Robert J. MacG. Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> If indeed the scores are being reduced by hiding the easy questions
> among the harder ones, then I would say yes, this is a defect of the
> current system, and should be changed. It may be that the questions
> themselves ought to be more difficult; but the difficulty ought to be
> intrinsic to the questions, not an artifact of the test format. What is
> at issue here is essentially signal-to-noise ratio.
In fact, format-related "difficulty" on a test gives an unfair advantage
to students who have taken test-prep courses, since most of the skills
they teach relate to pacing, figuring out formats, and the like rather
than to actual academic content. Since test-taking skills are generally
*not* taught in schools themselves, evaluating schools on criteria that
are strongly influenced by their students' test-taking skills amounts to
evaluating them on criteria beyond their control, in this case the number
of parents who both care enough and (*big* and!) can afford to send their
kids to test-prep courses.
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