The Essay Examination

IF AN instructor wants to know whether a particular student is capable of writing a foreign language, he does not ask him simply to write down some of the words in his vocabulary: the student might be able to do nothing more than that with them. Instead, the instructor asks him to write something which will show that he is no mere parrot, something which will demonstrate that he has the ability to select the words he needs from his vocabulary and arrange them in sentences that communicate ideas. Similarly, if one wants to know whether an individual is literate within a particular field of knowledge-American history, English literature, comparative government-it is nonsensical to ask him merely to supply certain facts: he might not be able to go beyond that. Instead, he should be asked questions which require him to search through his supply of knowledge for what is pertinent, to sort and arrange his data, to point out relationships, and to venture generalizations. The information at his disposal, like the words in his vocabulary, is of importance only to the extent that he can work with it, communicate with it. At testing time, it is the student's ability to communicate within a given field-his subject-matter literacy-which should be measured, not his memory. It is not my purpose to argue here that objective tests cannot ever measure subject-matter literacy. Possibly they can. But it is certain that usually they do not. Usually they measure the student's memory, desperately (and temporarily) stuffed at the last minute with miscellaneous facts and random associations, and his facility for intelligent or lucky guesses. They often put the serious student-the one who can communicate with his knowledge-at a disadvantage, since tests which ask only for facts give all the breaks to the parrots. Inasmuch as objective tests do not require a student to communicate (the mere display of factual knowledge being no more communication than the listing of words is), they cannot really measure his literacy in the subject. Worst of all, objective tests often pit instructor and student against each other. The only communication between them is not within the ostensible subject of study but over the mechanics of the test. Good essay examinations, on the other hand, not only make it possible to measure the student's subject-matter literacy but stimulate his ability and desire to acquire it. The student who, in the course of studying

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