Discusses aptitude tests that volunteers take to match their skills, interests, and aptitudes with skills needed in specific military occupations. Describes the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) and what happens to ASVAB results. (CT)

Earnest Sternglass discusses the evidence he has discovered relating declining scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test to atmospheric radiation in the 1950s. (IRT)

A brief, nontechnical state-of-the-art review of four common instruments and current practices in the field of scholastic aptitude testing is presented. The instruments include: the 1971 Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT), 1973 Henmon-Nelson Tests of Mental Ability (H-NTMA), 1979 Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT) and the 1970 Short Form Test of…

Because the skills tested on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) are higher order skills than those of basic literacy, teaching basic literacy will not necessarily improve SAT scores. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which does test literacy, indicates that students do possess basic literacy skills. (IRT) Aspect of National…

Discusses the administration of the Test di Attitudine Linguistica per Bambini (TALB) to students 7-9 years of age. Correlations between the TALB and achievement tests administered at the end of the course were very high. It is concluded that aptitude is a main factor in successful learning of a second language. (16 references) (LET)

The functions that IQ and aptitude tests now serve in schools and the trends that may modify the present pattern of test use are presented. Current research on intelligence and aptitude and the kind of intelligence tests that might prove more useful in instructional planning are also discussed. (Author/RD)

Public policy and measurement community issues related to the use of standardized achievement tests for students in kindergarten through grade 12 are discussed, focusing on students and parents as the end-users of test data. The viewpoints expressed are based on 18 years of experience with test score interpretation. It is suggested that technical…

When properly understood, scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) support the hypothesis that the performance of American students as measured by the SAT is steadily improving. As the overall pool of SAT takers increases and as pressures to adopt SAT scores as an administrative measure of instructional performance mount, SAT averages at the…