Although over half of the states in the United States have implemented minimum competency testing (MCT) programs, problems continue to be reported by researchers. Educators have been concerned with these problems since the beginning of MCT. Accounts of testing problems include: (1) Durham, North Carolina students who fail the state-mandated test must attend summer school; (2) kindergarten children may be retained until certain prereading competencies are demonstrated, resulting in poor self-esteem and inappropriate emphasis on reading skills rather than on individual abilities or reading for pleasure; (3) physicians often have passed tests but lack interpersonal skills; (4) MCT influences curriculum content; and (5) Irish teachers tended not to promote weaker students in order to control the test failure rate. Suggested improvements include attention to the needs and abilities of individual students; modification of tests for special students; emphasis on improving teaching and learning rather than bureaucracy; item response scaling in computer-assisted adaptive testing; emphasis on diagnosis; and use of teacher-developed evaluations. (GDC)