Criticism of Verbal Reasoning Tests
Some have criticised verbal reasoning tests due to their lack of precision - many questions arguably having more than one answer. For example, a question which asks: "When will Joe Bloggs retire?" may expect the testee to respond with the answer "Joe Bloggs will retire at 65" based on the following two sentences (taken from a preceding paragraph - the format of most verbal reasoning tests): "Joe Bloggs currently works as a civil servant" and "Those in the civil service generally retire at 65"
However, though the two sentences make it probable that Joe Bloggs will retire at 65, it is still a logical possibility that he will continue to work beyond this point, or that he will retire early and live off savings. As a result, ironically, it is possible to be penalised for having too discerning a critical faculty. Additionally, a number of questions ask testees to decide what the central focus of the preceding paragraph is however, the options provided often afford more than one arguable response. As such, critics suggest that standard IQ tests; or numerical reasoning tests, are preferable due to their precision .
Verbal reasoning suits only certain types of people, and most say they are not intelligence tests, but mind-type tests.
Read more about this topic: Verbal Intelligence
Famous quotes containing the words criticism of, criticism, verbal, reasoning and/or tests:
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“For this is one of the ancientest laws among them; that no man shall be blamed for reasoning in the maintenance of his own religion.”
—Sir Thomas More (1478–1535)
“The cinema is going to form the mind of England. The national conscience, the national ideals and tests of conduct, will be those of the film.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)