The standardized educational or psychological tests that are widely used to aid in selecting, classifying, assigning, or promoting students, employees, and military personnel have been the target of recent attacks in books, magazines, the daily press, and even in congress. (1). The target is wrong, for in attacking the tests, critics divert attention from the fault that lies with ill － informed or incompetent users. The tests themselves are merely tools, with characteristics that can be measured with reasonable precision under specified conditions. Whether the results will be valuable, meaningless, or even misleading depends partly upon the tool itself but largely upon the user.
All informed predictions of future performance are based upon some knowledge of relevant past performance: school grades research productive, sales records, or whatever is appropriate. (2). How well the predictions will be validated by later performance depends upon the amount, reliability, and appropriateness of the information used and on the skill and wisdom with which it is interpreted. Anyone who keeps careful score knows that the information available is always incomplete and that the predictions are always subject to error.
Standardized tests should be considered in this context. They provide a quick, objective method of getting some kids of information about what a person learned, the skills he has developed, or the kinds of person he is. The information so obtained has, qualitatively, the same advantages and shortcomings as other kinds of information. (3). Whether to use tests, other kinds of information, or both in a particular situation depends, therefore, upon the evidence from experience concerning comparative validity and upon such factors as cost and availability.
(4). In general, the tests work most effectively when the qualities to be measured can be most precisely defined and least effectively when what is to be measured or predicted can not be well defined. Properly used, they provide a rapid means of getting comparable information about many people. Sometimes they identify students whose high potential has not been previously recognized, but there are many things they do not do. (5). For example, they do not compensate for gross social inequality, and thus do not tell how able an underprivileged youngster might have been had he grown up under more favorable circumstances.
参考答案
1．把标准化测试作为抨击目标是错误的，因为在抨击这类测试时，批评者没有注意到其弊病来自测试使用者对测试不甚了解或使用不当。
2．这些预测在多大程度上为后来的表现所证实，这取决于所采用信息的数量、可靠性和适宜性，以及解释这些信息的技能和才智。
3．因此，在某一特定情况下，究竟是采用测试还是其他种类的信息，或是两者兼用，须凭有关相对效度的经验依据而定，也取决于诸如费用和有关来源等因素。
4．一般来说，当所要测定地特征能很精确界定时，测试最为有效；而当所要测定或预测的东西不能明确地界定时，测试的效果最差。
5．例如，测试并不能弥补明显的社会不公，因此不能说明一个物质条件差的年轻人，如果在较好的环境中成长的话，会有多大才干。