In the first days of this blog, Testing: A Personal History, a reader who is also a friend wrote me this reaction: “ I’ve really enjoyed your writing on testing. I’ve always hated tests, but I think its’s more an issue of what is done with those test results that informed my experience than the […]
The Complete Posts
If Only the Associated Press Could Call All Our Races: Claims Part II
Did you realize that the Associated Press, which most of us know as AP, called 7000 races on election night in 2020? And that they have a remarkable even extraordinary record for getting every one of them right since the 1930s? NPR, which uses the AP for its own election calls says this is because […]
The Adjustment of Claims Is Not Always About GEICO
Twelve days. Has it really been that long since my last installment in Testing: a Personal History where we talked about constructs? This busy season in the playwrighting dimension of my life got in the way. Genealogy, written with my co-playwright Joe Queenan, opens at that gem of an independent playhouse, Broom Street Theater in […]
Not All Tests Are The Same
They say you never forget your first one, but I can only guess that a spelling test probably was the first notch in my testing belt. Spelling tests are easy to make in theory, but the International Literacy Association notes, “Unfortunately, spelling is more likely to be tested than it is to be taught, and this is probably a consequence of a general perception that English spelling is a skill more amenable […]
Polarity Testing
No, this is not a blog post about how to figure out if your electrician has connected your fuses, switches, and circuit breakers in the right way. Although, I recommend that you have one of those done by somebody who actually knows what they’re talking about in that dimension. This post is about the polarity […]
We want the ‘good’ tests
Today was a good day. It’s the kind of day that I feared nine years ago. It’s a day when the results of a test were revealed to me. Nine years ago I wasn’t even aware that I had taken a test. My annual physical arrived and my doctor who is a very laid back […]
Just when I thought I was out…
Testing, I can’t quit you As the Tom Hanks character in You’ve Got Mail suggests the Godfather movies provide a plethora of metaphors for the dynamics of our careers. In my case, I welcomed the absence of actual physical ‘hits’ even though corporate board room often did resemble a meeting of the Five Families. The […]
Too Early for Apgar
I was born early. My mother, by then familiar with the routine of births via my four older brothers, insisted the nurse admitting her had made a wrong turn in the corridor at Union Hospital in the Bronx; the labor room was in the other direction. But the nurse replied that there was no need […]
Test Hatred I
Tests have found all of us multiple times throughout our lives especially in our school years, but does the first one we took there come to mind? Do we know anything about its quality? Was it a good test? Was it atrocious? Did we care? Did we abhor testing from the get-go? Did our parents? It is unlikely that they would have […]