Tests and Examinations

Abstract

WHOEVER expects to find in this article a critical analysis of the various types of tests and examinations as they affect the teaching of German is probably doomed to disappointment. Philosophers have generally accorded old age the privilege of being garrulous. Inasmuch as I am just rounding out my twenty-fifth year as a language teacher, I may be pardoned for availing myself of this privilege. I am not sure in many cases that either my conclusions or my sources are correct. Lessing published the Reimarus Fragmente with the express purpose of having his views and those of the Fragmentist attacked in order that the truth might emerge. I am neither a Reimarus nor a Lessing but I am animated by the same purpose that Lessing was. The Learned Report of the Carnegie Foundation' gives its readers the impression that the pupils and students in our American schools and colleges are the most examined and the poorest educated in the world. The reason for this is found in the fact that we are attempting to educate everybody without regard to the fact as to whether the individual is either capable or willing to assimilate the type of education which we are giving him. Because such large numbers of boys and girls are encouraged or even forced by compulsory education laws to attempt courses of study which lead to (or should lead to) intellectual achievement, the result is that standards are lowered to the capacity of the majority, and pupils graduate from our schools with a diploma instead of an education. Such a system does not stimulate pupils of even moderate intellectual capacity to effort, while the effect on the really mentally gifted students is little short of disastrous. Recent studies of achievement 2 in our melting-pot schools show that the dull pupils do not gain much in spite of the fact that they monopolize the major part of the teacher's time and effort. Because teachers are judged largely by their success in getting their pupils through examinations, they