While much has been done in the application of communicative principles to second language instruction, their application to language testing has been less fruitful. Experience with language testing projects in England and other countries suggests that communicative language test design should be based on the following issues and considerations: the distinction and the connections between language and communication; the distinction between language usage and language use; the dangers inherent in too much concern for statistics, especially norm-referenced and correlational techniques; the interdependence of programs, purposes, and testing; the need for a complex, purposive, and strategic model to replace the simplistic four-skills model; the need to accommodate learner motivation and task perception to any external specification of needs; the integration of subjective and objective elements; the assessment of group as well as individual performance; the distinction between test tasks and enabling skills underlying test performance; and the need for a wide range of descriptors derived from a variety of performance criteria. (MSE)