"Now, Oscar!"

A leading fad in U. S. schools and colleges today are the so-called "standardized" tests. There are more than 4,000 of them. They purport to measure an individual's intelligence, knowledge, character, personality, radicalism, musical tastes, artistic ability, tea-table form, inhibitions, morale. Last week one Oscar Krisen Buros, an associate professor of education at Rutgers University, emerged from a voyage of exploration in this jungle of tests. Harrowing was his tale.

Professor Euros had suspected that nine out of ten tests were unreliable. To check his suspicions, he got 133 top-rank experts to rate the tests, Rutgers to publish their ratings (The 1938 Mental Measurements Yearbook--Rutgers University Press; $3). To some tests, notably Louis Thurstone's famed intelligence test for college freshmen (American Council on Education Psychological Examination), the experts gave a clean bill of health, high ratings. Elsewhere they turned up many a prize absurdity. Samples:

> (From a personality test) Q.: "Do you think that this school is run as if it were a prison?" Reviewer's comment: "It is questionable whether high-school students would have the courage and the desire to answer such questions honestly."

> Q.: "With what person do you spend the most time?" Correct answer: "With mother." Comment: This answer might mean one thing when given by a nine-year-old, quite another from a 16-year-old.

> (From a test to rate an individual's attitude toward any institution) Q.: "This institution 1) is the most beloved of institutions, 2) is necessary to the very existence of civilization, 3) gives real help in meeting moral problems, 4) will destroy civilization if it is not radically changed, 5) has done more for society than any other institution." Comment: Try rating the Interstate Commerce Commission on that scale.

Professor Buros' harrowing adventures began even before he had got his book to press. Most tests are marketed by commercial publishers, yield handsome profits to publishers and authors. When they had seen pre-publication copies of his book, some publishers began to appeal to Mr. Buros "in the name of common decency" to stop the presses. A distraught publisher: "Now, Oscar! Is this sporting? . . . During my four years of service in the United States Marine Corps and later during my service . . . with the A. E. F., it never occurred to me that I would ever be called upon to die for dear old Rutgers."

By last week some test publishers had broken off diplomatic relations with Professor Buros. Nevertheless, the professor was almost ready to publish a second yearbook. This time, instead of 133 experts he had 245, among them such famed testers and educators as University of London's Charles Spearman, Yale's Edward S. Noyes, Iowa's Carl Seashore, Harvard's Charles Swain Thomas, University of Chicago's Ralph W. Tyler.

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