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John Willis' predictive fantasy??

American Guidance Service now has available the first calculator norms ever published for an individual mathematics achievement test. The Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement Normative Update Calculator Supplement (K-TEA NUCS) now provides these normative scores for the Mathematics Computation and Applications subtests:

• Age and grade norms for standard, paper-and-pencil administration
• Age and grade norms for scores after the student rechecks answers and attempts additional problems with a calculator
• Norms for the differences between scores with and without use of a calculator
• Supplemental age and grade norms for the student's score after errors have been pointed out and the student has been allowed to attempt the problems again.

Evaluators have long been frustrated by the ability accurately to measure students' proficiency with a calculator. Both students who are weak in math and those who have gone on to advanced math classes tend to forget such skills as long division. Students who are doing well in Algebra, Trigonometry, Geometry, or Calculus classes often earn below average scores on basic math tests in spite of their strong math abilities. Existing individual math achievement tests have been unable to predict success in classes or on tests, such as the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, which allow use of calculators. Supplementary norms also allow evaluators to report how much use of a calculator helped a student, compared to other students of the same age or grade.

Evaluators have also been frustrated by the need to report such problems as, "The student's math score would probably have been higher to an unknown extent if the student had read the operations signs correctly and had not made 'careless' errors." No standardized and normed method has existed for measuring the effects of such errors. Now, the K-TEA NUCS allows evaluators to readminister failed items and obtain a normed, supplementary score.

K-TEA NUCS norms were derived from scores of a small, carefully selected sample of students who were administered the K-TEA Mathematics subtests in the standard manner, allowed to recheck their work and attempt additional items with a calculator that used both decimal and common fractions, and then directed to check their work on all problems on which they had performed the wrong operation or made a simple computational error.

With these supplementary norms, the recent Normative Update, and the Error Analysis, the K-TEA is now the most diagnostically useful individual achievement test currently available.