IQs increased by about 30 points in the 20th century. Part of this increase may have been the result of increased standardized testing because testing improves the skills on which students are tested. But although these practices may increase general intelligence, they may impede the development of creativity and wisdom. As a result, our society…

The author points out the limited usefulness of standardized tests in identifying gifted students. Research is cited to dispute common assumptions underlying many tests, including that speed is important, that intelligence is last year's achievement, and that testing must be conducted in an anxiety producing situation. (CL)

Positive and negative features of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children are examined from an information processing perspective. The author suggests that the test should not be used in place of the Stanford-Binet or the Wechsler Intelligence Scale-Revised. (CL)

The author argues for an expanded notion of intellectual giftedness which would take into account a person's ability to deal with nonentrenched (unusual or strange) tasks and concepts. This conception of intelligence is seen to be closer to that of creativity. Measurement problems are cited. (CL)

Describes a dozen ways in which reading tests are at variance in their demands with the demands of reading as it occurs in everyday life. Suggests that these sources of variance render reading tests considerably less valid as measures of real world reading behavior than most people want to believe. (RS)

Bad intelligence tests seem as inevitable as death and taxes. However, new theories of intelligence are resulting in some promising developments. Thirteen approaches to the measurement of intelligence are described, divided into the following categories: classical psychometric; developmental; culture-sensitive; cognitive; biological; and systems.…