CULTURAL BIAS
I think that many times testing critics’ complaints of cultural bias in tests are just a bunch of hand-waving nonsense. Scoop seems to have found a couple of examples of the genuine article in the practice test for NY’s high stakes 8th-grade test:
“The year 1999 was a big one for the Williams sisters. In February, Serena won her first pro singles championship. In March, the sisters met for the first time in a tournament final. Venus won. And at doubles tennis, the Williams girls could not seem to lose that year.” And here’s one of the four questions:
“The story says that in 1999, the sisters could not seem to lose at doubles tennis. This probably means when they played
“A two matches in one day
“B against each other
“C with two balls at once
“D as partners”OK, class, do you know the answer? (By the way, I didn’t cheat: there’s nothing else about “doubles” in the text.)
OK, it’s just the practice test, and maybe the obvious bias is why this item didn’t make the cut. But, if I were a parent with a kid in the NY g-schools, that practice item sure wouldn’t give me a case of the warm fuzzies.
One Response to “CULTURAL BIAS”
 Comment by Ryan January 11th, 2006 at 12:39 pm |
Perhaps it was supposed to be a trick question. There were several questions like that on the Stanford and SAT’s that I did a double-take, just to make sure I wasn’t missing something obvious. I hope that question wasn’t on the reading comprehension section. |