1. REDEFINING CLASSROOMS
This age of reason being an investigation of verbal ,quantitative and
abstract reasoning skills has enabled us to redefine classrooms.A new
assessment resource addresses the need for tests of students reasoning
skills throughout their schooling.Finally ,the end of the unit of work that
has been occupying the class for the last few weeks has been
reached.Now to assess how much has been learned,its testing time .
Most tests in our system are curriculum-based achievement
tests,designed to determine whether students have reached a
benchmark of knowledge ,sufficient to enable them to progress to the
next topic or the next stage of their education.They measure what can
be recalled after all that class time-knowledge of
places,events,dates,formulae,procedure,observations.Few tests have
questions that require students to comprehend and interpret a new
context that was similar to the ones discussed in class.Even fewer
expect students to apply what has been learned to a completely new
situation.
REASONING SKILLS-
Students must have a solid grasp of foundation knowledge on which to
base new information for any form of learning to occur and require an
understanding of a certain body of knowledge which allows them to
develop the ability to think for themselves beyond the textbook.
According to Bloom’s theory ,there is a hierarchy of skills within each
domain such that each skill must be mastered before the next can be
acquired.Within Bloom’s cognitive domain,there are six skills.At the
bottom of the hierarchy is knowledge,in tests ,this is characterized by

2. tasks that require students to list and recall information,the
who,when,where,questions.Next in the hierarchy is comprehension
characterized by describe ,compare ,summarise and interpret test
questions.In ascending order is application,analysis,evaluation,and
synthesis-all four considered to be reasoning skills.They are
characterized by instructions such as
calculate,solve,classify,illustrate,arrange,compare,formulate,select,com
bine,create,recommend,summarise,convince or explain.
MONITORING SKILL DEVELOPMENT
The skills are an acknowledgment to direct education enabling the
tailoring of learning activities that are most likely to facilitate desired
learning outcomes.Our assessment tests must include tasks to test
student’s ability to apply,analyse,evaluate and synthesise.
MEASURING PROGRESS
Many tests given in the classroom are one-off tests,marked in isolation
from other tests.The two tests can’t be meaningfully compared ,mainly
because they’re unrelated ,that is,the difficulties of the tests don’t
provide measurement on the same psychometrically established
scale.Here ,monitoring the skills can allow us to construct a single scale
onto which the difficulties of all items –or questions –from all tests can
be mapped and reported.
COMPARING ABILITY AND ACHIEVEMENT
Comparison can be made between student’s performance on the basis
of skills and achievement tests .It would be expected that the
reasoning ability of a student would be related to his or her
achievement in any classroom test.

3. PREDICTING SUCCESS
Teachers can help students to analyse the results of their ability tests to
compare strengths and weaknesses and so make better –informed
choices.For example ,,students strong in quantitative ability may make
the most of this by pursuing a mathematics or science subject in senior
schooling while students strong in verbal skills might try
humanities,politics or social science.
LINKS-For more information visit www.acer.edu.au/msd
A BIG THANK YOU !!!
CONTRIBUTED BY-
MRS.SADHANA PANDE
PRIMARY TEACHER
EMBASSY OF INDIA SCHOOL MOSCOW