In 1972 I spent considerable time interviewing individuals and groups of young children in order to learn more about how they went about solving test questions on standardized tests. My interest was spurred by the discovery that my fluent bookworm son did badly on a 3rd grade test, and that the students who left our cozy 4-room Pre-K to 3rd grade mini-program at PS 144 were scoring poorly in 3rd grade. I knew virtually nothing about tests until that experience. I was a good test-taker and assumed such tests were good at detecting my talents.

I was stunned by what I learned. I wrote a publication.  Here’s the link:

It holds up well. I documented the work, based on tape recordings done during the interviews.

I found 7 types of biases that favored children—

1. whose home and neighborhood used Standard English.

2. who have a specific type of middle class experience with life.

3. with fairly conventional, conforming and uncreative thinking patterns.

4. who mature early, especially in terms of verbal skills.

5. who think and work quickly.

6. who are emotionally and socially secure under competitive and judgmental pressures.

7. who have been subjected to certain methods of teaching.

As I reminded parents later, they were also biased in favor of children whose curriculum accidentally coincided with some of the particulars on the test, just plain gamble’s luck, and finally on their state of mind on that day.

It’s worth reading the original article I wrote for City College.  To see it CLICK HERE

It’s still true–and more. Note that testing prep wasn’t common in 1973–and considered cheating. Test takers warned against it in no uncertain terms. Prepping would, they said, undermine the purpose of the tests. Forty years later I find myself impressed with myself!