Testing Service Now Aids All of U.S. Education

To the average student, the phrase "prepared by the Educational Testing Service" at the front of a test conjures to the mind a group of bespecacled ogres plotting the destruction of his academic career. In reality, however, ETS in its seven years of existence has raised the standards of testing, to such a height that close to every imaginable organization, from the United States Government, to the Honolulu Board of Education, has requested its services.

Among the tests created and administered by the Service are the college boards, the draft deferment examination, and the various graduate school admissions tests. In all, ETS is responsible for the formation of 16 exam programs missions tests. In all, ETS is responsible for the formation of 16 exam programs.

In their work ETS officials, from President Henry Chauncey '28 down, are guided by the adage that it is harder to make a test than it is to answer it. An exam is usually more than a year in the making and before it reaches the student, it usually goes through several phases of research and experimentation.

On occasion, however, the organization has had to work on extremely short notice. The Selective Service Department did not give Chauncey the final decision on whether it wanted the draft deferment test until March, 1951. It then told the group that it wanted the examination ready for administration in late May of the same year.

Headquarters at Princeton

The overall policy for a test is always determined by the professional group or government agency for whom the test is to be made. But the actual spelling out of the questions usually takes place at the ETS's five story administration-laboratory building in Princeton, New Jersey. If it is an aptitude measure, ETS test specialists, most of them outstanding students just out of college, develop the questions.

If the test if of the achievement variety, such as those used by the College Board, a five man "board of experts" usually prepares the exam. For the "boards" this group is always composed of three men from the college level, and two from the secondary school group. Of the latter group one man will represent a public school and one a private school. ETS is also careful to have representation from women's colleges and from all geographical sections.

This cross-sectioning is very important since a question written for an aptitude test by a MIT math professor might give un unfair advantage to Eastern pre-engineering students. The committee tries to eliminate all items which might prove of particular advantage to one group.

Unfair questions, which manage to slip by the board of experts, are usually spotted in the experimental pre-test, which every question must pass before it is to be included as a bona fide question on an ETS test. Experimental items are often included in the regular college board exams, where the student does not know that the question will not count towards his scores.

After the tests have been marked each question is studied on a special item analysis chart. A question of average difficulty is expected to be answered correctly by 60 percent of those trying to pick one of the five possible answers usually provided in ETS tests. If more people choose a particular wrong answer that the right one, the question is eliminated. This occasionally happens because of ambiguity on the part of the test-maker. An example of this is the following question included in a recent aptitude test.

Impassive:emotion: : 1-inert:motion 2-ambiguous:meaning 3-neuter-gender 4-impartial:opinion 5-ambivalent:decision.

While the correct answer was item four it was found that 43 percent answered number one as against 28 percent who chose four. The obvious ambiguity was eliminated so that the question read:

Impassive:emotion: 1-fatigued: sleep 2-ambiguous: meaning 3-neuter-gender 4-impartial: prejudice 5-ambivalent: decision.

Long, Arduous Process

The new form was them pre-tested and answered correctly by 40 percent of those taking the test. Since those giving the right answer far outnumbered those giving any other, the item was placed on a regular ETS exam.

While the placing of a question on a test in a long, often arduous process, the actual marking is an unusually speedy, and easy one. This is made necessary by the large number of exams that must be graded-nearly two-thirds of a million tests a year.

Twenty IBM machines--each capable of marking up to 600 tests on hour--are responsible for all the actual scoring. Machines electrically record the number of right and wrong answers on each paper. Until recently machines merely recorded correct answers but a college board decision to deduct on quarter credit for each mistake necessitated the change.

"Beating the System"

The machine-operated scoring has on occasion tempted students to "beat the system" through the marking of more that one of the numbered answers. Such offenders fall into categories. The first, or "naive" group, will blacken all five of the answer spaces. The second type, a little shrewder, will darken one of the blanks, while placing tiny dots, which will register as correct on the machine, in one or two of the other four' spaces.

Such dubious means, however, are to no avail. While the IBM machine quite definitely falls prey to such goings-on, a half a dozen highly-trained ETS exam inspectors do not. These inspectors examine every answer sheet before it is placed in the marking machines. According to Louis Cozma, head of the ETS marking division, even the cleverest cheating system can be spotted in a matter of seconds.

The incidence of cheating appears to be dependent on what is being tested. The most dishonest answer papers, Cozma reported, are found among those turned in for admission to Law School. Butt even here, he added, the percentage is small.

The Law School Admission test is one of sixteen test programs administered by the Educational, Testing Service. These range in scope from the preliminary Actuarial Examination given each May to a little over a thousand candidates to the College Boards which last year tested over 140,000 candidates.

Newest in the ETS overall program are the various graduate school admissions tests. This group includes test required for all applicants to the University's Law, Medical, Business, and Graduate School. Designed to help determine students aptitude for study in his chosen field, the test has made it possible to apply to many different graduate schools without having to take a test for each university.

Scoring on these tests like a almost all other ETS exams is done on a comparative basis. A student who gets two thirds of the questions right on either the law or business test generally rates as average among those taking the examinations. The medical schools admissions exam is designed so that the average student will get a mere 50 percent.

The admissions officers at the Harvard Law, Medical and Business School all consider the ETS tests as a useful guide in determining the merits of an applicant, But both Lewis B. Ward, Business School Director of Admissions and Louis A. Toepfer, director of Admissions at the Law School rate it subordinate to the student's college grades. Toepfer also noted that a low score on the admissions test does not necessarily mean a low aptitude for law. Kendall Emerson, Jr., who is in charge of admissions for the Medical School, uses the ETS medical exam primarily as a screening test with the main emphasis in considering a candidate placed on the student's "character and overall suitability for medicine."

The graduate schools admission tests are comparative newcomers to the field of educational testing. The Business School exam, for instance, was given for the first time this fall. But even the older Medical School admissions test is a baby compared to the 54 year old College Board Examinations.

The College Board is in a very real sense the father of the seven year old ETS, It was the CEEB, which in 1947 turned over all of its assets in excess of $300,000 to the ETS "in the belief and confidence" that it "would make good tests against which those of other

Below are some sample questions selected from the various ETS graduate school exams. Answers will be found off page 6.

1. Confiscate:rob: : (a) offend:insuit (b) receive:take (c) avenge:punish (d) trespass:walk (e) execute:murder.

2. The residential distribution of families and workers in a city is governed by (a) their length of residence in the city (b) their ability to pay for housing and transportation (c) their scale of value concerning the meet desirable quarter of the city d) the topography featured of the city (e) the location of hospitals and schools.

3. If the length of a rectangle is increased by 10% and the width by 40% by what per cent is the area increased. (a) 4 (b) 15.4 (c) 50 (d) 54 (e) 400.

4. Which of the three statements is irrelevant to the premise: The Industrial revolution and the development of applied science have benefited the human race.

1--Human progress has been synonymous with the increase of leisure.

2--Urban life develops men's highest faculties.

3--A dangerous situation exists when a large proportion of society is not living on the soil.

5. The love between the man and his son shines out as the ----- feature amid the surrounding and self-destruction. (a) sole (b) usual (c) characteristic (d) saving (e) Indefinable. agencies would be judged, increase research in the area of testing, and accelerate the development of new types of test." Under this agreement the ETS took full responsibility for the forming and administration of the college admissions tests. At the same time, the Board maintained the right to develop all policies for the tests and to serve as the national group responsible for facilitating the transfer between high school and college.

This division of function--or "merger" at it is sometimes referred to--has developed exceedingly well, with the two groups cooperating with usual felicity.

A good deal of the credit for the ease in which both CEEB and ETS passed through this transition period belongs to Henry Chauncey, the Testing Service's president. Chauncey, the Testing Service's president. Chauncey, an ex-Crimson football star and director of the college's scholarship program before the war, served as Director of the College Board prior to the founding of ETS.

As to the success of Chauncey's seven years in office, we may look at the Service's statement of organization, published in December, 1947. The ETS Board of Trustees, headed by President Emeritus James B. Conant, concluded its report with the following sentence:

"In view of the great need for research in all areas and the long-range importance of this work to the future development of sound educational programs it is the hope of those who have brought the ETS into being that it may fundamental contributions to the progress of education in the United States."

That was 1947. In 1954, Chauncey could survey the Educational Testing Service's 16 programs, and rest with assurance that ETS has to a large extent fulfilled the lofty goals set just seven short years ago.

Answers to Sample Questions

1, e; 2, b; 3, d; 4, c; 5. d.