. I saw that in “‘The Civil War” on TV.

Q: “Unbelievably naive” or “a dogged man of principle.” Which verdict better characterizes the conduct of Woodrow Wilson from 1917 to 1920?

A: Wilson was a dogged man of principle who was unbelievably naive. He was also sick.

Q: Account for the prominence of the temperance issue in American politics from c. 1900 to 1933.

A: Men were drinking too much. They stopped by the saloon after work and came home drunk and abused their wives and children; they also messed up on their jobs, which cost the industrial barons money. Prohibition was brought about by pressure from rural religious groups and Carry Nation busting up saloons with her hatchet.

Obviously, I do not know enough about any of those questions to spend three hours answering them. I’ve padded my answers as it is.

The French tests had some questions on philosophy, “for students concentrating in economics and social sciences.” Since you don’t have to know anything to philosophize, I think I did pretty well.

Q: By the fact that we live in the present, are we better able to understand it?

A: No. Of course not. We’re too close to the forest to see the trees. As the question about slavery suggested, we don’t even understand the Civil War. The only insight we have into our own times is through polls, which can be misleading.

The test allows four hours for that one. I extended myself as it was by using 43 words.

Q: How might one characterize rigorous thought?

A: Rigorous thought is what you use to spend four hours answering that question.

Q: What does one gain by losing one’s illusions?

A: More illusions.

Q: Is it easy to be free?

A: Not when even a great humanitarian like Lincoln is so equivocal about it.

France is really tough in its geography test. It shows a map of the United States and asks students to indicate the principal industrial areas and “define their essential features.”

A: Well, there’s St. Louis. They brew beer. And Detroit. They make cars, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Milwaukee makes beer too. In Los Angeles they make airplanes and movies. The city has crime, litter, smog, drought, deteriorating schools, graffiti and gridlock. In New England they make shoes, watches and books. At the moment, the whole country is in a recession.

“Our most common, high-stakes examinations are divorced from the classroom study of subjects like history,” says Lynne V. Cheney, chairman of NEH. “They do little to advance the notion that hard work in school matters. Achievement tests, on the other hand, convey the idea that mastery of school subjects is important. Achievement tests make students accountable for what they have learned.”

First, though, you have to learn to write.