Are tests useful?

  • A curious incident took place with my daughter. She had a test in her kindergarten, this was the question: which should be excluded from the row “horse, cat, tiger”. She (me and my wife too) answered “a horse”, the idea quite plain: the rest were from the cat family. But the “right” answer was “a tiger”, because the rest are domestic animals! Knowing much sometimes conflicts to good testing!
    In other words, often we should guess the way the test writers thought rather then the answers.
    Example number two. “Give me an\the apple” may be regarded from different points depending on the situation. If there are a lot of apples on a dish – “a” is used denoting “one”, if the only apple – “the” is more suitable. Article is a word, it has its meaning, and its usage depends on the idea – that’s what I kept saying to my students! But this was an example from a test.
    Are tests useful?

  • It depends on what kind of tests,'cause some of them can realy check your knowledge, especially grammar tests. The test you're writing about at the same time a logical test, it's not enough to know only grammar,lexicology for such tests.And i wonder how could they give such tests to children?Such tests are usually fiven to entrants to linguistic universities.

  • O, no, the second example was of course not from school

  • While talking about tests I'll tell my story of today.Having accuired qualification as a teacher of English and German, I graduated from the foreign languages dept. 2 years ago. I work as a translator, doing some part time job at school. Today I've taken the Intermmediate level test and made 3 mistakes out of 40!!!!!!!!! Shame on me!!!! But! When I took First English Certificate test i was scored 132 out of 150, so........ What do the tests show?

  • Try this: http://www.teamtesting.com/test/english
    A curios thing indeed.

  • serjio
    Ссылка не работает

  • Да, что-то у них заклинило. Я еще успел потестироваться и повеселиться. Дело в том, что они дают такие ответы, что подходит, в зависимости от стиля (формальный-разговорный) два варианта. Например: The train #2 leaves (is leaving) at 6.
    Ну, пишу один вариант, а там есть ответы и в них - другой. Я не поленился и еще раз прошел с их "правильными" ответами. Опять не так, на этот раз в ответах стоит первый вариант! Во прикол!
    Sorry, forgot that the post is in English.