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This Is a Test
A Handbook for Writing Good Tests
by Jan Gleiter

Formats: Paperback, $14.95, special offer $12.00

EPUB, PDF $8.00, special offer $6.00

“This Is a Test” is a book that teachers, the educational publishing industry, and corporate trainers have needed for decades. It simply and clearly lays out fifteen rules for writing a good test. That makes it a very important book.

As Jan Gleiter says in the book,"If the alternative to good tests were no tests at all, education would survive. Teachers would find other ways of measuring progress and mastery. Unfortunately, the alternative to good tests is, almost always, bad tests. And bad tests have bad consequences." (You can read the excerpt below to find out what some of those bad consequences are. Hint: they go far beyond incorrect scores.)

This book belongs on the desk of everyone who ever writes a test: teachers and trainers in all fields. And everyone who is concerned about education needs to read it once.

“This little book has the potential to bring about a genuine improvement in testing. It gives sound general advice and sensible specific guidance, using many clear examples to show how test questions and testing practices can be improved. The writing is fresh and direct, making the principles easy to understand and follow.”
—Walter MacGinitie, author of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests

“Tests allow teachers to check for understanding when they are written well. Gleiter will show you how to create assessments that tap into students' thinking. You need this resource because life is one big test!”
—Douglas Fisher, San Diego State University

Foreword
by Vincent L. Cyboran, Ed.D.
"What a good book this is! Some handbooks lie dormant on the shelf, some deservedly so. But not so with this one. Jan Gleiter's short, commonsensical approach provides much-needed clarity to the oft-overlooked task of test construction at all grade levels. More

Excerpt from This Is a Test

If Hippocrates had been concerned with teachers instead of doctors, his oath would almost surely still have begun with “First, do no harm.” Bad tests do harm.

If the alternative to good tests were no tests at all, education would survive. Teachers would find other ways of measuring progress and mastery. Unfortunately, the alternative to good tests is, almost always, bad tests. And bad tests have bad consequences. The consequences range from the inconvenient and troublesome to the downright disastrous. For one thing, they tend to teach poor learning habits and make students feel that there is no point in studying or learning. More

 



Jan Gleiter

Jan Gleiter has been in the educational publishing business since the 1970s. She brought to her work a remarkable intelligence and dedication to quality from the beginning. When she was exposed to the world of assessment, she took to it like the proverbial duck to water. She learned from every testing program she worked on, and there were many. By the time she wrote This Is a Test , there was little about test writing she didn't know.

Just as important , she knows how to communicate. Gleiter has written dozens of young adult books and two mysteries, one of which won St. Martin Press's Malice Domestic Award. Her skills as a writer include clarity, insight and humor, she uses them well in the service of showing teachers how to write a really good classroom test.