Tests have been around since the dawn of civilization. In the first published treatise on education, Plato argued in the Republic that all manner of tests were essential for society. Tests just seem to be a part of life. We all know that Knights must undergo many tests and trials to prove themselves worthy of a great quest. Without facing a test there would be no story. And in the first video clip we see just how it could all go wrong, thanks to Monty Python's Bridge of Death sketch.

Testing also brings out the most bizarre behaviour. Sometimes superstition takes over. We will only pass if we use our lucky pen, or have our mascot with us. If these fail, some people resort to cheating. The kinds of security measures taken by test providers and test centres are designed to stop it, if possible. And we all have a strong sense that cheating is unfair on others. The bizarre behaviour, the cheating, and the consequences, are all superbly portrayed in the second clip from Mr. Bean. Attempting to cheat is the focus for a lot of comedy. It's the taboo that causes the chuckle. In the third clip Chevy Chase is far from discrete, and obviously gets caught.

Item writers always try to avoid questions that are biased, value laden, or likely to upset someone. But all too often they can get through item review. In the fourth clip the British Prime Minister (played by Paul Eddington) complains about the politicization of examinations.

In language testing research, like other fields, we frequently use questionnaires or interviews to collect data. My favourite book on this topic is J. D. Brown's (2001) Using Surveys in Language Programs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This is a masterly treatment of how to construct survey instruments, analyse the data, and write reports. On pages 50 - 51 he discusses how to avoid leading questions, that "encourage respondents to answer in a certain way." In the fifth clip, again from the series Yes, Prime Minister, we see just how a survey can be designed to get the result the researcher wants. This is definitely how 'not' to do it!

And on a similar theme, satirists frequently aim their barbed wit at examination boards. They realize that any practices that mean test takers can get higher grades than they deserve without actually having to do well on the test is pretty unfair. Perhaps, for example, your pet parrot died the night before the test. Do you deserve a higher grade? Listen to what Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt think.

See how fast you can read it!

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

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