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Chapter - 01

Big Tests For Little People

The T-shirt with the monogram, the old school colors, and the 19? might still be the gift which father brings junior from the campus co-op on the annual homecoming visit to the old alma mater. Junior might be indoctrinated with the loyal son spirit, but because father and junior have decided that junior must go to the old school is of little consequence unless junior starts to prepare when the T-shirt with the school colors is about size ten. Indeed, it has become critically important that father and junior start very early to plan and to work if junior is to get into the high school course that will most adequately prepare him for college, or into the independent secondary school where he was registered three weeks after he was born.

Today there is a growing movement on the part of discerning public and independent school officials to use placement tests and to provide high school courses according to the abilities and capacities shown in the elementary school years. Thus, if junior has not mastered the fundamentals of English grammar in elementary school, his parents might be told that his chances of competing in a foreign language are so remote that he cannot hope to pass the college preparatory course. They might learn to their sorrow that junior's dislike and neglect of arithmetic will leave him so much corrective work to do that he can never hope to keep up in the college preparatory mathematics classes. These are only symptoms of things to come, but there are signs that the movement will grow and spread to more and more public school systems. One indication of the trends is to be found in the stiffening of the requirements for entrance into state-supported schools. State universities whose doors were once open to all high school graduates are now requiring entrance exams of candidates for admission. The seriousness of the problem demands that parents take a critical look at what junior is doing in the third grade, and the fourth grade, and on. Unless concern goes beyond whether or not junior's painting is on the class bulletin board or what part he has in the school operetta, both junior and parents might be due for great disappointment when measurements for eight long years of elementary school show little achievement.

Even more critical and precarious is the plight of the candidate for the independent secondary school. Time was when admissions officers had to answer such questions as "Is there an indoor swimming pool?" and "How often does the camera club meet?" or "Does the school have a rifle club?" In the mad scramble for entrance, some independent schools now have places for only one out of four applicants who pass the entrance exams and qualify in all other respects, The questions seem to have narrowed to one: "What can I as a parent do to help my child prepare?" A glance at what the tests for entrance require of the seventh or eighth grader applying only adds to the gravity of the question. Both the Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey, and the Secondary Education Board, Milton, Massachusetts, supply junior scholastic aptitude and achievement tests. Practice book forms of the tests are available and parents should acquire copies. These may be obtained through the school to which the child is applying for entrance, or by ordering directly from the agencies named above.

The junior scholastic aptitude booklets are made up of several tests, in some cases eight, and require between an hour and a half and two hours to take. For a child who has spent eight years in school and has never had a test requiring an attention span of more than twenty minutes at a sitting, the time for execution can itself be a mountainous test. The tests are presumably devised to measure the native ability of the child for aptitudes in handling materials associated with English and arithmetic, but they go far beyond this as the content indicates. The content of the tests is of such degree of difficulty as to indicate what aptitudes have been successfully used in the accumulation of knowledge throughout the eight years of elementary school.

The whole battery of aptitude tests centers upon and includes every aspect of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Significantly absent are those subjects which seem to consume so much time in school—finger paints, health, weather, togetherness, cutting pictures from magazines, and social studies. One test deals with word definitions. In the same practice test provided, such words as noble, toilsome, damp, and selfish may be used. However, in the real test, definitions of such words as belligerent, eminent, askew, incongruous, and onerous are asked for; one such test contains one hundred and sixty words. A careful check of the textbooks used in the eight grades of public school will quickly reveal that a vocabulary so extensive is not to be found. Preparation for such a test will have come through well directed reading habits developed sufficiently at home to carry the reading standards of the child beyond the level required in school. About such reading much will be said later.

The proper choice of words to give exact meaning to sentences will also play an important part in the aptitude tests.  In the sample test there might be a statement such as: A wide range of                                                   
Will enable a person to enlarge his                                                                .
Along with the sentence will be words listed from which may be chosen the proper words to complete the sentence. In this case reading and vocabulary would doubtless appear. But in the real test the candidate is asked to put to proper use such words as itinerant, philanthropic, faction, chronology, asset, dialect, syllogism, and many others of equal or greater difficulty. It is wise to remember that the practice book of tests is meant only to acquaint the student with the type of test, and the method of execution, and is in no way meant to indicate the degree of difficulty of the material of the actual test. The sample tests are always composed of easy material so as to allow the student to concentrate entirely on mastering the type of questions and the proper methods to be used in answering. Tests dealing with words and the relationship of words to thinking and sentence use also include matching tests for words having the same meaning and for those having opposite meanings—synonyms and antonyms, and the meaning of synonym and antonym must be understood in order to know what the test requires. The sample tests reproduced below could be most disillusioning if their limited purposes were not kept in mind. They are to show the type of test and the method of answering only. Word lists in the real tests will be much more difficult. Instead of big, good, small, round, one will find laudatory, superior, clever, disparaging.

* The following sample tests are used with permission of the Secondary Education Board, Milton, Mass.

TEST NUMBER 2

Read the following sentence, and the two lines of words, which follow the sentence.

1. The              of the body which appears at night to give most light to the earth is the               .

The right word for the first blank must be chosen from the first line, and the right word for the second blank must be chosen from the second line. Name is the right word for the first blank, and moon is the right word for the second blank. Since name has a (1) by it and moon has a (6) by it, @ has been blacked out.

Study the next sample; the answer is correct.

2. A                 is a variety of vegetable used for                                  

      peach1          sandwich2              tart3                    potato4
      dessert5        food6                     fruit7                   spraying8

Do the other samples in the same way. Remember that the word chosen for the first blank must come from the first line, and the word chosen for the second blank must come from the second line. Do not write on the dotted lines.

3. A wide range of                    will enable a person to enlarge his                    .

      Eating1          reading2                 jumping3             investments4
      age5              manners6                distance7             vocabulary8

4. A                 is a piece of equipment used in playing              

      mitti               putter2                   club3                   puck4
      basketball5   football6                  baseball7             tennisg

5. A unit of measurement to determine               is a                  

      Temperature1  density2               time3                   weight4
      tons5             watt6                      foot7                   meter8

TEST NUMBER 3

Read the following words:

1. kitten: cat :: lamb:    goose1  dove2   dog3   sheep4   horse5

The first two words have a relation to each other. The third word has a similar relation to one of the five numbered words which follow. Kitten is to cat as lamb is to sheep. The number 4 has been blacked out.

2. scepter: king  ::  badge:   tribe1   policeman2   barber3  crime4   nation5

A scepter is to a king as a badge is to what? The answer is policeman; so number k has been blacked out.

In each line the first two words are related. The third word may be combined with another word to make a similar relation. Do each of the other lines.

The ability to read and understand is not only measured by the paragraph test, but also by the instructions for each test. Note carefully the instructions for a combination "word-meaning and grammar" test.

The ability to use words and the skill to observe and think as one reads also form an important part of the testing. A number of paragraphs are given in which are included words which cloud, distort, or in some way spoil the meaning of each paragraph. The sample paragraph provides obvious examples of distorted meanings: (He entered the room and opened the door behind him.) However, the actual test might contain such words as shrewd, dialect, prediction, etc. It requires keen observation and the ability to think as one reads. After all, reading is thinking, and this particular type of test will quickly distinguish the practiced and thoughtful reader from the child of mediocrity who has spent eight years "traveling with Dick and Jane" or "inspecting the municipal waterworks with Mr. Wilson."

TEST NUMBER 4

Read the following paragraph:

1. The first thing he did was to see if there was a fire
1                                  2                                  3
in the fireplace, and he was very well pleased to find

TEST NUMBER 5

In this test, the sign  will be used to indicate opposite in meaning to. Following each sentence are five words. Find the one word among the five which is opposite in meaning to the given word, and mark out its number in the space at the right of the page. In the first question below, the noun "joy" is opposite in meaning to the verb "grieve"; so the number k has been marked out. In question two, the adjective "growing" is opposite in meaning to the verb "decrease"; so ƒ has been marked out. Do questions 3, 4, and 5 in the same way.

Only the discerning reader who reads for specific ideas and is able to transpose those ideas quickly into practice can hope to handle such instructions in the limited time allowed. Note the explanatory material below taken from a practice test for arithmetical aptitude:

TEST NUMBER 6

In each line the numbers are arranged according to some particular scheme. You may add, subtract, multiply, or divide; you may need to do two of these things in the same problem. In all cases the series is to be read from left to right. Write in the spaces at the margin the two numbers which should come next. The first four problems are answered correctly.

1          2          3          4          5          6          7
18        16        14        12        10        8          6
3          6          8          16        18        36        38
2          5          3          6          4          7          5
3          6          12        24        48                   
4          8          10        20        22                   
144      48        45        15        12                   

One of the many invaluable services which the parent or teacher can render a child who is preparing to take any test or examination is to emphasize the importance of always knowing exactly what is to be done and doing it as described to the last minute detail. Far more mistakes are made on tests and examinations because of some misreading or misunderstanding of instructions than from lack of knowledge pertaining to the subject involved. In the seemingly few and simple instructions given above for the arithmetical aptitude test, there are both important probabilities and certainties that have to be read and remembered. The numbers are arranged—how? According to a scheme—no; they are arranged according to some particular scheme. Consequently, more than one scheme can be expected. Is there a certain thing to be done, or are there several possibilities? "You may add, subtract, multiply, or divide." Here are four probable methods of solution. It is even more complicated: "You may need to do two of these things in the same problem." May and same are important words in this part of the instruction, and such words are usually called key words. It is well for the student to be taught to underline key words. "In all cases" allows no exceptions, so whatever procedure is here described is for all the problems. All is the key word. "Write in the spaces at the margin the two numbers" evidently provides a space for each number. But spaces is a word to be noted here, for there is ample room in one space for two numbers, and the examples of both numbers put in the first space appear only in about one out of twenty tests given. The careful second reading of instructions and questions should be constantly emphasized by parents and teachers, and practice provided whenever possible. Drill in picking out key words and study of key words that denote certainty or probability are activities that will rest almost entirely with the parent. Testing of any type is so infrequent in the public elementary school as to provide little training of any kind as regards tests and examinations.

The emphasis placed on reading and writing in the junior scholastic aptitude tests carries them into a field the surface of which is barely scratched in elementary public school—English grammar. A test is usually included which requires that the candidate know the parts of speech and the basic uses of each. Some questions also pertain to conditions under which a word which is generally one part of speech becomes another. Parents should check very closely with public school practices as regards the extent of the teaching of grammar. The absence of the teaching of any grammar beyond recognition of the most obvious examples of the parts of speech is often hidden behind a vague term called "functional grammar." Close investigation of "functional grammar" usually results in the conclusion that it is "functioning without grammar," the explanation being, "The child can use words to write a sentence, and after all that is the function of words, so why complicate matters by giving him names for words?" Be that as it may, the child is going to need the fundamentals of grammar if he takes junior scholastic aptitude tests; so if grammar is not taught sufficiently at school, grammar becomes a project for parent and child.

Passing notice has already been given arithmetical aptitude tests in the discussion of the importance of reading instructions carefully. They take up a prominent part of the booklet, usually two or three tests, and deserve careful notice. A thorough knowledge of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division is necessary. Skill and efficiency in arithmetical procedures are tested by careful timing. There are usually several pages of word problems, testing the whole range of measurement tables, use of fractions, decimals, percentages, and further testing, of course, the student's ability to read and follow instructions—for a word problem is chiefly a set of instructions as to what is to be done, carrying within it an implication of how it is to be done.

TEST NUMBER 7

Work each of the following problems. The correct answer is given as one of the five answers at the right. Black out the correct answer. Use the margin for scratch work, if you cannot do the problem in your head.

• How much more is 37 than 21?      

15       14      • 20      l71/2·

• What part of 15 is 3?         

1/8       2/5       1/3       •           3/5

• Joe has one of each kind of coin below   a    dollar. How much money has he?       

921/2¢   93¢     95¢     90¢   9l¢

• If apples are sold at   two   for   five cents, how many can be bought for 85 cents?  

33      30      29      34      35

• If 2/3 of a clerk's salary is  $800 a year, find his salary per month

$100.  $120.  $98.  $110. $96.50

TEST NUMBER 8

Work each of the following problems. The correct answer is given as one of the five answers at the right. Black out the correct answer. Use the margin for scratch work, if you cannot do the problem in your head.

• Add:           236      1544     1533     •    1565     1567

451
879

• Subtract:     5764     •       2375    2276   2176   2278

            3489

• Multiply:     258      11,216 12,126 21,126 12,612 11,516

47

Discouraged parents should now hold on to their seats, for only the aptitude tests have been finished. There are also achievement tests to measure precisely what the student has accomplished in reading, writing, and arithmetic during seven or eight grades of elementary school. Here again we find significant only by their absence such subjects as art,, music appreciation, science, nature study (those subjects which we seem to have heard most about). That all-inclusive paragon of all education, learning, and life itself is omitted when your child is examined to see whether or not he qualifies for the college preparatory course in high school or is prepared to enter an independent secondary school. The subject that has taken so much time during elementary school—from cutting out pictures of tomato pickers to field trips to the town incinerator—there is no achievement test in social studies. But the mathematics test stretches every fiber of junior's arithmetical accomplishments, and the English test probes every nook and cranny of spelling, writing, grammar, and comprehension in reading.

The achievement test in mathematics will usually require from one to two hours to take. Some independent schools compose their own distinctive tests; others use the standard type provided by the various testing agencies. The last mentioned are the ones used chiefly to test for qualification for admission to a college preparatory course in the better high schools. The tests examine for skills in handling addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; also skills in using mixed numbers, fractions, and decimals. There are tests dealing with facts of measurements, weights, geometric areas, and rules and formulae. Terms and concepts are also given extensive space in a recognition part of the test. Practical application and appreciation of mathematical procedures are thoroughly exhausted in most of the achievement tests by a series of word problems. "A big dose of strong medicine for little, and sometimes very weak, boys and girls," said one high school principal, "but if they are still struggling with third grade multiplication when they come to us, the damage has been done. Legally they have to be admitted to a program of college preparation because their parents demand it, but in a few weeks parents and child give up, and the hard courses are exchanged for Shop and Advertising and Home Improvement. Our high schools cannot be strengthened until there is more required of the elementary school. We have to have a foundation upon which to build."

The headmaster of an independent secondary school says: "We have to accept candidates who make a miserable showing in mathematics; to reject them would be terribly unfair. They have average intelligence but they haven't had a chance. In our school we feel that mathematics requires more personal and individual attention, explanation, and drill, than any other subject except perhaps a foreign language. Consequently, we restrict our mathematics classes, as we do our foreign language classes, to about twelve students per class. Many of our students come from classrooms where they have been one of thirty, or even more, for their whole eight years of elementary school. Even if the school devoted the proper amount of the school day to reading, writing, and arithmetic, it is highly improbable that an earnest, hard-working teacher could ever find the time to sit down and go over with a single child a difficult problem or the meaning of common denominator. This same teacher might appreciate fully the importance of practice in arithmetic, but if junior goes home night after night with ten examples to work and hounds his parents for help, eighty per cent of the parents will complain either to the teacher or ignore the child's request for help until he is convinced that work outside of school is unimportant and unnecessary. Even if the homework had the blessing and cooperation of the public, what teacher could find the time necessary to grade that many papers each day? We get children from elementary schools who have never, during the eight years, had the experience of working examples on the blackboard before the class. The teacher's explanation on the blackboard does not educate the child. Education is for the most part a personal thing, the child will develop and improve his innate desire to learn and educate himself, or he will revolt against it to escape responsibility. Which he does depends a great deal upon the help and encouragement or neglect and indifference, he gets at home. Until there is real concern at home for junior's arithmetic homework, and a demand from the home that he have homework, we will continue to spend hours and years doing corrective mathematics to fill the gap left in elementary school. As tragic as the lack of an arithmetical foundation itself is the rank dislike for mathematics which has been fed by misunderstanding and want of accomplishment. In eight years a great many habits and ideas become fixed; to change them is costly in both effort and time."

Methods of making elementary school mathematics more meaningful will be dealt with in a later chapter; meanwhile, there are still tests which are required as a measure of achievement from elementary school. Something of the ability and aptitude in reading and writing has already been noted in the description of the junior scholastic aptitude test, but almost all independent secondary schools require an English examination. Of thirty schools canvassed, the English requirements vary only in minor details and demands. The fundamental requirements for grammar usage, reading comprehension, correct spelling, writing ability, and a sense of neatness are generally the same. Some high schools also require similar tests of pupils applying for college preparatory English courses. The two tests given below are characteristic of hoped-for accomplishment from eight years of elementary school:

TEST NUMBER 1

Instructions

If you come to …………………. School you will be required to follow many rigid regulations for written work. You will have to write neatly; you will have to spell correctly; you will have to punctuate properly. Your present ability to do these things will be graded strictly on your examination paper. In answering the questions below, keep this in mind. Your grade will be determined by what you write and the way you write it.

Read Carefully

"Even here the children laugh in the narrow lanes that run between these tragic habitations. A sheet of iron, a few planks, hession and grass, an old door from some forgotten house. Smoke curls from vents cunningly contrived, there is the smell of food, there is the sound of voices, not raised in anger or pain, but talking of ordinary things, of this one that is born and that one that has died, of this one that does so well at school and that one who is now in prison. There is drought over the land, and the sun shines warmly down from the cloudless sky. But what will they do when it rains, what will they do when it is winter?"

Quoted from Cry, The Beloved Country
By ALAN PATON

Answer the following questions relating to the passage above:

I.   Sentences, punctuation, and grammar

1. Find one complex sentence and one compound sentence in the passage above. Copy them and designate each.


2. Part of one sentence gives the topic of the paragraph. Copy the sentence and underline the part that gives the paragraph topic.


3. What rule for comma usage is illustrated in the next to the last sentence?


4. In the first sentence find and tell what each modifies: two adjectives, two adverbs, and two phrases used as adverbs.


5. What part of speech is each of the words below as used in the paragraph: run, smell, some, anger, ordinary, shines, between, and one.


6. Give the meaning of the words below as they are used in the paragraph: habitations, vents, cunningly, contrived, and drought.

II.   Reading for understanding:

1. There is a study of contrast in the paragraph; what is the contrast?


2. What two words in the first sentence introduce the contrast?


3. Several experiences that pertain to living are pictured or implied; name six.

III.   Reading is thinking:

1. Write a theme describing the lives of two children from this settlement. What they are like, what they do, how they grow up, what happens to each in life. Underline the topic sentence in each of your paragraphs. Give your theme a title. Be sure to spell all words correctly.

TEST NUMBER 2

I. In the list below most of the words are spelled incorrectly. Correct the spelling where necessary and give definitions of all the words.

1. stature                                  11. religion
2. benificial                               12. preceive
3. wierd                                    13. statute
4. fasinate                                 14. inevitable
5. familar                                  15. sacrafice
6. noticable                               16. statue
7. completly                              17. schedule
8. eleminate                              18. changable
9. suspence                              19. mispelled
10. disipate                               20. definate

II.  Punctuate the following sentences:

1. The coach together with his victorious team was applauded by the whole school and when he came forward to receive the cup it was a full minute before he could control his emotions and speak


2. If I sign up for latin what will the homework be like and how much time will it require daily


3. The answer is no now and it will not change


4. These are orders follow the trail as marked out avoid all conversation with strangers keep your provisions always in plain view and against all obstacles get there before nightfall 5.   Fear is not the word it was awe inspiring

III. The sentence below is the topic sentence for a paragraph. Write the paragraph and then under line all verbs in the paragraph. List what you consider to be the five most descriptive modifiers in the paragraph, and tell what part of speech each is, and what each modifies. Here is your topic sentence: There was even a weird strangeness about the front gate and lawn.

IV. Write a theme about some book you have read during the past year. Do not simply retell the plot or story, but state, explain, and describe the qualities and experiences which appealed to you. Be sure to start your theme with a clear statement of the title and author of the book. If you have not read a book during the past year, write a theme explaining why you have not and what you feel generally about reading, its importance as a means of learning or lack of importance, what reading can or cannot do for a person, what subject or subjects you would choose to read about if you were required to read but given a choice of subjects. Be sure to give your theme a title.

These are the tests. As mentioned before, they picture only the hoped-for accomplishments of eight years. of fundamentals in grammar, punctuation, reading and writing. Of three hundred and ninety-six candidates taking test number 2 in one school, only thirty-seven passed with a grade of 60 or above. Of the number who passed, sixteen had attended parochial and private elementary schools for two or more years. Of the three hundred and ninety-six, there were two hundred and seven who had not read a single book during the preceding year. Their substitute themes on why they had not read one, and what reading is, varied in length from twenty-four words to over three hundred; but in all there were these recurring statements: "No one made me read a book," or "We were not assigned any books to read." Other tragically revealing comments also appeared: "Books are boring because there are big words which I can't understand." . . . "Books are long and take too much time." . . . "Television is more educational than books because it covers more subjects." ... "I am going to be a scientist and there are no important books for me to read until I get to colledge."*

* The spelling is from the theme.

Even worse than the dire lack of background in reading is the almost complete absence of any conception of grammar. "Functional grammar," performing the function of writing without a knowledge of any grammar,  leaves the child with even less than a nodding acquaintance with the names and terms. The words "subject" and "predicate" crop up here and there described as parts of speech. "Even" is a verb and "tragic" is a noun. One mother, frantically waving her child's test paper, said she had protested to both the seventh and eighth grade teachers that her child knew nothing about grammar. The seventh grade teacher had replied, "The study of grammar is very confusing for children. They are approaching adolescence which is a very confusing part of their lives. They should not be confused more by becoming involved with dangling participles and prepositions." The eighth grade teacher who habitually wrote each sentence as a single paragraph had brushed the whole question aside with: "I was never very good in grammar myself. Practice will teach him to write." The English tests show, besides "functional grammar," another method for bypassing the whole problem. This is known as "contextual use," and it reduces all words to two groupings; a sentence is made up of "main words" and "helping words." But what happens to the eighth grader with an average or above average I.Q. who has great potential but has achieved little or nothing? Schools meet the problem in different ways, but in whatever way the shortcomings are made up, it is expensive in time, effort, and money. Some private secondary schools have three separate curriculums for their beginning class. The same is also true of many public high schools. Students who passed the entrance examinations satisfactorily go into Class A. Here they begin the first year basic subjects for college entrance: English, Algebra, one foreign language, history or science, and perhaps a minor course in geography or religious instruction. The candidates who show above average aptitudes, but who have been poorly prepared and show little achievement, are qualified for Class B. Here they start a hard two-year grind to catch up without actually losing a year's time. They start the regular basic courses, but in English and mathematics much time is devoted to review. As a background of knowledge is built up, the courses are accelerated so that at the end of two years—characterized by the extra burden of catching up —the students are prepared to enter their junior year and carry the normal load of work. The third curriculum is designated Class C, and requires the loss of a year by the student. The year is devoted to arithmetic, reading, writing, and history or beginning science. The fundamentals—which were glossed over in elementary school in favor of "finger paints," "cooperative response," and "visual projects"—are studied from, their beginning. As one admissions officer of an independent school put it: "Every year we have applicants who have above average intelligence, but of whom nothing has been required. We feel morally obligated to give them a chance, so we have a year's remedial course, but it is costly for the parents."

In a sense the parents are paying for something they omitted. In most cases, however, the omission was an unconscious one, or else they were conscious of the fact that something should be done. In the case of the mother who knew her child was not being taught grammar, she followed the implication that "We'll hope for something" but, for the time being, "We'll wait rather than work." The teacher has to wait only until the end of the term. The problems will be passed on to someone else. And next year the number of pupils in the classroom will make impossible the patient explanation and sustained drills necessary for laying the foundation of the fundamentals upon which courses are built. So — "We'll hope for something."

But while this vague hope and the overwhelming problems of over-crowding, social studies requirements, etc. fill up the important elementary years, something can be done to fill up the yearning to learn and the will for achievement which each child takes to school with him day after day, and brings home night after night. This something which can be done—can be done at home. The partnership of parent and child can make these formative years significant, feed the child's desire to learn, and give him the taste of success that comes from doing a neat paper or getting a good grade on a test. The partnership of parent and child can also make such subtle demands upon our system of education as will bring reform in what the child requires of the teacher, and education can become "work now" rather than "hope" for a vague, indefinite tomorrow.

We have seen the big tests for little people. The little people want to succeed. No child begins school, wanting to escape learning and work—there is an eagerness, and it is hard to destroy. As a matter of fact, it is almost indestructible. Then what happens? Why does junior arrive at the end of eight years of learning with no preparation or desire for what is yet to come? What can the parents do, and where and when and how do they begin? These questions we must now try to answer for the testing time is closer than we think.

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