Word: testing
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...comes to the digital future, Walt Disney Co.'s pioneering strategy seems to be to act quickly and ask questions later. After becoming the first network to sell commercial-free downloaded shows through Apple's iTunes video service last year, ABC revealed Monday that it plans a two month "test" offering four primetime shows free online via streaming video. Beginning April 30, fans of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Alias and Commander In Chief with access to broadband internet connections will be able to watch the programs on abc.com the day after their television debuts, with each episode carrying a few special...
...simple exam. It's a battery of five tests - reading, writing, science, social studies and math - that stretch out over 7.5 hours. It's taxing enough that Lyn Schaefer, the GED Testing Service's Director of Test Development, says that despite the test takers' 70% pass rate, six out of 10 enrolled high school seniors who do trial runs of the exam wouldn't be able to pass the real thing. Granted, the real test-takers have weeks or months of test prep for the GED that trial test-takers lack, but higher education has noted the rigor...
...academically equivalent to a high school diploma, researchers say it functions too often as a siren call for restless teenagers, just attractive enough to lure them out of high school, but not so alluring that they actually end up taking it and go on to college. Once a test designed solely for adults, the GED is increasingly becoming a teenager's test. A growing number of states have dropped the minimum age for taking the test from 18 to 16, and 42% of all test-takers were teenagers in 2004, compared with 33% in 1991. Worse yet, many students drop...
...Still, Lynn Schaefer says that programs like Virginia's 2004 Race to the GED, which promotes the test at NASCAR events, have expanded educational opportunity and access to all Americans. Carmon Cunningham, vice president of the Jobs For the Future, a low-income and minority advocacy group, agrees that the sheer number of people taking the GED shows the great desire among the dropout population to find a path back to a better education and a better life. But a new report published by his organization questions the effectiveness of the GED as a launching pad for higher education. Almost...
...perceived problems, the GED's popularity persists, and it's not clear that there are better alternatives on the horizon. The number of test takers took a dip after the test was redesigned in 2002, but has been rising ever since. But even the makers of the GED say that its success is in many ways a sad statement on the ability of schools to keep students. As the ACE's Schaefer puts it, "We always say how wonderful it would be, how delighted we'd be, if we could close the door on the GED because students are staying...