A new college exam - College Assessment Test - column

National Review, Dec 17, 1990 by William F. Buckley, Jr.

The answer to the question, What major changes did the College Board come up with in devising its new College Assessment Test, replacing the old SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test)? is: Not much. This answer disappoints lobbies that want to see a test devised that eliminates all differences in performance between whites and non-whites; lobbies that want to see women do better than men; and lobbies that hoped the new test would give colleges a better idea of what to expect from the freshman class.

Criticisms unrelated to ethnic and sexual egalitarianism have been at two levels. The first is that unless you ask a student to write an analytical essay, you are not going to have a very good idea of how well trained his intellectual apparatus is. Such essays were standard a generation ago but were dropped. The reasons given were that multiple-choice questions are much easier to correct, and that many high schools do not stress essay writing, putting the graduates of such high schools at a disadvantage.

You can say that again! At Berkeley twenty years ago, 30 to 50 per cent of the freshman class were required to take courses in remedial reading. That they were in Berkeley to begin with meant that they were bright people. That they had trouble with English meant that they were poorly trained. The College Board promised to have another look at essays a few years down the line, and now makes way for those students who elect to be given an essay to write. An estimated one hundred thousand students will exercise that option.

What is still missing from the CAT is: information. This is the complaint of Mrs. Lynne Cheney, the bright and sprightly chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her point is that it is possible to score on verbal aptitude by studying a reasonably finite accumulation of words and knowing which of the multiple-choice answers to select: "Mark down the word that most nearly defines DECIMATE: 1) blacken, 2) brighten, 3) adorn, 4) decrease greatly in number, 5) deceive." In respect of math, genuine strides have been made. Beginning in 1994, instead of completing, "Mark down the answer to the question, 120 per cent of 50 equals-1) 45, 2) 50, 3) 55, 4) 60, 5) 65," the student will be asked: Mat is 120 per cent of 50?" He will be permitted to use a calculator, but he will be required to exercise his mind in order to know what the calculator needs to do.

Now Mrs. Cheney says that this is all very well, but not enough. Where does the College Board find out if the student knows whether Gettysburg was a battle fought 1) in the War of the Roses, 2) in the Revolutionary War, 3) in the Civil War, 4) in World War II, 5) in the French and Indian War of the 1750s? Her point is that though we honor the need to acquire the tools of learning, we need also to acquire-learning. A heavy percentage of graduating high-school seniors cannot place the Civil War within fifty years of when it happened. And Senator Bill Bradley's explorations reveal that a high percentage of matriculating students in Texas colleges do not know the name of the country south of the border.

Mrs. Cheney's point is that schools have to begin to transmit barrels of knowledge. Mere verbal or mathematical or even analytical proficiency will not prepare an American for effective citizenship. A poll published a few years ago revealed that the majority of the American people believed the highest tax rate in the United States was 20 per cent. This at a time when it was 70 per cent. Those thus misinformed are not useful guides to congressional action, though manifestly they were critical during this past debate.

The College Board exams are a running political target. Willie Brown, the despotic boss of the California legislature, issued an ultimatum: If essay questions were required of foreign-born Californians, he would make the California university system drop the College Board tests. The pressure was clearly registered at Princeton, where the Board operates. But the best lobbying point should be the future education of the citizenry. Talk about deficient infrastructure should not be confined to talk about bridges and railroads.