The author, I think, takes a pretty big leap in concluding that the test is being used as a teaching tool, rather than a testing tool. Stating that the students are now stuck learning about microscopes through the test, rather than actually using microscopes seems like quite a stretch to me. Of course kids still use microscopes in school and do lots of hands-on learning. Both types of learning are essential and both are practiced. Does our education system focus too much on testing and not enough on hands-on learning? Maybe, but I think that still varies a lot from school to school, so it's hard and perhaps a bit unfair to make overall assumptions.
However, it does illustrate how the test is a poor evaluation of reading comprehension.
The problem I see is that it's not necessarily a reading comprehension question. It's a question about microscopes. If you don't happen to know anything about microscopes, then the answer is clearly there in the text and, at that point, it's about reading comprehension, but if you do, reading the text is completely unnecessary. So then it remains a question about general knowledge of microscopes, not reading comprehension.
Here's another example... My husband got into IT when he was young and never finished his degree. He's now decided that he wants to go back to school for a related, but different-enough field that he needs that piece of paper and additional training. Because it's been over 20yrs since he's been in school, and he's never attended school in the US, at the age of 40, he found himself taking the ACT a couple of weeks ago.
The "reading comprehension" portion of the test was full of paragraphs about various topics that anyone with an average amount of general knowledge would know and so, being pressed for time, he simply didn't read half the material. He got a perfect score on this section of the test.
That clearly demonstrates a level of intelligence on a variety of topics, and probably indicates some good deductive reasoning as well, but it doesn't show how well his reading comprehension is at all.
Now, he's 40, not 12, but the ACT doesn't look that much different than any other standardized test and it is (along with the SAT) a sort of be all and end all of evaluating a high school student's academic performance.
However, it does illustrate how the test is a poor evaluation of reading comprehension.
The problem I see is that it's not necessarily a reading comprehension question. It's a question about microscopes. If you don't happen to know anything about microscopes, then the answer is clearly there in the text and, at that point, it's about reading comprehension, but if you do, reading the text is completely unnecessary. So then it remains a question about general knowledge of microscopes, not reading comprehension.
Here's another example... My husband got into IT when he was young and never finished his degree. He's now decided that he wants to go back to school for a related, but different-enough field that he needs that piece of paper and additional training. Because it's been over 20yrs since he's been in school, and he's never attended school in the US, at the age of 40, he found himself taking the ACT a couple of weeks ago.
The "reading comprehension" portion of the test was full of paragraphs about various topics that anyone with an average amount of general knowledge would know and so, being pressed for time, he simply didn't read half the material. He got a perfect score on this section of the test.
That clearly demonstrates a level of intelligence on a variety of topics, and probably indicates some good deductive reasoning as well, but it doesn't show how well his reading comprehension is at all.
Now, he's 40, not 12, but the ACT doesn't look that much different than any other standardized test and it is (along with the SAT) a sort of be all and end all of evaluating a high school student's academic performance.