单选题Directions:Read the following four passages. Answer the
questions below by choosing A, B, C or D. The
standardized educational or psychological tests, which are widely used to aid in
selecting, assigning or promoting students, employees and military personnel,
have been the target of recent attacks in books, magazines, the daily press, and
even in Congress. The target is wrong, for, in attacking the tests, critics
divert attention from the fault that lies with ill-informed or incompetent
users. The tests themselves are merely tools. Whether the results will be
valuable, meaningless, or even misleading depends partly upon the tool itself
but largely upon the user. All informed predictions of future
performance are based upon some knowledge of relevant past performance. How well
the predictions will he validated by later performance depends upon the amount,
reliability and appropriateness of the information used and on the skill and
wisdom with which it is interpreted. Anyone who keeps careful score knows that
the information available is always incomplete and that the predictions are
always subject to error. Standardized tests should be
considered in this context: they provide a quick, objective method of getting
some kind of information about what a person has learned, the skills he has
developed, or the kind of person he is. The information so obtained has,
qualitatively, the same advantages and shortcomings as other kinds of
information. Whether to use tests, other kinds of information, or both in a
particular situation depends, therefore, upon the empirical evidence concerning
comparative validity and upon such factors as cost and availability.
In general, the tests work most effectively when the traits or qualities
to be measured can be most precisely defined (for example, ability to do well in
a particular course of training program) and least effectively when what is to
be measured or predicted cannot be well defined, for example, personality or
creativity. Properly used, they provide a rapid means of getting comparable
information about many people. Sometimes they identify students whose high
potential has not been previously recognized.
单选题
In this passage, the author is primarily concerned with ______.
A. the necessity of standardized tests
B. the validity of standardized tests
C. the method used in interpreting the results of standardized tests