title: Dál Riata

text: The time in which Dál Riata arose was one of great instability in Ulster, following the Ulaid's loss of territory (including the ancient centre of Emain Macha) to the Airgíalla and the Uí Néill. "The thriving of Dalriada", pp. 47–50, notes a later conquest of Irish Dál Riata from Scotland, in the period after the fall of Emain Macha.


title: Dál Riata

text: Linguistic and genealogical evidence associates ancestors of the Dál Riata with the prehistoric Iverni and Darini, suggesting kinship with the Ulaid and a number of shadowy kingdoms in distant Munster. The Robogdii have also been suggested as ancestral. Ultimately, the Dál Riata, according to the earliest genealogies, are descendants of Deda mac Sin, a prehistoric king or deity of the Érainn.


title: Dál Riata

text: By the mid-6th-century, the Dál Riata in Scotland came under serious threat from Bridei I, king of the Picts, whilst the Irish portion faced hostility from the Dál nAraidi of Ulaid, resulting in their seeking the aid of the Irish Northern Uí Néill. Dál Riata reached its greatest extent in the reign of Áedán mac Gabráin, who was said to have been consecrated by Columba, who Áedán granted the island of Iona off the coast of Scotland. Columba, who was also a Cenél Conaill prince, negotiated an alliance between Dál Riata and the Cenél Conaill, who were the ruling dynasty of the Northern Uí Néill, in 575 at the Convention of Druim Cett near Limavady. In attendance were Columba, Áedán mac Gabráin, and Áed mac Ainmuirech, king of the Northern Uí Néill and High King of Ireland.


title: Dál Riata

text: What was actually discussed at Druim Cett is a matter of debate, with various suggestions that it was: to determine the constitutional status of both parts of Dál Riata; to determine the status of Irish Dál Riata only with it having its own king; that Dál Riata was to become independent of the High King of Ireland; that the Irish part of Dál Riata would pay tribute to the High King and support him with land forces, and that the Scottish part would be independent but support the High King with its fleet when needed; the removal of Dál Riata from Ulaid's overlordship, allowing it to concentrate on extending its Scottish domain. What is certain is that both parties had the Dál nAraidi as a common foe.


title: Dál Riata

text: This pact between the Dál Riata and Cenél Conaill was successful, first in defeating Báetan mac Cairill, king of the Dál nAraidi, then in allowing Áedán to campaign widely against his neighbours, as far afield as Orkney and lands of the Maeatae, on the River Forth. Áedán appears to have been very successful in extending his power, until he faced the Bernician king Æthelfrith at Degsastan . Æthelfrith's brother was among the dead, but Áedán was defeated, and the Bernician kings continued their advances in southern Scotland. Áedán died aged about 70. Dál Riata did expand to include Skye, possibly conquered by Áedán's son Gartnait.


title: Dál Riata

text: It has been suggested that Fiachnae mac Báetáin (died 626), Dál nAraidi over-king of Ulaid, was overlord of both parts of Dál Riata. Fiachnae campaigned against the Northumbrians, and besieged Bamburgh, and the Dál Riatans are thought to have fought in this campaign.


title: Dál Riata

text: In 629 the Dál Riata suffered significant losses at the battle of Fid Euin where the Dál nAraidi, led by Congal Cáech mac Scandláin, killed the Dál Riata king as well as three grandsons of Áedán mac Gabráin. It is suggested to have been an achievement that Dál Riata itself survived this battle. That same year the Cenél Conaill defeated Congal Cáech at the battle of Dún Ceithirn.


title: Dál Riata

text: Dál Riata remained allied with the Northern Uí Néill until the reign of Domnall Brecc, who was persuaded by the king of Dál nAraidi, Congal Cáech, to renounce this alliance. In an attempt to have himself installed as High King of Ireland, Congal made alliances with Dál Riata and Strathclyde, which resulted in the disastrous Battle of Magh Rath in 637, which saw Congal slain by High King Domnall mac Áedo of the Northern Uí Néill and resulted in Irish Dál Riata losing possession of its Scottish lands. A battle had also taken place at sea at Sailtír, off Kintyre, in 637. This defeat was then attributed as divine retribution for Domnall Brecc turning his back on his prior alliance. Domnall Brecc's policy appears to have died with him in 642, at his final, and fatal, defeat by Eugein map Beli of Strathclyde at Strathcarron, for as late as the 730s, armies and fleets from Dál Riata fought alongside the Uí Néill.


title: Dál Riata

text: This defeat shattered the power of Dál Riata as well as that of Dál nAraidi, allowing the Northern Uí Néill to become the dominant force in the north of Ireland. By the 10th-century, the Irish lands of Dál Riata were under the control of the Uí Tuirtri, and their clients, the Fir Lí.


title: Dál Riata

text: It has been proposed that some of the more obscure kings of Dál Riata mentioned in the Annals of Ulster, such as Fiannamail ua Dúnchado and Donncoirce, may have been kings of Irish Dál Riata.


title: Dál Riata

text: The after-effect of the Battle of Moira (Mag Rath) in regards to Scottish Dál Riata appears to have resulted in its becoming tributary to Northumbrian kings, which lasted until the Pictish king Bruide mac Bili defeated Ecgfrith of Northumbria at Dun Nechtain in 685. It is not certain that this subjection ended in 685, although this is usually assumed to be the case. However, it appears that Eadberht Eating made some effort to stop the Picts under Óengus mac Fergusa crushing Dál Riata in 740. Whether this means that the tributary relationship had not ended in 685, or if Eadberht sought only to prevent the growth of Pictish power, is unclear.


title: Dál Riata

text: Since it has been thought that Dál Riata swallowed Pictland to create the Kingdom of Alba, the later history of Dál Riata has tended to be seen as a prelude to future triumphs. The annals make it clear that the Cenél Gabraín lost any earlier monopoly of royal power in the late 7th century and in the 8th, when Cenél Loairn kings such as Ferchar Fota, his son Selbach, and grandsons Dúngal and Muiredach are found contesting for the kingship of Dál Riata. The long period of instability in Dál Riata was only ended by the conquest of the kingdom by Óengus mac Fergusa, king of the Picts, in the 730s. After the third campaign by Óengus in 741, Dál Riata then disappears from the Irish records for a generation.


title: Dál Riata

text: Áed Find may appear in 768, fighting against the Pictish king of Fortriu. At his death in 778, Áed Find is called "king of Dál Riata", as is his brother Fergus mac Echdach in 781. The Annals of Ulster say that a certain Donncoirche, "king of Dál Riata" died in 792, and there the record ends. Any number of theories have been advanced to fill the missing generations, none of which are founded on any very solid evidence. A number of kings are named in the "Duan Albanach", and in royal genealogies, but these are rather less reliable than we might wish. The obvious conclusion is that whoever ruled the petty kingdom of Dál Riata after its defeat and conquest in the 730s, only Áed Find and his brother Fergus drew the least attention of the chroniclers in Iona and Ireland. This argues very strongly for Alex Woolf's conclusion that Óengus mac Fergusa "effectively destroyed the kingdom".


title: Dál Riata

text: It is unlikely that Dál Riata was ruled directly by Pictish kings, but it is argued that Domnall, son of Caustantín mac Fergusa, was king of Dál Riata from 811 to 835. He was apparently followed by the last named king of Dál Riata Áed mac Boanta, who was killed in the great Pictish defeat of 839 at the hands of the Vikings.


title: Dál Riata

text: In the 9th century, the Picts were becoming Gaelicized, and it is suggested that there was a merger of the Dál Riatan and Pictish kingships. Traditionally, this is attributed to Cináed mac Ailpín (Kenneth MacAlpin), who became king of the Picts in about 843. Some sources say that Cináed was king of Dál Riata for two years before this. Under the House of Alpin, Dál Riata and Pictland merged to form the Kingdom of Alba or Scotland.


title: Dál Riata

text: If the Vikings had a great impact on Pictland and in Ireland, in Dál Riata, as in Northumbria, they appear to have entirely replaced the existing kingdom with a new entity. In the case of Dál Riata, this was to be known as the kingdom of the Sudreys, traditionally founded by Ketil Flatnose ("Caitill Find" in Gaelic) in the middle of the 9th century. The Frankish "Annales Bertiniani" may record the conquest of the Inner Hebrides, the seaward part of Dál Riata, by Vikings in 847.


title: Dál Riata

text: Alex Woolf has suggested that there occurred a formal division of Dál Riata between the Norse-Gaelic Uí Ímair and the natives, like those divisions that took place elsewhere in Ireland and Britain, with the Norse controlling most of the islands, and the Gaels controlling the Scottish coast and the more southerly islands. In turn, Woolf suggests that this gave rise to the terms "Airer Gaedel" and "Innse Gall", respectively "the coast of the Gaels" and the "Islands of the foreigners".


title: Dál Riata

text: Woolf has further demonstrated that, by the time of Malcolm II, the leading "cenela" of Dál Riata had moved from the southwest of the region (north of the Firths) to the north, east, and northeast, with Cenel Loairn moving up the Great Glen to occupy Moray, the former and sometimes still Fortriu, one branch of Cenel nGabhrain occupying the district known as Gowrie and another the district of Fife, Cenel nOengusa giving its name to Circinn as Angus, Cenel Comgaill occupying Strathearn, and another lesser known kindred, Cenel Conaing, probably moving to Mar.


title: Dál Riata

text: In Rosemary Sutcliff's 1965 novel "The Mark of the Horse Lord", the Dál Riada undergo an internal struggle for control of royal succession, and an external conflict to defend their frontiers against the Caledones.


title: Dál Riata

text: In Rosemary Sutcliff's historical adventure novel "The Eagle of the Ninth" (1954), a young Roman officer searches to recover the lost Roman eagle standard of his father's legion in the northern part of Great Britain. The story is based on the Ninth Spanish Legion's supposed disappearance in the Scottish Highlands near the end of the Roman occupation. The novel was adapted by Jeremy Brock into the film "The Eagle" (2011).


title: Dál Riata

text: In the Kushiel novels (a series, beginning with "Kushiel's Dart", 2001), by Jacqueline Carey, the Dalriada of the Kingdom of Alba figure prominently in a Royal marriage and subsequent alliance with France (known in the series as "Terre d'Ange").


title: Dál Riata

text: In Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile series, the non-born Aiken Drum's homeworld is an ethnic Scottish planet called Dalriada.


title: Dál Riata

text: In the "Lost Girl" television series, the pub where the Light Fae and the Dark Fae mingle is called the Dal Riata; named after the ancient kingdom.


title: Dál Riata

text: In Jules Watson's Dalriada Trilogy (2006–2008), three centuries are chronicled during the time of the Roman Invasion of Britain.


title: Dál Riata

text: A feature-length fantasy film previously named "Dalriata's King", later named "The Gaelic King" was made in Scotland, with a story based loosely on the first king of the Scots. It was released to home media in 2017.


title: Dál Riata

text: Dál Riata is a playable nation in Paradox Interactive's 4X video game "Crusader Kings II". At the earliest start date, 769 with the "Charlemagne" DLC, they are an Irish Catholic independent petty kingdom ruled by Áed Find, comprising the Hebrides and Argyll. The game will also use Dál Riata to refer to the Duchy of the Isles whenever the realm's top liege is Irish


title: Star Vijay

text: Star Vijay is an Indian Tamil language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Disney Star (formerly Star India), a subsidiary of Asianet Star Communications. The channel's headquarters is in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Star Vijay changed hands several times before being partly acquired by the Star India in 2001. The channel telecasts Tamil language programmes such as serials, reality shows and Tamil films.


title: Star Vijay

text: The channel was first launched by N. P. V. Ramasamy Udayar on 24 November 1994, as Golden Eagle Communication (GEC). United Breweries Group acquired the channel in 1995 and renamed it as Vijay TV. The UTV Group bought the controlling interest from United Breweries Group in 1999 for million. In 2001, Star India took over the channel and rebranded it as "Star Vijay." Star acquired 51 percent stake in Vijay TV with UTV holding the remaining 49 percent. In 2004, UTV Software Communications offloaded its entire 44 percent stake in Vijay TV to Star India for ₹31 crores.


title: Star Vijay

text: On 25 August 2016, its sibling channel Star Vijay Super was launched, which airs non-stop films and legacy television shows and later got revamped into a full movie channel.


title: Star Vijay

text: On 25 June 2017, Star Vijay revamped its logo and branding to match its sister channels under Star India with a tagline "Edhilum Pudhumai Tamizhin Perumai". Now the channel is owned by Asianet Star Communications, a subsidiary of Disney Star that has control over the Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil language channels of the company.


title: Star Vijay

text: On 23 October 2022, Star Vijay revamped it's on-air graphics with a brand new tag line "Maarum Pudhumai Maaradha Perumai".


title: Star Vijay

text: "Star Vijay Super", also known as "Vijay Super", is an Indian Tamil language movie genre television channel, operated by Disney Star. The channel has been officially launched on 25 August 2016.


title: Star Vijay

text: "Star Vijay Takkar" (formerly "Star Vijay Music") is a 24×7 Indian Tamil youth oriented entertainment television channel that has been launched on 10 October 2022, replacing former channel "Star Vijay Music". It is the second youth centric channel in Tamil after the "Sun Life" by Sun Network.


title: Star Vijay

text: "Star Vijay Music" or "Vijay Music" was a 24×7 Indian Tamil music channel that was launched on 4 October 2020 during the grand launch of Bigg Boss season 4 by Kamal Haasan. The channel was replaced and rebranded as "Star Vijay Takkar" from 10 October 2022 onwards.


title: Star Vijay

text: When Star India took over the channel from UTV Communications, the channel's revenue, shares and advertising rates increased. A revamp in 2017 brought with it a new logo and the launch of "Bigg Boss Tamil Season 1", after which the audience share of the channel—which had been 10%-15%—increased by 10%, being the second most-watched Tamil television channel.


title: Star Vijay

text: In week 48 of 2020, Star Vijay became the most watched Tamil GEC in prime time for the first time while being the second most watched Tamil GEC overall after Sun TV. In week 50, it garnered its highest viewership ratings of 7,14,002 AMAs (average minute audience (in hundreds)) being the fifth most watched Indian television channel.


title: Machinist

text: A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who not only operates machine tools, but also has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling machines.


title: Machinist

text: A competent machinist should have a well-developed mechanical aptitude, the ability to correctly use precision measuring instruments, and a working knowledge of the proper speeds and feeds required for successfully utilizing the various work and tool materials commonly used in most machining operations.


title: Machinist

text: Mass-produced parts of machines are more common today, but still require machinists and millwrights to calibrate and install machine parts to manufacture other parts. In many parts of the economy, however, custom-made parts are required for various uses. A machinist may work on manufacturing something simple like a motorcycle frame part, a piece of an internal combustion motor, or something extraordinarily complex, such as pieces of submarine engines accurate to 2 micrometers.


title: Machinist

text: Good machinists are highly sought after and respected skilled trades persons and are generally well-paid. In utility and military use companies, experienced machinists can earn over $100,000 per year.


title: Machinist

text: Some titles reflect further development of machinist skills such as tool and die maker, patternmaker, mold maker, programmer, and operator. A machinist is one who is called on to fix a problem with a part or to create a new one using metal working, plastic, or in some cases, wood. Depending on the company, a machinist can be any or all of the titles listed above.


title: Machinist

text: In Australia, a related profession is a fitter and turner. A fitter and turner is the tradesperson who fits, assembles, grinds and shapes metal parts and subassemblies to fabricate production machines and other equipment.


title: Machinist

text: Under the machinist title are other specialty titles that refer to specific skills that may be more highly developed to meet the needs of a particular job position, such as fitter (assembles parts), turning hand, mill hand, and grinder.


title: Machinist

text: A machinist is usually called upon when a part needs to be produced from a material by cutting. Such a part may be unique or may be needed in the thousands. This could include a machinery part for a production line or anything that can be made from metal or plastic. Producing a part will often require several steps and more than one machine tool. Each machine tool plays a specific role in cutting away excess material. When large numbers of parts are needed, production planning is required to plan the most logical workflow through a series of machines. Computer numerical controlled (CNC) machines are a special computer-driven tool that can machine a large variety of shapes, and whose use in the workflow depends on the part to be machined.


title: Machinist

text: CNC machines are becoming the standard due to their speed, precision, flexibility, and reduced downtime while changing jobs. Production runs consisting of large numbers of parts are more cost effective and commonly referred to as production work in the trade. Conversely, small production runs are sometimes referred to as prototype or jobbing work.


title: Machinist

text: Production engineers use blueprints and engineering drawings to produce detailed specifications of the part, especially its geometry (shape), then decide on a strategy to make it. Machine tools are then configured by the machinist or toolset and production commences. The machinist works with the quality department to ensure the specifications are maintained in the finished product.


title: Machinist

text: Large commercial organizations often staff machinists on site in a maintenance mode to ensure continuing operations of the production machinery. The labor cost for this role is significantly lower than costs involved with production shutdowns.


title: Machinist

text: Additive machining means 3D printing to create industrial components, prototypes, tooling, and end-use production parts. Additive machining comes into its own in the manufacturing of very small intricate parts, which could not be produced through any other manufacturing process. There are several processes in additive manufacturing which include direct metal deposition: electron beam melting, fused filament fabrication, select laser sintering, and variations of them.


title: Machinist

text: A machinist is to metal as a woodcarver is to wood. The most common materials that machinists make parts from are steel, aluminium, brass, copper, and various alloys of these materials. Other less common materials such as vanadium, zinc, lead, or manganese are often used as alloying elements for the most common materials. Materials that machinists work with occasionally are plastics, rubber, glass, and wood products. Rarely, machinists also work with exotic and refractory metals. The term exotic metals is a general term describing out of the ordinary, rare or special purpose metals. A synonym might be space-age. A list of exotic metals might include, but is not limited to, titanium, beryllium, vanadium, chromium, molybdenum and tungsten, as well as special high-temperature metal alloys like Inconel or Hastelloy (superalloys). Very often the meaning of the term suggests the need for specialized handling and/or tooling to machine them effectively.


title: Machinist

text: While the foregoing were primarily the materials that a machinist would be cutting, the cutters that the machinist uses must be harder and tougher than the materials to be cut. The materials in the cutters a machinist uses are most commonly high-speed steel, tungsten carbide, ceramics, Borazon, and diamond.


title: Machinist

text: Machinists usually work to very small tolerances, usually within 0.010" or 0.25 mm (more commonly expressed as ±0.005" (Plus or minus five thousandths of an inch) or ±0.13 mm), and sometimes at tolerances as low as 0.0001" (plus or minus one tenth of a thousandth of an inch – or 0.0025 mm) for specialty operations. A machinist deals with all facets of shaping, cutting and some aspects of forming metal, although forming is typically a separate trade. The operations most commonly performed by machinists are milling, drilling, turning, and grinding. There are other more specialized operations that a machinist will less frequently be called upon to perform such as honing, keyseating, lapping, and polishing, to name a few.


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez is the seventh studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz, released on 23 October 2020 via Parlophone and Warner Bros. Records. The album is released as part of Gorillaz' "Song Machine" project, a web series consisting of a collection of singles and music videos, dubbed "episodes" each featuring different guest artists. The album marked the return of the character Murdoc Niccals in promotional material, after his absence from "The Now Now" in 2018. The record received positive reviews from music critics.


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: On 28 January 2020, the band officially released images via social media teasing a concept entitled "Song Machine". A 23-second promotional single entitled "Song Machine Theme Tune" was released on streaming services with an accompanying video.


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: Damon Albarn and Remi Kabaka Jr spoke to BBC Radio 1's Annie Mac for the official premiere, saying that "Song Machine" "may have an obtuse narrative arc at the end of each season, but it's more "Ozark", than "Designated Survivor". You just keep going until you run out of ideas."


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: Upon the premiere of Episode One on 30 January, Albarn revealed that the group had been in the studio with Schoolboy Q among others, although he did say that these songs were likely to be saved for future series of "Song Machine".


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: A press release was put out to explain Song Machine further, with virtual Gorillaz member Russel Hobbs saying: ""Song Machine" is a whole new way of doing what we do, Gorillaz breaking the mould 'cos the mould got old. World is moving faster than a supercharged particle, so we’ve gotta stay ready to drop. We don’t even know who's stepping through the studio next. "Song Machine" feeds on the unknown, runs on pure chaos. So whatever the hell’s coming, we’re primed and ready to produce like there’s no tomorrow."


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: Episode Two released on 27 February 2020. Despite an initially revealed monthly schedule, no singles were released in March due to the spike of the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 24, the band released a statement via Instagram, reassuring fans that despite "serious times" Song Machine would proceed. Episode Three was then released on 9 April.


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: On 2 May, a standalone single called "How Far?" was released without any prior announcement in the middle of Season One's release schedule as a tribute to Tony Allen, who died on 30 April, and was a frequent collaborator with Albarn. As a result, Episode Four, originally teased to be up next at the end of the music video for Aries, delayed its release to 9 June. On 13 June, the album was revealed on the Gorillaz website under the name "Almanac CD", said to be a 10 track album that would be packaged with the Gorillaz Almanac in October 2020.


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: After the premiere of Episode Five on 20 July, it was stated that the project would commence a brief hiatus, lasting until an unspecified date in September. On 7 September, it was revealed the band's next single would be titled "Strange Timez", and would feature Robert Smith. Episode Six, the first of the singles to have had its music fully recorded during the pandemic, was released on 9 September, alongside the announcement of the album's title and tracklist.


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: Episode Seven was released on 1 October. Episode Eight was released on 5 November. Episode Nine was released on 24 December; unlike previous "Song Machine" releases, the song was not released as a single.


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: "Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez" received generally positive reviews from critics on Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the release received an average score of 81, based on 15 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave the album a 7.6 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: In a positive review, "The Guardian"s Alexis Petridis lauded the album’s guest artists, stating "It's not just that the guests demonstrate Albarn's excellent taste in music, although they do – from St Vincent to Octavian to Georgia to Unknown Mortal Orchestra, at least in the deluxe edition tracks – it's what he chooses to do with their voices." "Consequence of Sound"s Jordan Blum also praised the guest artists, commenting that the album "encapsulates Gorillaz's trademark tongue-in-cheek bizarreness, stylistic flexibility, and enticing incorporation of guest musicians." Blum also praised the album's pacing, stating that the album "flows very smoothly nonetheless, maintaining fluid pacing while also shifting styles with consistent regularity."


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: Critics have primarily described the record as alternative rock, hip hop, and electronic music. Critics have also noted throughout the album pop, punk rock, indie rock, electropop, psychedelic pop, R&B, funk, soul, bossa nova, reggae, acid house, and downtempo in various specified tracks.


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: Soey Kim of "Vogue" commented that the record "is an ambitious and chaotic amalgamation of sounds and genres", and further specified that the sound ranged from "punk rock to R&B to hip-hop." Thomas Smith of "NME" also noted the album's stylistic diversity, stating that the record is a "varied affair that pulls from Albarn and the band's perchance [sic] for exploration: punk rock sits effortlessly next to glitzy piano ballads, while playful hip-hop and melancholic post-rave ambience soothe our pounding heads."


title: Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

text: All tracks are written by Damon Albarn, Remi Kabaka Jr., and the tracks' respective and produced by Gorillaz and Remi Kabaka Jr., except where noted.


title: Independent agencies of the United States government

text: Independent agencies of the United States federal government are agencies that exist outside the federal executive departments (those headed by a Cabinet secretary) and the Executive Office of the President. In a narrower sense, the term refers only to those independent agencies that, while considered part of the executive branch, have regulatory or rulemaking authority and are insulated from presidential control, usually because the president's power to dismiss the agency head or a member is limited.


text: Established through separate statutes passed by the Congress, each respective statutory grant of authority defines the goals the agency must work towards, as well as what substantive areas, if any, over which it may have the power of rulemaking. These agency rules (or regulations), when in force, have the power of federal law.


text: Independent agencies exist outside the federal executive departments (those headed by a Cabinet secretary) and the Executive Office of the President. There is a further distinction between independent executive agencies and independent "regulatory" agencies, which have been assigned rulemaking responsibilities or authorities by Congress. The Paperwork Reduction Act lists 19 enumerated "independent regulatory agencies", such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Generally, the heads of independent regulatory agencies can only be removed for cause, but Cabinet members and heads of independent executive agencies, such as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, serve "at the pleasure of the president" and can be removed without cause.


text: The degree to which the President has the power to use executive orders to set policy for independent executive agencies is disputed. Many orders specifically exempt independent agencies, but some do not. Executive Order 12866 has been a particular matter of controversy; it requires cost-benefit analysis for certain regulatory actions.


text: In a narrower sense, the term "independent agency" refers only to these independent regulatory agencies that, while considered part of the executive branch, have rulemaking authority and are insulated from presidential control, usually because the president's power to dismiss the agency head or a member is limited.


text: Independent agencies can be distinguished from the federal executive departments and other executive agencies by their structural and functional characteristics. Their officers can be protected from removal by the president, they can be controlled by a board that cannot be appointed all at once, and the board can be required to be bipartisan.


text: Presidential attempts to remove independent agency officials have generated most of the important Supreme Court legal opinions in this area. In 1935, the Supreme Court in the case of "Humphrey's Executor v. United States" decided that although the president had the power to remove officials from agencies that were "an arm or an eye of the executive", it upheld statutory limitations on the president's power to remove officers of administrative bodies that performed quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial functions, such as the Federal Trade Commission. Presidents normally do have the authority to remove regular executive agency heads at will, but they must meet the statutory requirements for removal of commissioners of independent agencies, such as demonstrating incapacity, neglect of duty, malfeasance, or other good cause.


text: While most executive agencies have a single director, administrator, or secretary appointed by the president of the United States, independent agencies (in the narrower sense of being outside presidential control) almost always have a commission, board, or similar collegial body consisting of five to seven members who share power over the agency. (This is why many independent agencies include the word "Commission" or "Board" in their name.) The president appoints the commissioners or board members, subject to Senate confirmation, but they often serve terms that are staggered and longer than a four-year presidential term, meaning that most presidents will not have the opportunity to appoint all the commissioners of a given independent agency. In addition, most independent agencies have a statutory requirement of bipartisan membership on the commission, so the president cannot simply fill vacancies with members of his own political party. The president can normally designate which commissioner will serve as the chairperson.


text: Congress can designate certain agencies explicitly as "independent" in the governing statute, but the functional differences have more legal significance. In reality, the high turnover rate among these commissioners or board members means that most presidents have the opportunity to fill enough vacancies to constitute a voting majority on each independent agency commission within the first two years of the first term as president. In some famous instances, presidents have found the independent agencies more loyal and in lockstep with the president's wishes and policy objectives than some dissenters among the executive agency political appointments.


text: Although Congress can pass statutes limiting the circumstances under which the president can remove commissioners of independent agencies, if the independent agency exercises any executive powers like enforcement, and most of them do, Congress cannot reserve removal power over executive officers to itself. Constitutionally, Congress can only remove officers through impeachment proceedings. Members of Congress cannot serve as commissioners on independent agencies that have executive powers, nor can Congress itself appoint the commissioners – the Appointments Clause of the Constitution vests that power in the president. The Senate does participate, however, in appointments through "advice and consent", which occurs through confirmation hearings and votes on the president's nominees.


text: These agencies are not represented in the cabinet and are not part of the Executive Office of the president:


text: Although not officially part of the executive branch, these agencies are required by federal statute to release certain information about their programs and activities into the Federal Register, the daily journal of government activities:


title: Okkadu

text: Okkadu ( "The One") is a 2003 Indian Telugu-language romantic action film written and directed by Gunasekhar. It stars Mahesh Babu, Bhumika Chawla and Prakash Raj. The film was produced by M.S. Raju while music was composed by Mani Sharma and editing was by A. Sreekar Prasad. The film follows journey of a Kabaddi player, Ajay who rescues Swapna from Obul Reddy, when the latter tries to forcefully marry her.


title: Okkadu

text: Released on 15 January 2003, "Okkadu" was successful at the box office and became as the one of the highest-grossing Telugu films ever. It earned a distributor's share of 25–30 crore. It has garnered eight Nandi Awards and four Filmfare Awards South, including Best Film – Telugu, and led Mahesh Babu to instant stardom.


title: Okkadu

text: The film was later remade into Tamil as "Ghilli" (2004), Kannada as "Ajay" (2006), Bengali "as" "Jor" (2008), Hindi as "Tevar" (2015), Odia as "Mate Aanidela Lakhe Phaguna" (2008), and in Sinhala as "Kabaddi" (2021).


title: Okkadu

text: Ajay Varma is a Hyderabad-based Kabbadi player, the son of Vijay Varma who is the DCP of Hyderabad, visits Kurnool to take part in a state-level tournament. There, he saves Swapna Reddy from Obul Reddy, a dangerous faction leader, who is in love with Swapna and wants to marry her against her wishes. Ajay learns that Swapna is trying to leave for the US for pursuing her studies after Obul killed her brothers, when they refuse to marry their sister to Obul. In the process of saving Swapna, Ajay humiliates Obul by pushing him into a mud pond. Obul refuses to cleanse the mud until Swapna is found and brought back. Ajay helps Swapna escape and takes her to his house in the Old City, hiding her in his room with the help of his sister, Asha.


title: Okkadu

text: Soon, his parents find out she is hiding in their house. Swapna and Ajay run away again and eventually she falls in love with him. The next day, the police, led by Ajay's father Vijay, surround the Charminar where Swapna is hidden by Ajay. The duo, along with Ajay's friends, reaches the airport to go to the United States. They bring her parents to see her one last time before she leaves. After Swapna passed airport security, Ajay realises he loves Swapna. She shows up and hugs him while proposing to him.


title: Okkadu

text: At the airport, Vijay arrests Ajay while Obul's men take Swapna away. After Swapna taunts him by saying that Ajay will definitely come for her, Obul goes to the jail and asks Ajay to come with him. Here, Vijay expresses that he's not worried about Ajay; rather, he's worried for Obul. Obul and his henchmen are kidnapped by Ajay, who, along with his friends, attend the finals of the national-level Kabaddi tournament.


title: Okkadu

text: Meanwhile, Obul's brother Siva Reddy, who happens to be the Home minister of the state, is waiting at the venue of Obul's marriage with Swapna. After coming to know about his whereabouts, Siva reaches the stadium along with Swapna and his mother where Ajay and Obul are fighting with each other. Swapna's father stabs Obul while his mother dies in a bomb blast. Siva Reddy decides not to react as it would harm his position as a minister and Ajay, whose team won the match, celebrates the victory with Swapna and his family. Ajay and Swapna are married together.


title: Okkadu

text: During his days as an assistant director in Madras (now Chennai), Gunasekhar dreamt of directing a film with the backdrop of Charminar, a monument and mosque located in Hyderabad. After watching "West Side Story" (1961), he took inspiration from the war between two gangs and wrote a script choosing Charminar and Old city area of Hyderabad as the film's backdrop. Years later, Ashwini Dutt met Gunasekhar during the re-recording sessions of "Choodalani Vundi" (1998) where the latter saw the portfolio images of Mahesh Babu whose debut film "Rajakumarudu" was officially launched that day. Finding Mahesh Babu apt for the protagonist he envisioned, Gunasekhar narrated the script to him and gained his consent.


title: Okkadu

text: After the release of "Mrugaraju" (2001), Gunasekhar resumed work on the film's script. After reading an interview of Pullela Gopichand who pursued a career in badminton against his father's wishes and faced many hardships, Gunasekhar made the protagonist a person who aspires to be a kabaddi player against his father's wishes. He met Ramoji Rao who expressed his wish to produce the film and permitted Gunasekhar to erect a Charminar set at Ramoji Film City.


title: Okkadu

text: Ramoji Rao walked out due to unknown reasons and Majesh Babu, along with Gunasekhar, met M. S. Raju at Padmalaya Studios office. Mahesh Babu asked Raju to permit them to erect a Charminar set as they cannot avail police permission to shoot at the original after a person committed suicide by jumping from the top. Raju agreed to do so after listening to the script narration and the project was subsequently announced.


title: Okkadu

text: Gunasekhar wanted to name the film as "Athade Ame Sainyam", but the title was already registered for another film which made Gunasekhar name the film as "Okkadu" after considering "Kabaddi". The film was produced under the banner Sumanth Art Productions with a budget of 1314 crore.


title: Okkadu

text: Impressed with her screen presence in "Yuvakudu" (2000), Gunasekhar chose Bhumika Chawla as the film's female lead to be paired with Mahesh Babu. Mukesh Rishi and Geetha were signed to play Mahesh Babu's parents in the film. The former called it a character close to his heart, calling it is a "soft role after a string of ferocious roles that I have played". Prakash Raj was signed as the antagonist and was seen as a factionist who falls for Bhumika's character in the film. Telangana Shakuntala played the role of Prakash Raj's mother in the film for which she had to smoke cigar. Chandra Mohan and Niharika were seen in supporting roles as Bhumika's father and Mahesh Babu's sister respectively.


title: Okkadu

text: Paruchuri Brothers were signed to write the film's dialogues. Mani Sharma composed the score and Sekhar V. Joseph was its cinematographer. A. Sreekar Prasad edited the film, and Ashok Kumar was its art director. Sreekar Prasad called it a difficult film as it went through many forms of narration and he found it challenging to keep the pace very fast to make it slick and engaging. After the first copy was ready, Paruchuri Brothers suggested Gunasekhar to prefer a linear narrative to the non linear narrative being used. The latter, along with Sreekar Prasad, changed the non-linear narration to linear, within ten minutes.


title: Okkadu

text: The film's unit erected the Charminar set in the ten acres of land owned by D. Ramanaidu at Gopannapalle near Hyderabad. The original height of Charminar is and the height of each minaret is feet. The film's unit decided to construct the set with a length of feet by not altering the minarets and instead reduce the total length of the remaining part. The surroundings of Charminar were recreated in five acres around the set. 300 workers were employed in the construction of the set which lasted for three months and costed 1.75 crore.


title: Okkadu

text: The makers decided to create the roads near the set using computer graphics in order to reduce the budget. Principal photography began in the same set and fifteen generators were used for illuminating the area. Strada Cranes were used for filming key scenes after ordinary cranes proved to be futile. The film's climax was shot in December 2002 for 11 days and 1000 junior artistes participated in the film's shoot amid extreme climatic conditions. Despite receiving training in Kabaddi, Mahesh Babu was injured several times during the film's shoot.


title: Okkadu

text: The music for the film was composed by Mani Sharma and the lyrics were written by Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry.


title: Okkadu

text: The film was released on 15 January 2003 in 165 screens. The audio was released on 19 December 2002. The film earned a distributor's share of crore.


title: Okkadu

text: A critic from "The Hindu" called the film "An opportunity for director Gunasekhar to make a mass movie with an artistic touch. And for Mahesh Babu to assert his versatility".


title: Okkadu

text: "Okkadu" was first remade in Tamil as "Ghilli" (2004) where Prakash Raj reprised his role. Later it got remade in Kannada as "Ajay" (2006), in Bengali as "Jor" (2008) and in Hindi as "Tevar" (2015) and in Odia as "Mote Anidela Lakhe Phaguna" (2008). It was also remade in Sinhala language of Sri Lanka as "Kabaddi" (2021).


title: Inheritance (object-oriented programming)

text: In object-oriented programming, inheritance is the mechanism of basing an object or class upon another object (prototype-based inheritance) or class (class-based inheritance), retaining similar implementation. Also defined as deriving new classes (sub classes) from existing ones such as super class or base class and then forming them into a hierarchy of classes. In most class-based object-oriented languages, an object created through inheritance, a "child object", acquires all the properties and behaviors of the "parent object" , with the exception of: constructors, destructor, overloaded operators and friend functions of the base class. Inheritance allows programmers to create classes that are built upon existing classes, to specify a new implementation while maintaining the same behaviors (realizing an interface), to reuse code and to independently extend original software via public classes and interfaces. The relationships of objects or classes through inheritance give rise to a directed acyclic graph.


text: An inherited class is called a subclass of its parent class or super class. The term "inheritance" is loosely used for both class-based and prototype-based programming, but in narrow use the term is reserved for class-based programming (one class "inherits from" another), with the corresponding technique in prototype-based programming being instead called "delegation" (one object "delegates to" another). Class-modifying inheritance patterns can be pre-defined according to simple network interface parameters such that inter-language compatibility is preserved.


text: Inheritance should not be confused with subtyping. In some languages inheritance and subtyping agree, whereas in others they differ; in general, subtyping establishes an is-a relationship, whereas inheritance only reuses implementation and establishes a syntactic relationship, not necessarily a semantic relationship (inheritance does not ensure behavioral subtyping). To distinguish these concepts, subtyping is sometimes referred to as "interface inheritance" (without acknowledging that the specialization of type variables also induces a subtyping relation), whereas inheritance as defined here is known as "implementation inheritance" or "code inheritance". Still, inheritance is a commonly used mechanism for establishing subtype relationships.


text: Inheritance is contrasted with object composition, where one object "contains" another object (or objects of one class contain objects of another class); see composition over inheritance. Composition implements a has-a relationship, in contrast to the is-a relationship of subtyping.


text: In 1966, Tony Hoare presented some remarks on records, and in particular presented the idea of record subclasses, record types with common properties but discriminated by a variant tag and having fields private to the variant. Influenced by this, in 1967 Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard presented a design that allowed specifying objects that belonged to different classes but had common properties. The common properties were collected in a superclass, and each superclass could itself potentially have a superclass. The values of a subclass were thus compound objects, consisting of some number of prefix parts belonging to various superclasses, plus a main part belonging to the subclass. These parts were all concatenated together. The attributes of a compound object would be accessible by dot notation. This idea was first adopted in the Simula 67 programming language. The idea then spread to Smalltalk, C++, Java, Python, and many other languages.


text: "Subclasses", "derived classes", "heir classes", or "child classes" are modular derivative classes that inherits one or more language entities from one or more other classes (called "superclass", "base classes", or "parent classes"). The semantics of class inheritance vary from language to language, but commonly the subclass automatically inherits the instance variables and member functions of its superclasses.


text: Some languages support also the inheritance of other constructs. For example, in Eiffel, contracts that define the specification of a class are also inherited by heirs. The superclass establishes a common interface and foundational functionality, which specialized subclasses can inherit, modify, and supplement. The software inherited by a subclass is considered reused in the subclass. A reference to an instance of a class may actually be referring to one of its subclasses. The actual class of the object being referenced is impossible to predict at compile-time. A uniform interface is used to invoke the member functions of objects of a number of different classes. Subclasses may replace superclass functions with entirely new functions that must share the same method signature.


text: In some languages a class may be declared as non-subclassable by adding certain class modifiers to the class declaration. Examples include the codice_1 keyword in Java and C++11 onwards or the codice_2 keyword in C#. Such modifiers are added to the class declaration before the codice_3 keyword and the class identifier declaration. Such non-subclassable classes restrict reusability, particularly when developers only have access to precompiled binaries and not source code.


text: A non-subclassable class has no subclasses, so it can be easily deduced at compile time that references or pointers to objects of that class are actually referencing instances of that class and not instances of subclasses (they don't exist) or instances of superclasses (upcasting a reference type violates the type system). Because the exact type of the object being referenced is known before execution, early binding (also called static dispatch) can be used instead of late binding (also called dynamic dispatch), which requires one or more virtual method table lookups depending on whether multiple inheritance or only single inheritance are supported in the programming language that is being used.


text: Just as classes may be non-subclassable, method declarations may contain method modifiers that prevent the method from being overridden (i.e. replaced with a new function with the same name and type signature in a subclass). A private method is un-overridable simply because it is not accessible by classes other than the class it is a member function of (this is not true for C++, though). A codice_1 method in Java, a codice_2 method in C# or a codice_6 feature in Eiffel cannot be overridden.


text: If the superclass method is a virtual method, then invocations of the superclass method will be dynamically dispatched. Some languages require that methods be specifically declared as virtual (e.g. C++), and in others, all methods are virtual (e.g. Java). An invocation of a non-virtual method will always be statically dispatched (i.e. the address of the function call is determined at compile-time). Static dispatch is faster than dynamic dispatch and allows optimizations such as inline expansion.


text: The following table shows which variables and functions get inherited dependent on the visibility given when deriving the class, using the terminology established by C++.


text: Many object-oriented programming languages permit a class or object to replace the implementation of an aspect—typically a behavior—that it has inherited. This process is called "overriding". Overriding introduces a complication: which version of the behavior does an instance of the inherited class use—the one that is part of its own class, or the one from the parent (base) class? The answer varies between programming languages, and some languages provide the ability to indicate that a particular behavior is not to be overridden and should behave as defined by the base class. For instance, in C#, the base method or property can only be overridden in a subclass if it is marked with the virtual, abstract, or override modifier, while in programming languages such as Java, different methods can be called to override other methods. An alternative to overriding is hiding the inherited code.


text: Implementation inheritance is the mechanism whereby a subclass re-uses code in a base class. By default the subclass retains all of the operations of the base class, but the subclass may override some or all operations, replacing the base-class implementation with its own.


text: In the following Python example, subclasses and override the method of the base class . The base class comprises operations to compute the sum of the squares between two integers. The subclass re-uses all of the functionality of the base class with the exception of the operation that transforms a number into its square, replacing it with an operation that transforms a number into its square and cube respectively. The subclasses therefore compute the sum of the squares/cubes between two integers.


text: In most quarters, class inheritance for the sole purpose of code reuse has fallen out of favor. The primary concern is that implementation inheritance does not provide any assurance of polymorphic substitutability—an instance of the reusing class cannot necessarily be substituted for an instance of the inherited class. An alternative technique, explicit delegation, requires more programming effort, but avoids the substitutability issue. In C++ private inheritance can be used as a form of "implementation inheritance" without substitutability. Whereas public inheritance represents an "is-a" relationship and delegation represents a "has-a" relationship, private (and protected) inheritance can be thought of as an "is implemented in terms of" relationship.


text: Another frequent use of inheritance is to guarantee that classes maintain a certain common interface; that is, they implement the same methods. The parent class can be a combination of implemented operations and operations that are to be implemented in the child classes. Often, there is no interface change between the supertype and subtype- the child implements the behavior described instead of its parent class.


text: Subtyping enables a given type to be substituted for another type or abstraction, and is said to establish an "is-a" relationship between the subtype and some existing abstraction, either implicitly or explicitly, depending on language support. The relationship can be expressed explicitly via inheritance in languages that support inheritance as a subtyping mechanism. For example, the following C++ code establishes an explicit inheritance relationship between classes "B" and "A", where "B" is both a subclass and a subtype of "A", and can be used as an "A" wherever a "B" is specified (via a reference, a pointer or the object itself).


text: In programming languages that do not support inheritance as a subtyping mechanism, the relationship between a base class and a derived class is only a relationship between implementations (a mechanism for code reuse), as compared to a relationship between types. Inheritance, even in programming languages that support inheritance as a subtyping mechanism, does not necessarily entail behavioral subtyping. It is entirely possible to derive a class whose object will behave incorrectly when used in a context where the parent class is expected; see the Liskov substitution principle.


text: For example, consider a class that contains a person's name, date of birth, address and phone number. We can define a subclass of called that contains the person's grade point average and classes taken, and another subclass of called that contains the person's job-title, employer, and salary.


text: In defining this inheritance hierarchy we have already defined certain restrictions, not all of which are desirable:


text: The composite reuse principle is an alternative to inheritance. This technique supports polymorphism and code reuse by separating behaviors from the primary class hierarchy and including specific behavior classes as required in any business domain class. This approach avoids the static nature of a class hierarchy by allowing behavior modifications at run time and allows one class to implement behaviors buffet-style, instead of being restricted to the behaviors of its ancestor classes.


text: Implementation inheritance is controversial among programmers and theoreticians of object-oriented programming since at least the 1990s. Among them are the authors of "Design Patterns", who advocate interface inheritance instead, and favor composition over inheritance. For example, the decorator pattern (as mentioned above) has been proposed to overcome the static nature of inheritance between classes. As a more fundamental solution to the same problem, role-oriented programming introduces a distinct relationship, "played-by", combining properties of inheritance and composition into a new concept.


text: According to Allen Holub, the main problem with implementation inheritance is that it introduces unnecessary coupling in the form of the "fragile base class problem": modifications to the base class implementation can cause inadvertent behavioral changes in subclasses. Using interfaces avoids this problem because no implementation is shared, only the API. Another way of stating this is that "inheritance breaks encapsulation". The problem surfaces clearly in open object-oriented systems such as frameworks, where client code is expected to inherit from system-supplied classes and then substituted for the system's classes in its algorithms.


text: Reportedly, Java inventor James Gosling has spoken against implementation inheritance, stating that he would not include it if he were to redesign Java. Language designs that decouple inheritance from subtyping (interface inheritance) appeared as early as 1990; a modern example of this is the Go programming language.


text: Complex inheritance, or inheritance used within an insufficiently mature design, may lead to the yo-yo problem. When inheritance was used as a primary approach to structure programs in the late 1990s, developers tended to break code into more layers of inheritance as the system functionality grew. If a development team combined multiple layers of inheritance with the single responsibility principle, this resulted in many very thin layers of code, with many layers consisting of only 1 or 2 lines of actual code. Too many layers make debugging a significant challenge, as it becomes hard to determine which layer needs to be debugged.


text: Another issue with inheritance is that subclasses must be defined in code, which means that program users cannot add new subclasses at runtime. Other design patterns (such as Entity–component–system) allow program users to define variations of an entity at runtime.


title: Standardized test

text: A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.


title: Standardized test

text: Any test in which the same test is given in the same manner to all test takers, and graded in the same manner for everyone, is a standardized test. Standardized tests do not need to be high-stakes tests, time-limited tests, or multiple-choice tests. A standardized test may be any type of test: a written test, an oral test, or a practical skills performance test. The questions can be simple or complex. The subject matter among school-age students is frequently academic skills, but a standardized test can be given on nearly any topic, including driving tests, creativity, athleticism, personality, professional ethics, or other attributes.


title: Standardized test

text: The opposite of standardized testing is "non-standardized testing", in which either significantly different tests are given to different test takers, or the same test is assigned under significantly different conditions (e.g., one group is permitted far less time to complete the test than the next group) or evaluated differently (e.g., the same answer is counted right for one student, but wrong for another student).


title: Standardized test

text: Most everyday quizzes and tests taken by students during school meet the definition of a standardized test: everyone in the class takes the same test, at the same time, under the same circumstances, and all of the students are graded by their teacher in the same way. However, the term "standardized test" is most commonly used to refer to tests that are given to larger groups, such as a test taken by all adults who wish to acquire a license to have a particular kind of job, or by all students of a certain age. Most standardized tests are forms of summative assessments - assessments that attempt to measure the learning of the participants at the end of an instructional unit.


title: Standardized test

text: Because everyone gets the same test and the same grading system, standardized tests are often perceived as being fairer than non-standardized tests. Such tests are often thought of as fairer and more objective than a system in which some students get an easier test and others get a more difficult test. Standardized tests are designed to permit reliable comparison of outcomes across all test takers, because everyone is taking the same test. However, both testing in general and standardized testing in specific are criticized by some people. For example, some people believe that it is unfair to ask all students the same questions, if some students' schools did not have the same learning standards.


title: Standardized test

text: The definition of a standardized test has changed somewhat over time. In 1960, standardized tests were defined as those in which the conditions and content were equal for everyone taking the test, regardless of when, where, or by whom the test was given or graded. The purpose of this standardization is to make sure that the scores reliably indicate the abilities or skills being measured, and not other things, such as different instructions about what to do if the test taker does not know the answer to a question.


title: Standardized test

text: By the beginning of the 21st century, the focus shifted away from a strict sameness of conditions towards equal fairness of conditions. For example, a test taker with a broken wrist might write more slowly because of the injury, and it would be more equitable, and produce a more reliable understanding of the test taker's actual knowledge, if that person were given a few more minutes to write down the answers to a time-limited test. Changing the testing conditions in a way that improves fairness with respect to a permanent or temporary disability, but without undermining the main point of the assessment, is called accommodation. However, if the purpose of the test were to see how quickly the student could write, then giving the test taker extra time would become a modification of the content, and no longer a standardized test.


title: Standardized test

text: The earliest evidence of standardized testing was in China, during the Han Dynasty, where the imperial examinations covered the Six Arts which included music, archery, horsemanship, arithmetic, writing, and knowledge of the rituals and ceremonies of both public and private parts. These exams were used to select employees for the state bureaucracy.


title: Standardized test

text: Later, sections on military strategies, civil law, revenue and taxation, agriculture and geography were added to the testing. In this form, the examinations were institutionalized for more than a millennium.


title: Standardized test

text: Standardized testing was introduced into Europe in the early 19th century, modeled on the Chinese mandarin examinations, through the advocacy of British colonial administrators, the most "persistent" of which was Britain's consul in Guangzhou, China, Thomas Taylor Meadows. Meadows warned of the collapse of the British Empire if standardized testing was not implemented throughout the empire immediately.


title: Standardized test

text: Prior to their adoption, standardized testing was not traditionally a part of Western pedagogy. Based on the skeptical and open-ended tradition of debate inherited from Ancient Greece, Western academia favored non-standardized assessments using essays written by students. It is because of this, that the first European implementation of standardized testing did not occur in Europe proper, but in British India. Inspired by the Chinese use of standardized testing, in the early 19th century, British "company managers hired and promoted employees based on competitive examinations in order to prevent corruption and favoritism." This practice of standardized testing was later adopted in the late 19th century by the British mainland. The parliamentary debates that ensued made many references to the "Chinese mandarin system".


title: Standardized test

text: It was from Britain that standardized testing spread, not only throughout the British Commonwealth, but to Europe and then America. Its spread was fueled by the Industrial Revolution. The increase in number of school students during and after the Industrial Revolution, as a result of compulsory education laws, decreased the use of open-ended assessment, which was harder to mass-produce and assess objectively due to its intrinsically subjective nature.


title: Standardized test

text: Standardized tests such as the War Office Selection Boards were developed for the British Army during the Second World War to choose candidates for officer training and other tasks. The tests looked at soldiers' mental abilities, mechanical skills, ability to work with others, and other qualities. Previous methods had suffered from bias and resulted in choosing the wrong soldiers for officer training.


title: Standardized test

text: Standardized testing has been a part of American education since the 19th century, but the widespread reliance on standardized testing in schools in the US is largely a 20th-century phenomenon.


title: Standardized test

text: Immigration in the mid-19th century contributed to the growth of standardized tests in the United States. Standardized tests were used when people first entered the US to test social roles and find social power and status.


title: Standardized test

text: The College Entrance Examination Board did not offer standardized testing for university and college admission until 1900. Their first examinations were administered in 1901, in nine subjects. This test was implemented with the idea of creating standardized admissions for the United States in northeastern elite universities. Originally, the test was also meant for top boarding schools, in order to standardize curriculum. Originally the standardized test was made of essays and was not intended for widespread testing.


title: Standardized test

text: During World War I, the Army Alpha and Beta tests were developed to help place new recruits in appropriate assignments based upon their assessed intelligence levels. The first edition of a modern standardized test for IQ, the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Test, appeared in 1916. The College Board then designed the SAT (Scholar Aptitude Test) in 1926. The first SAT test was based on the Army IQ tests, with the goal of determining the test taker's intelligence, problem-solving skills, and critical thinking. In 1959, Everett Lindquist offered the ACT (American College Testing) for the first time. As of 2020, the ACT includes four main sections with multiple-choice questions to test English, mathematics, reading, and science, plus an optional writing section.


title: Standardized test

text: Individual states began testing large numbers of children and teenagers through the public school systems in the 1970s. By the 1980s, American schools were assessing nationally. In 2012, 45 states paid an average of $27 per student, and $669 million overall, on large-scale annual academic tests. However, other costs, such as paying teachers to prepare students for the tests and for class time spent administering the tests, significantly exceeds the cost of the test itself.


title: Standardized test

text: The need for the federal government to make meaningful comparisons across a highly de-centralized (locally controlled) public education system has encouraged the use of large-scale standardized testing. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 required some standardized testing in public schools. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 further tied some types of public school funding to the results of standardized testing.


title: Standardized test

text: The goal of No Child Left Behind was to improve the education system in the United States by holding schools and teachers accountable for student achievement, including the educational achievement gap between minority and non-minority children in public schools. An additional factor in the United States education system is the socioeconomic background of the students being tested. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 41 percent of children under the age of 18 come from lower-income families. These students require specialized attention to perform well in school and on the standardized tests.


title: Standardized test

text: Under these federal laws, the school curriculum was still set by each state, but the federal government required states to assess how well schools and teachers were teaching the state-chosen material with standardized tests. Students' results on large-scale standardized tests were used to allocate funds and other resources to schools, and to close poorly performing schools. The Every Student Succeeds Act replaced the NCLB at the end of 2015. By that point, these large-scale standardized tests had become controversial in the United States because they were high-stakes tests for the school systems and teachers.


title: Standardized test

text: While in recent years, many universities and colleges have abandoned the requirement of standardized test scores by applicants.


title: Standardized test

text: The Australian National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) standardized testing was commenced in 2008 by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, an independent authority "responsible for the development of a national curriculum, a national assessment program and a national data collection and reporting program that supports 21st century learning for all Australian students".


title: Standardized test

text: The testing includes all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in Australian schools to be assessed using national tests. The subjects covered in these testings include Reading, Writing, Language Conventions (Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation) and Numeracy.


title: Standardized test

text: The program presents students level reports designed to enable parents to see their child's progress over the course of their schooling life, and help teachers to improve individual learning opportunities for their students. Students and school level data are also provided to the appropriate school system on the understanding that they can be used to target specific supports and resources to schools that need them most. Teachers and schools use this information, in conjunction with other information, to determine how well their students are performing and to identify any areas of need requiring assistance.


title: Standardized test

text: The concept of testing student achievement is not new, although the current Australian approach may be said to have its origins in current educational policy structures in both the US and the UK. There are several key differences between the Australian NAPLAN and the UK and USA strategies. Schools that are found to be under-performing in the Australian context will be offered financial assistance under the current federal government policy.


title: Standardized test

text: In 1968 the Colombian Institute for the evaluation of education - ICFES was born to regulate higher education. The previous public evaluation system for the authorization of operation and legal recognition for institutions and university programs was implemented.


title: Standardized test

text: Colombia has several standardized tests that assess the level of education in the country. These exams are performed by the ICFES.


title: Standardized test

text: Students in third grade, fifth grade and ninth grade take the "Saber 3°5°9°" exam. This test is currently presented on a computer in controlled and census samples.


title: Standardized test

text: Upon leaving high school students present the "Saber 11" that allows them to enter different universities in the country. Students studying at home can take this exam to graduate from high school and get their degree certificate and diploma.


title: Standardized test

text: Canada leaves education, and standardized testing as result, under the jurisdiction of the provinces. Each province has its own province-wide standardized testing regime, ranging from no required standardized tests for students in Ontario to exams worth 50% of final high school grades in Newfoundland and Labrador.


title: Standardized test

text: A standardized test can be composed of multiple-choice questions, true-false questions, essay questions, authentic assessments, or nearly any other form of assessment. Multiple-choice and true-false items are often chosen for tests that are taken by thousands of people because they can be given and scored inexpensively, quickly, and reliably through using special answer sheets that can be read by a computer or via computer-adaptive testing. Some standardized tests have short-answer or essay writing components that are assigned a score by independent evaluators who use rubrics (rules or guidelines) and benchmark papers (examples of papers for each possible score) to determine the grade to be given to a response.


title: Standardized test

text: Not all standardized tests involve answering questions. An authentic assessment for athletic skills could take the form of running for a set amount of time or dribbling a ball for a certain distance. Healthcare professionals must pass tests proving that they can perform medical procedures. Candidates for driver's licenses must pass a standardized test showing that they can drive a car. The Canadian Standardized Test of Fitness has been used in medical research, to determine how physically fit the test takers are.


title: Standardized test

text: Since the latter part of the 20th century, large-scale standardized testing has been shaped in part, by the ease and low cost of grading of multiple-choice tests by computer. Most national and international assessments are not fully evaluated by people.


title: Standardized test

text: People are used to score items that are not able to be scored easily by computer (such as essays). For example, the Graduate Record Exam is a computer-adaptive assessment that requires no scoring by people except for the writing portion.


title: Standardized test

text: Human scoring is relatively expensive and often variable, which is why computer scoring is preferred when feasible. For example, some critics say that poorly paid employees will score tests badly. Agreement between scorers can vary between 60 and 85 percent, depending on the test and the scoring session. For large-scale tests in schools, some test-givers pay to have two or more scorers read each paper; if their scores do not agree, then the paper is passed to additional scorers.


title: Standardized test

text: Though the process is more difficult than grading multiple-choice tests electronically, essays can also be graded by computer. In other instances, essays and other open-ended responses are graded according to a pre-determined assessment rubric by trained graders. For example, at Pearson, all essay graders have four-year university degrees, and a majority are current or former classroom teachers.


title: Standardized test

text: Using a rubric is meant to increase fairness when the student's performance is evaluated. In standardized testing, measurement error (a consistent pattern of errors and biases in scoring the test) is easy to determine in standardized testing. In non-standardized assessment, graders have more individual discretion and therefore are more likely to produce unfair results through unconscious bias. When the score depends upon the graders' individual preferences, then students' grades depend upon who grades the test. Standardized tests also remove teacher bias in assessment. Research shows that teachers create a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in their assessment of students, granting those they anticipate will achieve with higher scores and giving those who they expect to fail lower grades.


title: Standardized test

text: There are two types of standardized test score interpretations: a norm-referenced score interpretation or a criterion-referenced score interpretation.


title: Standardized test

text: Either of these systems can be used in standardized testing. What is important to standardized testing is whether all students are asked equivalent questions, under equivalent circumstances, and graded equally. In a standardized test, if a given answer is correct for one student, it is correct for all students. Graders do not accept an answer as good enough for one student but reject the same answer as inadequate for another student.


title: Standardized test

text: The term "normative assessment" refers to the process of comparing one test-taker to his or her peers. A norm-referenced test (NRT) is a type of test, assessment, or evaluation which yields an estimate of the position of the tested individual in a predefined population. The estimate is derived from the analysis of test scores and other relevant data from a sample drawn from the population. This type of test identifies whether the test taker performed better or worse than other students taking this test. A criterion-referenced test (CRT) is a style of test which uses test scores to show whether or not test takers performed well on a given task, not how well they performed compared to other test takers. Most tests and quizzes that are written by school teachers are criterion-referenced tests. In this case, the objective is simply to see whether the student can answer the questions correctly. The teacher is not usually trying to compare each student's result against other students.


title: Standardized test

text: This makes standardized tests useful for admissions purposes in higher education, where a school is trying to compare students from across the nation or across the world. Examples of such international benchmark tests include the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Performance on these exams have been speculated to change based on the way standards like the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) line up with top countries across the world.


title: Standardized test

text: Because the results can be compared across dissimilar schools, the results of a national standardized test can be used to determine what areas need to be improved. Tests that are taken by everyone can help the government determine which schools and which students are struggling the most. With this information, they can implement solutions to fix the issue, allowing students to learn and grow in an academic environment.


title: Standardized test

text: The considerations of validity and reliability typically are viewed as essential elements for determining the quality of any standardized test. However, professional and practitioner associations frequently have placed these concerns within broader contexts when developing standards and making overall judgments about the quality of any standardized test as a whole within a given context.


title: Standardized test

text: In the field of evaluation, and in particular educational evaluation, the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation has published three sets of standards for evaluations. "The Personnel Evaluation Standards" was published in 1988, "The Program Evaluation Standards" (2nd edition) was published in 1994, and "The Student Evaluation Standards" was published in 2003.


title: Standardized test

text: Each publication presents and elaborates a set of standards for use in a variety of educational settings. The standards provide guidelines for designing, implementing, assessing and improving the identified form of evaluation. Each of the standards has been placed in one of four fundamental categories to promote educational evaluations that are proper, useful, feasible, and accurate. In these sets of standards, validity and reliability considerations are covered under the accuracy topic. The tests are aimed at ensuring that student evaluations will provide sound, accurate, and credible information about student learning and performance, however; standardized tests offer narrow information on many forms of intelligence and relying on them harms students because they inaccurately measure a student's potential for success.


title: Standardized test

text: In the field of psychometrics, the "Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing" place standards about validity and reliability, along with errors of measurement and issues related to the accommodation of individuals with disabilities. The third and final major topic covers standards related to testing applications, credentialing, plus testing in program evaluation and public policy.


title: Standardized test

text: One of the main advantages of standardized testing is that the results can be empirically documented; therefore, the test scores can be shown to have a relative degree of validity and reliability, as well as results which are generalizable and replicable. This is often contrasted with grades on a school transcript, which are assigned by individual teachers. It may be difficult to account for differences in educational culture across schools, difficulty of a given teacher's curriculum, differences in teaching style, and techniques and biases that affect grading.


title: Standardized test

text: Another advantage is aggregation. A well designed standardized test provides an assessment of an individual's mastery of a domain of knowledge or skill which at some level of aggregation will provide useful information. That is, while individual assessments may not be accurate enough for practical purposes, the mean scores of classes, schools, branches of a company, or other groups may well provide useful information because of the reduction of error accomplished by increasing the sample size.


title: Standardized test

text: There is criticism from students themselves that tests, while standardized, are unfair to the individual student. Some students are "bad test takers", meaning they get nervous and unfocused on tests. Therefore, while the test is standard and should provide fair results, the test takers are at a disadvantage, but have no way to prove their knowledge otherwise, as there is no other testing alternative that allows students to prove their knowledge and problem-solving skills.


title: Standardized test

text: Some students have test anxiety. Between ten to forty percent of students experience this type of anxiety. In fact, the children of poverty are struck most with testing anxiety. Testing anxiety applies to standardized tests as well, where students who may not have test anxiety regularly feel immense pressure to perform when the stakes are so high. High-stakes standardized testing includes exams like the SAT, the PARCC, and the ACT, where doing well is required for grade passing or college admission.


title: Standardized test

text: Standardized testing is a very common way of determining a student's past academic achievement and future potential. However, high-stakes tests (whether standardized or non-standardized) can cause anxiety. When teachers or schools are rewarded for better performance on tests, then those rewards encourage teachers to "teach to the test" instead of providing a rich and broad curriculum. In 2007 a qualitative study done by Au Wayne demonstrated that standardized testing narrows the curriculum and encourages teacher-centered instruction instead of student-centered learning.


title: Standardized test

text: The validity, quality, or use of tests, particularly annual standardized tests common in education have continued to be widely both supported or criticized. Like the tests themselves, supports and criticisms of tests are often varied and may come from a variety of sources such as parents, test takers, instructors, business groups, universities, or governmental watchdogs.


title: Standardized test

text: Supporters of large-scale standardized tests in education often provide the following reasons for promoting testing in education:


title: Standardized test

text: Critics of standardized tests in education often provide the following reasons for revising or removing standardized tests in education:


title: Standardized test

text: Standardized testing is used as a public policy strategy to establish stronger accountability measures for public education. While the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) has served as an educational barometer for some thirty years by administering standardized tests on a regular basis to random schools throughout the United States, efforts over the last decade at the state and federal levels have mandated annual standardized test administration for all public schools across the country.


title: Standardized test

text: The idea behind the standardized testing policy movement is that testing is the first step to improving schools, teaching practice, and educational methods through data collection. Proponents argue that the data generated by the standardized tests act like a report card for the community, demonstrating how well local schools are performing. Critics of the movement, however, point to various discrepancies that result from current state standardized testing practices, including problems with test validity and reliability and false correlations (see Simpson's paradox).


title: Standardized test

text: Along with administering and scoring the actual tests, in some cases the teachers are being scored on how well their own students perform on the tests. Teachers are under pressure to continuously raise scores to prove they are worthy of keeping their jobs. This approach has been criticized because there are so many external factors, such as domestic violence, hunger, and homelessness among students, that affect how well students perform.


title: Standardized test

text: "Performance-based pay" is the idea that teachers should be paid more if the students perform well on the tests, and less if they perform poorly. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie proposed educational reform in New Jersey that pressures teachers not only to "teach to the test," but also have their students perform at the potential cost of their salary and job security. The reform called for performance-based pay that depends on students' performances on standardized tests and their educational gains.


title: Standardized test

text: Schools that score poorly wind up being slated for closure or downsizing, which gives direct influence on the administration to result to dangerous tactics such as intimidation, cheating and drilling of information to raise scores.


title: Standardized test

text: Uncritical use of standardized test scores to evaluate teacher and school performance is inappropriate, because the students' scores are influenced by three things: what students learn in school, what students learn outside of school, and the students' innate intelligence. The school only has control over one of these three factors. Value-added modeling has been proposed to cope with this criticism by statistically controlling for innate ability and out-of-school contextual factors. In a value-added system of interpreting test scores, analysts estimate an expected score for each student, based on factors such as the student's own previous test scores, primary language, or socioeconomic status. The difference between the student's expected score and actual score is presumed to be due primarily to the teacher's efforts.


title: Standardized test

text: Critics also charge that standardized tests encourage "teaching to the test" at the expense of creativity and in-depth coverage of subjects not on the test. Multiple choice tests are criticized for failing to assess skills such as writing. Furthermore, student's success is being tracked to a teacher's relative performance, making teacher advancement contingent upon a teacher's success with a student's academic performance. Ethical and economical questions arise for teachers when faced with clearly underperforming or underskilled students and a standardized test.


title: Standardized test

text: Critics contend that overuse and misuse of these tests harms teaching and learning by narrowing the curriculum. According to the group FairTest, when standardized tests are the primary factor in accountability, schools use the tests to narrowly define curriculum and focus instruction. Accountability creates an immense pressure to perform and this can lead to the misuse and misinterpretation of standardized tests.


title: Standardized test

text: Critics say that teaching to the test disfavors higher-order learning; it transforms what the teachers are allowed to be teaching and heavily limits the amount of other information students learn throughout the years. While it is possible to use a standardized test without letting its contents determine curriculum and instruction, frequently, what is not tested is not taught, and how the subject is tested often becomes a model for how to teach the subject.


title: Standardized test

text: Critics also object to the type of material that is typically tested by schools. Although standardized tests for non-academic attributes such as the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking exist, schools rarely give standardized tests to measure initiative, creativity, imagination, curiosity, good will, ethical reflection, or a host of other valuable dispositions and attributes. Instead, the tests given by schools tend to focus less on moral or character development, and more on individual identifiable academic skills.


title: Standardized test

text: In her book, "Now You See It", Cathy Davidson criticizes standardized tests. She describes our youth as "assembly line kids on an assembly line model," meaning the use of the standardized test as a part of a one-size-fits-all educational model. She also criticizes the narrowness of skills being tested and labeling children without these skills as failures or as students with disabilities. Widespread and organized cheating has been a growing culture.


title: Standardized test

text: Education theorist Bill Ayers has commented on the limitations of the standardized test, writing that "Standardized tests can't measure initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking, curiosity, effort, irony, judgment, commitment, nuance, good will, ethical reflection, or a host of other valuable dispositions and attributes. What they can measure and count are isolated skills, specific facts and function, content knowledge, the least interesting and least significant aspects of learning." In his book, "The Shame of the Nation," Jonathan Kozol argues that students submitted to standardized testing are victims of "cognitive decapitation". Kozol comes to this realization after speaking to many children in inner city schools who have no spatial recollection of time, time periods, and historical events. This is especially the case in schools where due to shortages in funding and strict accountability policies, schools have done away with subjects like the arts, history and geography; in order to focus on the contest of the mandated tests.


title: Standardized test

text: There are three metrics by which the best performing countries in the TIMMS (the "A+ countries") are measured: focus, coherence, and rigor. Focus is defined as the number of topics covered in each grade; the idea is that the fewer topics covered in each grade, the more focus can be given to each topic. The definition of coherence is adhering to a sequence of topics covered that follows the natural progression or logical structure of mathematics. The CCSSM was compared to both the current state standards and the A+ country standards. With the most topics covered on average, the current state standards had the lowest focus. The Common Core Standards aim to fix this discrepancy by helping educators focus on what students need to learn instead of becoming distracted by extraneous topics. They encourage educational materials to go from covering a vast array of topics in a shallow manner to a few topics in much more depth.


title: Standardized test

text: Standardized tests are a way to measure the education level of students and schools on a broad scale. From Kindergarten to 12th grade, most American students participate in annual standardized tests. The average student takes about 10 of these tests per year (e.g., one or two reading comprehension tests, one or two math tests, a writing test, a science test, etc.). The average amount of testing takes about 2.3% of total class time (equal to about four school days per year).


title: Standardized test

text: Standardized tests are expensive to administer. It has been reported that the United States spends about US$1.7 billion annually on these tests. In 2001, it was also reported that only three companies (Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGraw-Hill and Riverside Publishing) design 96% of the tests taken at the state level.


title: Standardized test

text: Heavy reliance on high-stakes standardized tests for decision-making is often controversial. Critics often propose emphasizing cumulative or even non-numerical measures, such as classroom grades or brief individual assessments (written in prose) from teachers. Supporters argue that test scores provide a clear-cut, objective standard that serves as a valuable check on grade inflation.


title: Standardized test

text: The National Academy of Sciences recommends that major educational decisions not be based solely on a single test score. The use of minimum cut-scores for entrance or graduation does not imply a single standard, since test scores are nearly always combined with other minimal criteria such as number of credits, prerequisite courses, attendance, etc. Test scores are often perceived as the "sole criteria" simply because they are the most difficult, or the fulfillment of other criteria is automatically assumed. One exception to this rule is the GED, which has allowed many people to have their skills recognized even though they did not meet traditional criteria.


title: Standardized test

text: Some teachers would argue that a single standardized test only measures a student's current knowledge and it does not reflect the students progress from the beginning of the year. A result created by individuals that are not a part of the student's regular instruction, but by professionals that determine what students should know at different ages. In addition, teachers agree that the best test creator and facilitator are themselves. They argue that they are the most aware of students abilities, capacities, and necessities which would allow them to take a longer on subjects or proceed on with the regular curriculum.


title: Standardized test

text: Monty Neill, the director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, claims that students who speak English as a second language, who have a disability, or who come from low-income families are disproportionately denied a diploma due to a test score, which is unfair and harmful. In the late 1970s when the graduation test began in the United States, for example, a lawsuit claimed that many Black students had not had a fair opportunity on the material they were tested on the graduation test because they had attended schools segregated by law. "The interaction of under-resourced schools and testing most powerfully hits students of color", as Neill argues, "They are disproportionately denied diplomas or grade promotion, and the schools they attend are the ones most likely to fare poorly on the tests and face sanctions such as restructuring."


title: Standardized test

text: In the journal "The Progressive," Barbara Miner explicates the drawbacks of standardized testing by analyzing three different books. As the co-director of the Center for Education at Rice University and a professor of education, Linda M. McNeil in her book "Contradictions of School Reform: Educational Costs of Standardized Testing" writes "Educational standardization harms teaching and learning and, over the long term, restratifies education by race and class." McNeil believes that test-based education reform places higher standards for students of color. According to Miner, McNeil "shows how test-based reform centralizes power in the hands of the corporate and political elite—a particularly frightening development during this time of increasing corporate and conservative influence over education reform." Such test-based reform has dumbed down learning, especially for students of color.


title: Standardized test

text: FairTest says that negative consequences of test misuse include pushing students out of school, driving teachers out of the profession, and undermining student engagement and school climate.


title: Standardized test

text: Standardized tests are reviewed by universities as part of the application, along with other supporting evidence such as personal statements, GPA, and letters of recommendation. Nathan Kuncel, a scholar of higher education, noticed that in college admission, SAT, ACT, and other standardized tests "help overwhelmed admissions officers divide enormous numbers of applicants into pools for further assessment. High scores don't guarantee admission anywhere, and low scores don't rule it out, but schools take the tests seriously."


title: Standardized test

text: Research shows that the tests predict more than just first-year grades and the level of courses a student is likely to take. The longitudinal research conducted by scientists shows that students with high test scores are more likely to take the challenging route through college.


title: Standardized test

text: Tests also can indicate the outcomes of students beyond college, including faculty evaluations, research accomplishments, degree attainment, performance on comprehensive exams and professional licensure.


title: Standardized test

text: Since GPA has difference across schools and even for two students in the same school, the common measure provided by the test score is more useful.


title: Standardized test

text: However, in an April 1995 "meta-analysis" published in the Journal of Educational and Psychological Measurement, Todd Morrison and Melanie Morrison examined two dozen validity studies of the test required to get into just about any Masters or PhD program in America: the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). This study encompassed more than 5,000 test-takers over the past 30 years. The authors found that GRE scores accounted for just 6 percent of the variation in grades in graduate school. The GRE appears to be "virtually useless from a prediction standpoint," wrote the authors. Repeated studies of the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) find the same.


title: Standardized test

text: There is debate whether the test will indicate the long-term success in work and life since there are many other factors, but fundamental skills such as reading, writing, and math are related to job performance.