This book is a survey of all the modern language examinations in the United Kingdom at "GCE"'O' level, Scottish 'O' grade, and "CSE" Mode 1, available in 1979 in French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish, as well as the "16+" examination offered by a consortium of boards in the north of England. It is an attempt to provide a critical analysis of modern language examinations at the beginning of the 1980's. The study is divided into three parts: (1) the data, which provides information about 112 examinations; (2) a critical analysis and evaluation of these data, as well as a scrutiny and critique of the examination papers themselves; and (3) a number of independent contributions, commissioned by the editors, giving viewpoints on aspects of language examinations. The tables in part one cover the aims of the examination; syllabus definition/clarification; details of marking principles, schemes, and scoring; a tabular description of the examination tests categorized under the headings of oral/aural/reading/writing; and a list of sources from which the information was obtained. (Author/AMH)