Word: tested
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...fall, in an online contest at www.instantnovelist.com, Brutus.1 competed against four humans who wrote short stories on the same topic. The computer's entry, "Self-Betrayal," was unremarkable; its first sentence, "Dave Striver loved the university--at least most of the time," seems to fail the "Call me Ishmael" test, and the protagonist's name is clumsily allegorical. In fact, the story came in last in a poll of visitors to the site; the literary field is for now safe from a deluge of machine-produced prose...
This crisis is the result of the implementation of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), a series of statewide standardized tests that every high school student must pass to graduate, beginning with the class of 2003. This high-stakes, high-standards test is the first in the nation to require students to reach what may be a prohibitively high level of competence for the average student. For months, educators and parents around the state have been waiting with bated breath to see what grade would constitute a passing mark on this test. That grade was revealed on Nov. 23, when...
Some parents criticized this cutoff, which is just above the "failing" level, as too low a standard. However, judging from last year's eighth grade test results, many students will not be able to raise their scores enough over the next three years even to reach the "needs improvement" level. Last year, 40 percent of students scored in the "failing" category on the math section, while 13 percent failed the English portion. If these same students took the test tomorrow, they would not receive their diplomas...
Although these statistics may imply that the MCAS is an unreasonable measure of students' education, there are many ways that the test will be an invaluable weapon in the educational arsenal. MCAS has a sophisticated evaluative system that gives scores out not only to individual students but also to school districts, schools and specific classrooms. By analyzing these scores, educators will be able to determine which areas of the curriculum are successful and which teachers are most effective. By the same token, the tests should identify many areas for improvement and innovation...
However, these possible benefits are coming at too high a cost for the class of 2003. From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, there will be far too many students coming out of the public schools sans diploma unless there is a dramatic increase in test scores. In our increasingly technological society, the lack of a high school diploma can be a crippling disadvantage. To deny graduation to so great a segment of the population at such an early stage in the history of this test, when its content and grading mechanism are still unclear, would be a grave mistake, helping neither...