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Article of Interest - Testing/Assessment

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Bridges4Kids LogoExposing The Mystery of Standardized Test-Question Writers
by Laura Pappano, Boston Globe, March 14, 2004
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For those stressing about upcoming MCAS tests, here's a tip from some inside sources: The first questions will be easy, and if an answer seems right, it probably is.

That's because test makers aren't evil trolls plotting student failure, but normal people who know how students think.

"We are not wringing our hands trying to be tricky," said Judith Rubenstein Gerstenblatt, publishing manager for Measured Progress, the Dover, N.H., testing company just hired to create future MCAS tests, starting in 2005. The company, which will be paid $118 million over five years, also will administer and report results of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests.

The same company already designs the MCAS alternative assessment and has 22 other state testing contracts. A visit to the high-security warehouse and offices tucked into a renovated brick factory building offered a peak into the standardized test-making world.

The test writers choose reading passages from a variety of sources, even pamphlets plucked from car repair shops or bus terminals. They also edit questions and fix those that might confuse the student, like a math query about rows of roses.

And they are busier than ever because the demand for testing keeps rising. The latest culprit? The federal No Child Left Behind law, which requires students in grades 3-8 to be tested yearly in English and math, starting next year.

Over the years, the way states use tests has changed, leading to a need for even more test versions, said Stuart Kahl, the cofounder and CEO of Measured Progress.

When the company started 20 years ago, states tested samples of children, but didn't give feedback about individual schools' performance. Testing soon expanded to all students, but Kahl said schools reused test booklets, setting off cheating scandals in the 1980s.

Now states want tailor-made tests, and new versions each year. The more tests, the more questions, and the busier the question writers get.

Coming up with test questions involves creativity. "Every step along the way, there is human creativity, intelligence, subjectivity," said Gerstenblatt. Questions may reflect a writer's passion, which is why the math question writer who is also a musician often sets his math puzzlers in a musical context.

In the renovated mill building, question writers are grouped by subject area and sit close enough to bounce ideas off each other. The science question writers have journals, books, and manuals nearby, while the English specialists keep Shakespeare handy but also may wander the stacks of the local public library in search of a reading passage or inspiration. Proofreaders make sure there's nothing in a question that could confuse or distract a kid from answering. Others make sure a test doesn't have questions with all male or all female names, or names of a single ethnicity. The goal: test, don't trick.

It's the writers' job, with help from state education officials and teachers, to get at how well kids have learned what the state has decided they should learn. Unlike other types of standardized tests that rank students nationally, state tests are linked to classroom lessons.

That means kids shouldn't need test prep to do well. Ron Dietel, spokesperson for UCLA's Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing, said studies indicate old test-taking tricks -- like picking choice "C" when unsure of the answer -- doesn't help. "The only real thing to do is know the content," he said.

But it helps to understand that test makers don't try to be tricky, but do include answer choices reflecting common errors.

For example, math problems requiring kids to multiply will often include a wrong answer choice students would get by adding instead. Other wrong answers reflect the failure to carry in an addition or multiplication problem.

Science question developer Ann Adjutant, a former Maine high school physics teacher, culls ideas from science magazines and includes common misconceptions among her wrong answer choices.

Sometimes test makers get permission to use a current author's work. Sometimes they write passages themselves. Gerstenblatt wrote "Drinking Milk Is Good for Birds." Kahl authored a sappy verse to test student understanding of rhyme schemes, requiring them to pick the last line with the correct rhyme:

"Sometimes you may be happy and other times you're blue/And if you want to change your mood, there is something you can do/You can take a ray of sunshine (But handle it with care)/And give it to a friend in need?"

The correct finish? "Whose smile you soon will share."

Test makers stick closely to state standards, and committees check for bias, but they strive to design creative questions that reflect a region's flavor. That's why you'll find more Native American allusions in tests created for schools in the Southwest -- and no Greyhound bus schedules in Wyoming.

So the Patriots' Super Bowl win will probably appear in a future MCAS question, and you might find Red Sox players' batting averages in a math problem.

    

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