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Testing for Competence Rather Than for Intelligence(word版)

Testing for Competence RatherThan for "Intelligence"

The testing movement in the United States hasbeen a success, if one judges success by the usualAmerican criteria of size, influence, and profitability.Intelligence and aptitude tests are usednearly everywhere by schools, colleges, and employers.It is a sign of backwardness not to havetest scores in the school records of children. TheEducational Testing Service alone employs about2,000 people, annually administers Scholastic AptitudeTests to thousands of aspirants to college, andmakes enough money to support a large basic researchoperation. Its tests have tremendous powerover the lives of young people by stamping some ofthem "qualified" and others "less qualified" for collegework. Until recent "exceptions" were made(over the protest of some), the tests have served asa very efficient device for screening out black,Spanish-speaking, and other minority applicants tocolleges. Admissions officers have protested thatthey take other qualities besides test achievementsinto account in granting admission, but carefulstudies by Wing and Wallach (1971) and othershave shown that this is true only to a very limiteddegree.

Why should intelligence or aptitude tests haveall this power? What justifies the use of such testsin selecting applicants for college entrance or jobs?On what assumptions is the success of the movementbased? They deserve careful examination beforewe go on rather blindly promoting the use oftests as instruments of power over the lives of manyAmericans.

The key issue is obviously the validity of socalledintelligence tests. Their use could not bejustified unless they were valid, and it is myconviction that the evidence for their validity is byno means so overwhelming as most of us, rather unthinkingly,had come to think it was. In point offact, most of us just believed the results that thetesters gave us, without subjecting them to thekind of fierce skepticism that greets, for example,the latest attempt to show that ESP exists. Myobjectives are to review skeptically the main lines ofevidence for the validity of intelligence and aptitudetests and to draw some inferences from this reviewas to new lines that testing might take in the future.

Let us grant at the outset that brain-damagedor retarded people do less well on intelligence teststhan other people. Wechsler (19S8) initially usedthis criterion to validate his instrument, although ithas an obvious weakness: brain-damaged people doless well on almost any test so that it is hard toargue that something unique called "lack of intelligence"is responsible for the deficiency in testscores. The multimethod, multitrait criterion hasnot been applied here.

Tests Predict Grades in School

The games people are required to play on aptitudetests are similar to the games teachers requirein the classroom. In fact, many of Binet's originaltests were taken from exercises that teachers usedin French schools. So it is scarcely surprising thataptitude test scores are correlated highly withgrades in school. The whole Scholastic AptitudeTesting movement rests its case largely on thissingle undeniable fact. Defenders of intelligencetesting, like McNemar (1964), often seem to besuggesting that this is the only kind of validitynecessary.McNemar remarked that "the manualof the Differential Aptitude Test of the PsychologicalCorporation

contains a staggering total of 4,096,yes I counted 'em, validity coefficients." Whatmore could you ask for, ladies and gentlemen? Itwas not until I looked at the manual myself (Mc-Nemar certainly did not enlighten me) that I confirmedmy suspicion that almost every one of those"validity" coefficients involved predicting grades incourses—in other words, performing on similar typesof tests.

So what about grades? How valid are they aspredictors? Researchers have in fact had greatdifficulty demonstrating that grades in school arerelated to any other behaviors of importance—other than doing well on aptitude tests. Yet thegeneral public—including many psychologists andmost college officials—simply has been unable tobelieve or accept this fact. It seems so self-evidentto educators that those who do well in their classesmust go on to do better in life that they systematicallyhave disregarded evidence to the contrary thathas been accumulating for some time. In theearly 1950s, a committee of the Social Science ResearchCouncil of which I was chairman looked intothe matter and concluded that while grade level attainedseemed related to future measures of successin life, performance within grade was related onlyslightly. In other words, being a high school orcollege graduate gave one a credential that openedup certain higher level jobs, but the poorer studentsin high school or college did as well in life as thetop students. As a college teacher, I found thishard to believe until I made a simple check. I tookthe top eight students in a class in the late 1940sat Wesleyan University where I was teaching—allstraight A students—and contrasted what theywere doing in the early 1960s with what eightreally poor students were doing—all of whom weregetting barely passing averages in college (C—orbelow). To my great surprise, I could not distinguishthe two lists of men 15-18 years later.There were lawyers, doctors, research scientists, andcollege and high school teachers in both groups.The only difference I noted was that those withbetter grades got into better law or medical schools,but even with this supposed advantage they did nothave notably more successful careers as comparedwith the poorer students who had had to be satisfiedwith "second-rate" law and medical schools at theoutset. Doubtless the C—students could not getinto even second-rate law and medical schools underthe stricter admissions testing standards of today.Is that an advantage for society? Such outcomes have been documented carefullyby many researchers (cf. Hoyt, 1965) both inBritain (Hudson, 1960) and in the United States.Berg (1970), in a book suggestively titled Educationand Jobs: The Great Training Robbery, hassummarized studies showing that neither amountof education nor grades in school are related to vocationalsuccess as a factory worker, bank teller, orair traffic controller. Even for highly intellectualjobs like scientific researcher, Taylor, Smith, andGhiselin (1963) have shown that superior on-thejobperformance is related in no way to bettergrades in college. The average college grade forthe top third in research success was 2.73 (aboutB —) , and for the bottom third, 2.69 (also B-).Such facts have been known for some time. Theymake it abundantly clear that the testing movementis in grave danger of perpetuating a mythologicalmeritocracy in which none of the measures of meritbears significant demonstrable validity with respectto any measures outside of the charmed circle.Psychologists used to say as a kind of an

"in" jokethat intelligence is what the intelligence tests measure.That seems to be uncomfortably near thewhole truth and nothing but the truth. But what'sfunny about it, when the public took us moreseriously than we did ourselves and used the tests toscreen people out of opportunities for educationand high-status jobs? And why call excellence atthese test games intelligence?

Even further, why keep the best education forthose who are already doing well at the games?This in effect is what the colleges are doing whenthey select from their applicants those with thehighest Scholastic Aptitude Test scores. Isn't thislike saying that we will coach especially those whoalready can play tennis well? One would thinkthat the purpose of education is precisely to improvethe performance of those who are not doingvery well. So when psychologists predict on thebasis of the Scholastic Aptitude Test who is mostlikely to do well in college, they are suggestingimplicitly that these are the "best bets" to admit.But in another sense, if the colleges were interestedin proving that they could educate people, highscoringstudents might be poor bets because theywould be less likely to show improvement in performance.To be sure, the teachers want studentswho will do well in their courses, but should societyallow the teachers to determine who deserves to beeducated, particularly when the performance of interestto teachers bears so little relation to anyother type of life performance?

Do Intelligence Tests Tap Abilities ThatAre Responsible for Job Success?

Most psychologists think so; certainly the generalpublic thinks so (Cronbach, 1970, p. 300), butthe evidence is a whole lot less satisfactory thanone would think it ought to be to justify suchconfidence.

Thorndike and Hagen (19S9), for instance, obtained12,000 correlations between aptitude testscores and various measures of later occupationalsuccess on over 10,000 respondents and concludedthat the number of significant correlations did notexceed what would be expected by chance. Inother words, the tests were invalid. Yet psychologistsgo on using them, trusting that the poorvalidities must be due to restriction in range dueto the fact that occupations do not admit individualswith lower scores. But even here it is notclear whether the characteristics required for entryare, in fact, essential to success in the field. Onemight suppose that finger dexterity is essential tobeing a dentist, and require a minimum test scorefor entry. Yet, it was found by Thorndike andHagen (1959) to be related negatively to incomeas a dentist! Holland and Richards (1965) andElton and Shevel (1969) have shown that no consistentrelationships exist between scholastic aptitudescores in college students and their actualaccomplishments in social leadership, the arts, science,music, writing, and speech and drama.

Yet what are we to make of Ghiselli's (1966, p.121) conclusions, based on a review of 50 years ofresearch, that general intelligence tests correlate .42with trainability and .23 with proficiency across alltypes of jobs? Each of these correlations is basedon over 10,000 cases. It is small wonder thatpsychologists believe intelligence tests are validpredictors of job success. Unfortunately, it is impossibleto evaluate Ghiselli's conclusion, as he doesnot cite his sources and he does not state exactlyhow job proficiency was measured for each of hiscorrelations.

We can draw some conclusions fromhis results, however, and we can make a good guessthat job proficiency often was measured by supervisors'ratings or by such indirect indicators ofsupervisors' opinions as turnover, promotion, salaryincreases, and the like.

What is interesting to observe is that intelligencetest correlations with proficiency in higher statusjobs are regularly higher than with proficiency inlower status jobs (Ghiselli, 1966, pp. 34, 78).Consider the fact that intelligence test scores correlate— .08 with proficiency as a canvasser orsolicitor and .45 with proficiency as a stock andbond salesman. This should be a strong clue as towhat intelligence tests are getting at, but most observershave overlooked it or simply assumed thatit takes more general ability to be a stock andbond salesman than a canvasser. But these twojobs differ also in social status, in the language,accent, clothing, manner, and connections by educationand family necessary for success in the job.The basic problem with many job proficiencymeasures for validating ability tests is that theydepend heavily on the credentials the man brings tothe job—the habits, values, accent, interests, etc.—that mean he is acceptable to management and toclients. Since we also know that social class backgroundis related to getting higher ability test scores(Nuttall&Fozard, 1970), as well as to having theright personal credentials for success, the correlationbetween intelligence test scores and job successoften may be an artifact, the product of theirjoint association with class status. Employers mayhave a right to select bond salesmen who have goneto the right schools because they do better, butpsychologists do not have a right to argue that itis their intelligence that makes them more proficientin their jobs.

We know that correlation does not equal causation,but we keep forgetting it. Far too many psychologistsstill report average-ability test scores forhigh- and low-prestige occupations, inferring incorrectlythat this evidence shows it takes more of thistype of brains to perform a high-level than a lowleveljob. For instance, Jensen (1972) wroterecently:

He certainly leaves the impression that it is "mentalability as we ordinarily think of it" that is responsiblefor this association between average IQscores and job prestige. But the association canbe interpreted as meaning, just as reasonably, thatit takes more -pull, more opportunity, to get thevocabulary and other habits required by those inpower from incumbents of high-status positions.Careful studies that try to separate the credentialfactor from the ability factor in job success havebeen very few in number.

Ghiselli (1966) simply did not deal with theproblem of what the criteria of job proficiency maymean for validating the tests. For example, he reporteda correlation of .27 between intelligence testscores and proficiency as a policeman or a detective(p. 83), with no attention given to the very importantissues involved in how a policeman's performanceis to be evaluated. Will supervisors' ratingsdo? If so, it discriminates against blackpolicemen (Baehr, Furcon, &Froemel, 1968) becausewhite supervisors regard them as inferior.And what about the public? Shouldn't their opinionas to how they are served by the police be partof the criterion? The most recent careful review(Kent & Eisenberg, 1972) of the evidence

relatingability test scores to police performance concludedthat there is no stable, significant relationship.Here is concrete evidence that one must view withconsiderable skepticism the assumed relation of intelligencetest scores to success on the job.

One other illustration may serve to warn theunwary about accepting uncritically simple statementsabout the role of ability, as measured byintelligence tests, in life outcomes. It is statedwidely that intelligence promotes general adjustmentand results in lower neuroticism. For example,Anderson (1960) reported a significant correlationbetween intelligence test scores obtainedfrom boys in 1950, age 14-17, and follow-up ratingsof general adjustment made five years later. Canwe assume that intelligence promotes better adjustmentto life as has been often claimed? Itsounds reasonable until we reflect that the "intelligence"test is a test of ability to do well in school(to take academic type tests), that many of Anderson'ssample were still in school or getting startedon careers, and that those who are not doing well

in school or getting a good first job because of itare likely to be considered poorly adjusted by themselvesand others. Here the test has become partof the criterion and has introduced the correlationartificially. In case this sounds like special reasoning,consider the fact, not commented on particularlyby Anderson, that the same correlation between"intelligence" test scores and adjustment ingirls was an insignificant .06. Are we to concludethat intelligence does not promote adjustmentin girls? It would seem more reasonable to arguethat the particular ability tested, here associatedwith scholastic success, is more important to success(and hence adjustment) for boys than for girls.But this is a far cry from the careless inference thatintelligence tests tap a general ability to adapt successfullyto life's problems because high-IQ children(read "men") have better mental health (Jensen,1972). To make the point even more vividly, supposeyou are a ghetto resident in the Roxbury section ofBoston. To qualify for being a policeman you haveto take a three-hour-long general intelligence testin which you must know the meaning of words like"quell," "pyromaniac," and "lexicon." If you donot know enough of those words or cannot playanalogy games with them, you do not qualify andmust be satisfied with some such job as being ajanitor for which an "intelligence" test is not requiredyet by the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission.You, not unreasonably, feel angry, upset,and unsuccessful. Because you do not know thosewords, you are considered to have low intelligence,and since you consequently have to take a lowstatusjob and are unhappy, you contribute to thecelebrated correlations of low intelligence with lowoccupational status and poor adjustment. Psychologistsshould be ashamed of themselves for promotinga view of general intelligence that has encouragedsuch a testing program, particularly whenthere is no solid evidence that significantly relatesperformance on this type of intelligence test withperformance as a policeman. The Role oj Power in Controlling Life-Outcome Criteria

Psychologists have been, until recently, incrediblynaive about the role of powerful interests in controllingthe criteria against which psychologistshave validated their tests. Terman felt that hisstudies had proved conclusively that "giftedness,"as he measured it with psychological tests, was akey factor in life

success. By and large, psychologistshave agreed with him. Kohlberg, LaCrosse,and Ricks (1970), for instance, in a recent summarystatement concluded that Terman and Oden's(1947) study "indicated the gifted were more successfuloccupationally, maritally, and socially thanthe average group, and were lower in 'morallydeviant' forms of psychopathology (e.g., alcoholism,homosexuality)." Jensen (1972) agreed: One of the most convincing demonstrations that I.Q. isrelated to "real life" indicators of ability was provided ina classic study by Terman and his associates at StanfordUniversity. . . . Terman found that for the most partthese high-I.Q. children in later adulthood markedly excelledthe general population on every indicator of achievementthat was examined: a higher level of education completed;more scholastic honors and awards; higher occupationalstatus; higher income; production of more articles,books, patents and other signs of creativity; more entriesin Who's Who; a lower mortality rate; better physical andmental health; and a lower divorce rate. . . . Findings suchas these establish beyond a doubt that I.Q. tests measurecharacteristics that are obviously of considerable importancein our present technological society. To say that the kindof ability measured by intelligence tests is irrelevant orunimportant would be tantamount to repudiating civilizationas we know it [p. 9],

I do not want to repudiate civilization as we knowit, or even to dismiss intelligence tests as irrelevantor unimportant, but I do want to state, as emphaticallyas possible, that Terman's studies do notdemonstrate unequivocally that it is the kind ofability measured by the intelligence tests that isresponsible for (i.e., causes) the greater success ofthe high-IQ children. Terman's studies may showonly that the rich and powerful have more opportunities,and therefore do better in life. And if thatis even possibly true, it is socially irresponsible tostate that psychologists have established "beyond adoubt" that the kind of ability measured by intelligencetests is essential for high-level performancein our society. For, by current methodologicalstandards, Terman's studies (and others like them)were naive. No attempt was made to equate foropportunity to be successful occupationally andsocially. His gifted people clearly came fromsuperior socioeconomic backgrounds to those hecompared them with (at one point all men in California,including day laborers). He had no unequivocalevidence that it was "giftedness" (as reflectedin his test scores) that was responsible forthe superior performance of his group. It would beas legitimate (though also not proven) to concludethat sons of the rich, powerful, and educated wereapt to be more successful occupationally, maritally,and socially because they had more material advantages.To make the point in another way, considerthe data in Table 1, which are fairly representativeof findings in this area. They were obtainedby Havighurst, Bowman, Liddle, Matthews,and Pierce (1962) from a typical town in MiddleAmerica. One observes the usual strong relationshipbetween social class and IQ and between IQand college-going—which leads on to occupationalsuccess. The traditional interpretation of suchfindings is that more stupid children come from thelower classes because their parents are also stupidwhich explains why they are lower class. A higherproportion of children with high IQ go to collegebecause they are more intelligent and more suitedto college

study. This is as it should be becauseIQ predicts academic success. The fact that moreintelligent people going to college come more oftenfrom the upper class follows naturally because theupper classes contain more intelligent people. Sothe traditional argument has gone for years. Itseemed all very simple and obvious to Terman andhis followers.

However, a closer look at Table 1 suggests anotherinterpretation that is equally plausible, thoughnot more required by the data than the one justgiven. Compare the percentages going to collegein the "deviant" boxes—high socioeconomic statusand low IQ versus high IQ and low socioeconomicstatus. It appears to be no more likely for thebright children (high IQ) from the lower classes togo to college (despite their high aptitude for it)than for the "stupid" children from the upperclasses. Why is this? An obvious possibility isthat the bright but poor children do not have themoney to go to college, or they do not want to go,preferring to work or do other things. In the currentlingo, they are "disadvantaged" in the sensethat they have not had access to the other factors(values, aspirations, money) that promote collegegoingin upper-class children. But now we havean alternative explanation of college-going—namely,socioeconomic status which seems to be as good apredictor of this type of success as ability. Howcan we claim that ability as measured by thesetests is the critical factor in college-going? Veryfew children, even with good test-taking ability, goto college if they are from poor families. One couldargue that they are victims of oppression: theydo not have the opportunity or the values thatpermit or encourage going to college. Isn't it likelythat the same oppressive forces may have preventedeven more of them from learning to playschool games well at all?

Belonging to the power elite (high socioeconomicstatus) not only helps a young man go to collegeand get jobs through contacts his family has, italso gives him easy access as a child to the credentialsthat permit him to get into certain occupations.Nowadays, those credentials include thewords and word-game skills used in Scholastic AptitudeTests. In the Middle Ages they requiredknowledge of Latin for the learned professions oflaw, medicine, and theology. Only those youngmen who could read and write Latin could get intothose occupations, and if tests had been given inLatin, I am sure they would have shown that professionalsscored higher in Latin than men in general,that sons who grew up in families where Latinwas used would have an advantage in those testscompared to those in poor families where Latin wasunknown, and that these men were more likely toget into the professions. But would we concludewe were dealing with a general ability factor?Many a ghetto resident must or should feel that heis in a similar position with regard to the kind ofEnglish he must learn in order to do well on tests,in school, and in occupations today in America. Iwas recently in Jamaica where all around me poorpeople were speaking an English that was almostentirely incomprehensible to me. If I insisted, theywould speak patiently in a way that I could understand,but I felt like a slow-witted child.

I havewondered how well I would do in Jamaican societyif this kind of English were standard among therich and powerful (which, by the way, it is not),and therefore required by them for admission intotheir better schools and occupations (as

determinedby a test administered perhaps by the JamaicanTesting Service). I would feel oppressed, not lessintelligent, as the test would doubtless decide I wasbecause I was so slow of comprehension and soignorant of ordinary vocabulary.

When Cronbach (1970) concluded that such atest "is giving realistic information on the presenceof a handicap," he is, of course, correct. But psychologistsshould recognize that it is those in powerin a society who often decide what is a handicap.We should be a lot more cautious about acceptingas ultimate criteria of ability the standards imposedby whatever group happens to be in power.

Does this mean that intelligence tests are invalid?As so often when you examine a questioncarefully in psychology, the answer depends onwhat you mean. Valid for what? Certainly theyare valid for predicting who will get ahead in anumber of prestige jobs where credentials are important.So is white skin: it too is a valid predictorof job success in prestige jobs. But no one wouldargue that white skin per se is an ability factor.Lots of the celebrated correlations between so-calledintelligence test scores and success can lay nogreater claim to representing an ability factor. Valid for predicting success in school?Certainly,because school success depends on taking similartypes of tests. Yet, neither the tests nor schoolgrades seem to have much power to predict realcompetence in many life outcomes, aside from theadvantages that credentials convey on the individualsconcerned.

Are there no studies which show that general intelligencetest scores predict competence with all ofthese other factors controlled? I can only assertthat I have had a very hard time finding a goodcarefully controlled study of the problem becausetesters simply have not worked very hard on it:they have believed so much that they were measuringtrue competence that they have not botheredto try to prove that they were. Studies do exist,of course, which show significant positive correlationsbetween special test scores and job-relatedskills. For example, perceptual speed scores arerelated to clerical proficiency. So are tests ofvocabulary, immediate memory, substitution, andarithmetic. Motor ability test scores are relatedto proficiency as a vehicle operator (Ghiselli, 1966).And so on. Here we are on the safe and uncontroversialground of using tests as criterion samples.But this is a far cry from inferring that there is ageneral ability factor that enables a person to bemore competent in anything he tries. The evidencefor this general ability factor turns out to be contaminatedheavily by the power of those at the topof the social hierarchy to insist that the skills theyhave are the ones that indicate superior adaptivecapacity.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Criticisms of the testing movement are not new.The Social Science Research Council Committee onEarly Identification of Talent made some of thesesame points nearly IS years ago (McClelland,Baldwin, Bronfenbrenner, &Strodtbeck, 19S8).But the beliefs on which the movement is basedare held so firmly that such theoretical or empiricalobjections have had little impact up to now. Thetesting movement continues to grow and extend intoevery corner of our society. It is unlikely that itcan be simply stopped, although minority groupsmay have the political power to stop it. For thetests are clearly discriminatory against those whohave not been exposed to

the culture, entrance towhich is guarded by the tests. What hopefully canhappen is that testers will recognize what is goingon and attempt to redirect their energies in asounder direction. The report of the special committeeon testing to the College Entrance ExaminationBoard (1970) is an important sign that changesin thinking are occurring—if only they can be implementedat a practical level. The report's gist isthat a wider array of talents should be assessed forcollege entrance and reported as a profile to thecolleges. This is a step in the right direction ifeveryone keeps firmly in mind that the criteria forestablishing the "validity" of these new measuresreally ought to be not grades in school, but "gradesin life" in the broadest theoretical and practicalsense.

But now I am on the spot. Having criticizedwhat the testing movement has been doing, I feelsome obligation to suggest alternatives. How wouldI do things differently or better? I do not mindmaking suggestions, but I am well aware that someof them are as open to criticism on other groundsas the procedures I have been criticizing. So Imust offer them in a spirit of considerable humility,as approaches that at least some people might beinterested in pursuing who are discouraged withwhat we have been doing. My goal is to brainstorma bit on how things might be different, notto present hard evidence that my proposals arebetter than what has been done to date. Howwould one test for competence, if I may use thatword as a symbol for an alternative approach totraditional intelligence testing?

1. The best testing is criterion sampling. Thepoint is so obvious that it would scarcely be worthmentioning, if it had not been obscured so oftenby psychologists like McNemar and Jensen whotout a general intelligence factor. If you want toknow how well a person can drive a car (the criterion),sample his ability to do so by giving hima driver's test. Do not give him a paper-and-penciltest for following directions, a general intelligencetest, etc. As noted above, there is ample evidencethat tests which sample job skills will predict proficiencyon the job. Academic skill tests are successful precisely becausethey involve criterion sampling for the mostpart. As already pointed out, the Scholastic AptitudeTest taps skills that the teacher is lookingfor and will give high grades for. No one couldobject if it had been recognized widely that thiswas all that was going on when aptitude tests wereused to predict who would do well in school.Trouble started only when people assumed thatthese skills had some more general validity, as impliedin the use of words like intelligence. Yet,even a little criterion analysis would show thatthere are almost no occupations or life situationsthat require a person to do word analogies, choosethe most correct of four alternative meanings ofa word, etc. Criterion sampling means that testers have got toget out of their offices where they play endless wordand paper-and-pencil games and into the field wherethey actually analyze performance into its components.If you want to test who will be a goodpoliceman, go find out what a policeman does. Followhim around, make a list of his activities, andsample from that list in screening applicants. Someof the job sampling will have to be based on theoryas well as practice. If policemen generally discriminateagainst blacks, that is clearly not part ofthe criterion because the law says that they mustnot. So include a test which shows the applicantdoes not

discriminate. Also sample the vocabularyhe must use to communicate with the people heserves since his is a position of interpersonal influence—and not the vocabulary that men who havenever been on a police beat think it is proper toknow. And do not rely on supervisors' judgmentsof who are the better policemen because that is not,strictly speaking, job analysis but analysis of whatpeople think involves better performance. Baehret al. (1968), for instance, found that black policemenin Chicago who were rated high by theirsuperiors scored high on the Deference scale of theEdwards Personal Preference Test. No such relationshipappeared for white policemen. In otherwords, if you wanted to be considered a good copin Chicago and you were black, you had to at leasttalk as if you were deferent to the white powersystem. Any psychologist who used this findingto pick black policemen would be guilty of improperjob analysis, to put it as mildly as possible.

Criterion sampling, in short, involves both theoryand practice. It requires real sophistication. Earlytesters knew how to do it better than later testersbecause they had not become so caught up in theingrown world of "intelligence" tests that simplywere validated against each other. Testers of thefuture must relearn how to do criterion sampling.If someone wants to know who will make a goodteacher, they will have to get videotapes of classrooms,as Kounin (1970) did, and find out how thebehaviors of good and poor teachers differ. Topick future businessmen, research scientists, politicalleaders, prospects for a happy marriage, theywill have to make careful behavioral analyses ofthese outcomes and then find ways of sampling theadaptive behavior in advance. The task will notbe easy. It will require new psychological skills notordinarily in the repertoire of the traditional tester.What is called for is nothing less than a revisionof the role itself—moving it away from word gamesand statistics toward behavioral analysis.

2. Tests should be designed to reflect changes inwhat the individual has learned. It is difficult, ifnot impossible, to find a human characteristic thatcannot be modified by training or experience,whether it be an eye blink or copying Kohs' blockdesigns. To the traditional intelligence tester thisfact has been something of a nuisance because hehas been searching for some unmodifiable, unfakeableindex of innate mental capacity. He has reactedby trying to keep secret the way his tests arescored so that people will not learn how to do thembetter, and by selecting tests, scores on which arestable from one administration to the next. Stabilityis supposed to mean that the score reflects aninnate aptitude that is unmodified by experience,but it could also mean that the test is simply insensitiveto important changes in what the personknows or can do. That is, the skill involved maybe so specialized, so unrelated to general experience,that even though the person has learned a lot,he performs the same in this specialized area. Forexample, being able to play a word game likeanalogies is apparently little affected by a highereducation, which is not so surprising since fewteachers ask their students to do analogies. Therefore,being able to do analogies is often considereda sign of some innate ability factor. Rather, itmight be called an achievement so specialized thatincreases in general wisdom do not transfer to itand cause changes in it. And why should we beinterested in such specialized skills? As we haveseen, they predictably do not

seem to correlate withany life-outcome criteria except those that involvesimilar tests or that require the credentials thata high score on the test signifies.

It seems wiser to abandon the search for pureability factors and to select tests instead that arevalid in the sense that scores on them change as theperson grows in experience, wisdom, and ability toperform effectively on various tasks that life presentsto him. Thus, the second principle of thenew approach to testing becomes a corollary of thefirst. If one begins by using as tests samples oflife-outcome behaviors, then one way of determiningwhether those tests are valid is to observe that theperson's ability to perform them increases as hiscompetence in the life-outcome behavior increases.For example, if excellence in a policeman is definedpartly in terms of being evenhanded toward allminority groups, then a test of fair-mindedness ,(orlack of ethnocentrism) might be used to selectpolicemen and also should reflect growth in fairmindednessas a police recruit develops on the job.One of the hidden prejudices of psychology, borrowedfrom the notion of fixed inherited aptitudes,is that any trait, like racial prejudice, is unmodifiableby training. Once a bigot, always a bigot.There is no solid evidence that this trait or anyother human trait cannot be changed. So it isworth insisting that a new test should be designedespecially to reflect growth in the characteristic itassesses.

3. How to improve on the characteristic testedshould be made public and explicit. Such a principlecontrasts sharply with present practice inwhich psychologists have tried hard—backed upby the APA Ethics Committee—to keep answersto many of their tests a secret lest people practiceand learn how to do better on them or fake highscores. Faking a high score is impossible if you areperforming the criterion behavior, as in tests forreading, spelling, or driving a car. Faking becomespossible the more indirect the connection is betweenthe test behavior and the criterion behavior.For example, in checking out hundreds of items forpredicting flight training success, it may turn outthat something like playing the piano as a boyhas diagnostic validity. But no one knows exactlywhy: perhaps it has something to do with mechanicalability, perhaps with a social class variable, orwith conscientiousness in practicing. The oldfashionedtester could not care less what the reasonwas as long as the item worked. But he had to bevery careful about security because men who wantedto become pilots easily could report they had playedthe piano if they knew such an answer would helpthem be selected. If playing the piano actuallyhelped people become better pilots—which no psychologistbothered to check out in World War II—then it might make some sense to make this knownand encourage applicants to learn to play. Thatwould be very like the criterion-sampling approachto testing proposed here, in which the person testedis told how to improve on the characteristic forwhich he will be tested.

Or to take another example, doing analogies isa task that predicts grades in school fairly well.Again no one knows quite why because schoolworkordinarily does not involve doing analogies. Sopsychologists have had to be security conscious forfear that if students got hold of the analogies testanswers, they might practice and become good atanalogies and "fake" high aptitude. What is meantby faking here is that doing well on analogies is notpart of the criterion behavior (getting good

grades),or else it could hardly be considered faking.Rather, the test must have some indirect connectionwith good grades, so that doing well on it throughpractice destroys its predictive power: hence thehigh score is a "fake." The person can do analogiesbut that does not mean any longer that hewill get better grades. Put this way, the wholeprocedure seems like a strange charade that testershave engaged in because they did not know whatwas going on, behaviorally speaking, and refused totake the trouble to find out as long as the items"worked." How much simpler it is, both theoreticallyand pragmatically, to make explicit tothe learner what the criterion behavior is that willbe tested. Then psychologist, teacher, and studentcan collaborate openly in trying to improve thestudent's score on the performance test. Certainschool achievement tests, of course, follow thismodel. In the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, for instance,both pupil and teacher know how the pupilwill be tested on spelling, reading, or arithmetic,how he should prepare for the test, how the testswill be scored, etc. What is proposed here is thatall tests should follow this model. To do otherwiseis to engage in power games with applicantsover the secrecy of answers and to pretend knowledgeof what lies behind correlations, which doesnot in fact exist.

4. Tests should assess competencies involved inclusters of life outcomes. If we abandon generalintelligence or aptitude tests, as proposed, andmove toward criterion sampling based on jobanalysis, there is the danger that the tests will becomeextremely specific to the criterion involved.For example, Project ABLE (Gagne, 1965) hasidentified over SO separate skills that can be assessedfor the exit level of millman apprentice (jobfamily: woodworker and related occupations).They include skills like "measures angles," "sharpenstools and planes," and "identifies sizes and typesof fasteners using gauges and charts." This approachhas all of the characteristics of the new lookin testing so far proposed: the tests are criterionsamples; improvement in skill shows up in the tests;how to pass them is public knowledge; and bothteacher and pupil can collaborate to improve testperformance. However, what one ends up with ishundreds, even thousands, of specific tests fordozens of different occupations. For some purposesit may be desirable to assess competencies that aremore generally useful in clusters of life outcomes,including not only occupational outcomes but socialones as well, such as leadership, interpersonal skills,etc. Project ABLE has been excellent at identifyingthe manual skills involved in being a servicestation attendant, but so far it has been unable toget a simple index of whether or not 4he attendantis pleasant to the customers.

Some of these competencies may be rather traditionalcognitive ones involving reading, writing, andcalculating skills. Others should involve what traditionallyhave been called personality variables, althoughthey might better be considered competencies.Let me give some illustrations.

(a) Communication skills. Many jobs and mostinterpersonal situations require a person to be ableto communicate accurately by word, look, or gesturejust what he intends or what he wants done. Writingis one simple way to test these skills. Can theperson put together words in a way that makes immediategood sense to the reader?

Word-gameskills do not always predict this ability, as is oftenassumed. I will never forget an instance of ablack student applicant for graduate school atHarvard who scored in something like the fifthpercentile in the Miller Analogies Test, but whoobviously could write and think clearly and effectivelyas shown by the stories he had written as areporter in the college paper. I could not convincemy colleagues to admit him despite the fact thathe had shown the criterion behavior the AnalogiesTest is supposed to predict. Yet if he were admitted,as a psychologist, he would be writing papersin the future, not doing analogies for hiscolleagues. It is amazing to me how often mycolleagues say things like: "I don't care how wellhe can write. Just look at those test scores."Testers may shudder at this, and write public disclaimers,but what practically have they done tostop the spread of this blind faith in test scores?

In Ethiopia in 1968 we were faced with the problemof trying to find out how much English hadbeen learned by high school students who had beentaught by American Peace Corps volunteers. Theusual way of doing this there, as elsewhere, is togive the student a "fill in the blanks," multiplechoiceobjective test to see whether the studentknows the meaning of words, understands correctgrammatical forms, etc. We felt that this left outthe most important part of the criterion behavior:the ability to use English to communicate. So weasked students to write brief stories which we thencoded objectively, not for grammatical or spellingcorrectness, but for complexity of thought whichthe student was able to express correctly in thetime allotted. This gave a measure of Englishfluency that predictably did correlate with occupationalsuccess among Ethiopian adults and alsowith school success, although curiously enough itwas significantly negatively related to a word-gameskill (English antonyms) that more nearly approximatesthe usual test of English competence(Bergthold, 1969).

Important communication skills are nonverbal.When the proverbial Indian said, "White man speakwith forked tongue," he doubtless meant amongother things that what the white man was sayingin words did not jibe with what he was doing orexpressing nonverbally. The abilities to know whatis going on in a social setting and to set the correctemotional tone for it are crucial life-outcome criteria.Newmeyer (1970), for instance, has founda way to measure success at enacting certain emotionsso that others receive them correctly and tomeasure success at receiving the correct emotionsover various enactors. He found that black boysat a certain age were consistently better than whiteboys at this particular kind of communication skill,which is a far more crucial type of criterion behaviorthan most paper-and-pencil tests sample.

(b) Patience, or response delay as psychologistswould call it, is a human characteristic that seemsessential for many life outcomes. For instance, itis desirable for many service occupations whereclients' needs and demands can be irritating. Itwould seem particularly desirable in a policemanwho has the power and authority to do great damageto people who irritate him. Kagan, Pearson,and Welch (1966) have shown that it is an easilymeasured human characteristic that is relativelystable over time and can be taught directly.

(c) Moderate goal setting is important in achievement-related games, as I have explained fully elsewhere(McClelland, 1961). In most life situations,it is distinctly preferable to setting goals either toohigh or too low, which leads more often to failure.Many performance situations have been devisedwhich measure the tendency to set moderate,achievable goals and help the person learn how toset more realistic goals in the future (Alschuler,Tabor, &Mclntyre, 1970; McClelland & Winter,1969).

(d) Ego development. Many scholars (see Erikson,1950; Loevinger, 1970; White, 1959) havereasoned that there is a general kind of competencewhich develops with age and to a higher level insome people than in others. Costa (197la) recentlyhas developed a Thematic Apperception Testcode for ego development which appears to havemany of the aspects sought in the new measurementdirection proposed here. The thought characteristicssampled represent criterion behavior in thesense that at Stage 1, for example, the person isthinking at a passive conformist level, whereas atStage 4, he represents people in his stories astaking initiative on behalf of others (a more developedcompetency). The score on this measurepredicts very well which junior or high school studentswill be perceived by their teachers as morecompetent (even when correlations with intelligenceand grade performance are removed), and furthermorea special kind of education in junior highschool moves students up the ego development scalesignificantly. That is, training designed to developa sense of initiative produced results that werereflected sensitively in this score. Pupils andteachers can collaborate in increasing this kind ofthinking which ought to prepare students for competentaction in many spheres of life.

5, Tests should involve operant as well as respondentbehavior. One of the greatest weaknessesof nearly all existing tests is that they structure thesituation in advance and demand a response of acertain kind from the test taker. They are aimedat assessing the capacity of a person to make acertain kind of response or choice. But life outsideof tests seldom presents the individual withsuch clearly denned alternatives as "Which dog ismost likely to bite?" or "Complete the followingnumber series: 1 3 6 10 IS ," or "Check theword which is most similar in meaning to lexicon. . . ." If we refer to these latter behaviorsas respondents in the sense that the stimulus situationclearly is designed to evoke a particular kindof response, then life is much more apt to be characterizedby operant responses in the sense that theindividual spontaneously makes a response in theabsence of a very clearly defined stimulus. Thisfact probably explains why most existing tests donot predict life-outcome behaviors. Respondentsgenerally do not predict operants. To use a crudeexample, a psychologist might assess individual differencesin the capacity to drink beer, but if heused this measure to predict actual beer consumptionover time, the chances are that the relationshipwould be very low. How much beer a person candrink is not related closely to how much he doesdrink.

Testers generally have used respondent behaviorsto save time in scoring answers and to get highertest-retest reliability. That is, the person is morelikely to give the same response in a highly structuredsituation than in an unstructured one thatallows him to emit any behavior. Yet, slavishlypursuing these goals has led to important

lacks invalidity of the tests because life simply is not thatstructured, and often does not permit one to choosebetween defined-in-advance responses. The nAchievement measure, which is an operant in thesense that the subject emits responses (tells stories)under only very vague instructions, has predictedover a 12-14-year period in three different samplesthose who will drift into entrepreneurial businessoccupations (McClelland, 1965). Here an operantis predicting an operant—the tendency to thinkspontaneously about doing better all the timepredicts a series of spontaneous acts over timewhich leads the individual into an entrepreneurialoccupation. But predicting from operants to respondentsor vice versa does not work, at least formen (McClelland, 1966). The n Achievementscore is not related to grades or academic testscores (respondent measures), nor do grades relateto entering entrepreneurial occupations (see Mc-Clelland, 1961).

Even within fairly structured test situations it ispossible to allow for more operant behavior thanhas been the usual practice. Not long ago we triedto find an existing performance test on which aperson with high n Achievement ought to do wellbecause such a test might be a useful substitutefor the Thematic Apperception Test storytellingmeasure in certain situations. Theoretically, sucha test should permit operant behavior in which theindividual generates a lot of alternatives for solvinga problem in search of the most efficient solution.But to our surprise we could find no such test.Tests of divergent thinking existed that countedthe number of operants (e.g., original uses for apaper clip) an individual could come up with, butthey did not require the person to find the bestalternative. Most other tests simply required theperson to find the one correct answer the test makerhad built into the item. What was needed weretest items to which there were many correct answers,among which one was better than others interms of some criteria of efficiency that the personwould have to apply. This task seemed more lifeliketo us and certainly more like the type of behaviorcharacteristic of people with high n Achievement.So we invented an Airlines Scheduling Test(Bergthold, 1969) in which the person is facedwith a number of problems of getting a passengerfrom City A to City B by such and such a time atminimum expenditure in time, energy, money, anddiscomfort. From schedules provided, several alternativeroutes and connections can be generated(if the test taker is energetic enough to think themup) that will solve the problem, but one is clearlythe most efficient. The test has promise in that itcorrelates with the n Achievement score at a lowlevel. But the main point is that it requires morelifelike operant behavior in generating alternativesolutions and therefore it should have more predictivepower to a variety of situations in which whatthe person is expected to do is not so highly structuredas in standard respondent tests.

6. Tests should sample operant thought patternsto get maximum generalizability to various actionoutcomes. As noted already, the movement towarddenning behavioral objectives in occupational testingcan lead to great specificity and huge inventoriesof small skills that have little general predictivepower. One way to get around this problemis to focus on defining thought codes because, almostby definition, they have a wider range ofapplicability to a variety of action possibilities.That is, they represent a higher order of behavioralabstraction than

any given act itself which has notthe capacity to stand for other acts the way a worddoes. And in empirical fact this is the way it hasworked out. The n Achievement score-—an operantthought measure—has many action correlates fromgoal setting and occupational styles to color andtime-span preferences (McClelland, 1961) whichindividually have little power as "actones" to predicteach other. A more recent example is providedby an operant thought measure of powermotivation which has very low positive correlationswith four action characteristics: drinking, gambling,accumulating prestige supplies, and confessing tohaving many aggressive impulses that are not actedon (McClelland, Davis, Kalin, &Wanner, 1972).These action characteristics are completely unrelatedto each other so that they would be unlikelyto come out on the same dimension in a factoranalysis. But what is particularly interesting isthat they appear to be alternative outlets for thepower drive because the power motivation scorecorrelates much higher with the maximum expressionof any one of these alternatives than it doeswith any one alone or with the sum of standardscores on all of them. The thought characteristic—here the desire to "have impact," to make a bigsplash—is the higher order abstraction that givesthe test predictive power for alternative ways ofmaking a big splash in action—by gambling, drinking,etc. The tester of the future is likely to getfarther in finding generalizable competencies ofcharacteristics across life outcomes if he starts byfocusing on thought patterns rather than by tryingto infer what thoughts must lie behind the clustersof action that come out in various factors in thetraditional trait analysis.

However, I have been arguing for this approachfor over 20 years, and as far as I can see, the testingmovement has been affected little by myeloquence. Why? There are lots of reasons:People keep insisting that the n Achievement scoreis invalid because it will not predict grades inschool—which is ironic since it was designed preciselyto predict life outcomes and not grades inschool. Or they argue it does not predict all typesof achievement (Klinger, 1966)—when, of course,it is not supposed to, on theoretical grounds. Butthe practical problem (outside the tedium of contentcoding) is the unreliability of operant thoughtmeasures. Many of them are unreliable, thoughnot all. Costa's (1971b) ego development scorehas a test-retest stability coefficient over a year of.66, N = 223. Unreliability is a fatal defect if thegoal of testing is to select people, let us say, withhigh n Achievement. For rejected applicants couldargue that they had been excluded improperly orthat they might have high scores the next time theytook the test, and the psychologist would have nogood defense. One could just imagine beleagueredpsychologists trying to defend themselves againstirate parents whose children had not gotten into apreferred college because their n Achievementscores were too low.

But the emphasis in the new testing movementshould be as much on evaluating educational progressas it is on identifying fixed characteristics forselection purposes. The operant thought measuresare certainly reliable enough for the former objective.The educator can use them to assesswhether a certain class or an innovative approachto teaching has tended, on the average, to promoteego development in thought as assessed by Costa'smeasure. The educator does not care which particularchild is

high in the measure since he doesnot plan to use the measure to select the child forspecial treatment. So its unreliability does not12 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST January 1973matter. He, as an administrator, can use the testinformation to decide whether the goals of theschool are being forwarded by one educational approachor another. In a sense, the very unreliabilityof the thought measures may be a virtue ifthey encourage educators to stop thinking onlyabout selection and start thinking more aboutevaluating educational progress.

Does this mean that test reliability is always unimportant?Not at all. Sometimes it will be importantto diagnose deficiencies reliably that areto be made up. On other occasions tests will haveto be used to pick out those most likely to be ableto do a particular job well. So something will haveto be done about reliability. Thus, a man with ahigh n Achievement score is a better bet for a salesjob than a man with a low n Achievement score,but the measure of n Achievement from contentcoding of thought samples is not very defensible forselection purposes because it is unreliable. In thisinstance, the thought code can be used as the criterionagainst which more reliable performancemeasures can be validated. For example, the AirlinesScheduling Test score is reliable, and if it turnsout to be related consistently to the n Achievementscore based on thought sampling, it can be used asa substitute for the latter in selection. In fact, thethought codes can be considered devices for findingthe clusters of action patterns that can be measuredmore reliably to get indexes of various competencydomains central to various life outcomes. For example,if it turns out that an elevated socializedpower (s Power) score (McClelland et al., 1972)characterizes successful policemen more than unsuccessfulones—as would be expected—then theaction correlates of socialized power, such as capacityto lead or be influential in social groups, canbe used to select potentially good policemen. Thes Power score itself could not be so used because itis unreliable and "fakeable" if you learn the scoringsystem, but it is essential as a validating criterionfor more reliable measures because its widenetwork of empirical and theoretical relationshipshelps find the action characteristics that will beuseful for selection purposes.

While the six principles just enumerated for thenew testing movement may affect occupationaltesting, the fact remains that testing has had itsgreatest impact in the schools and currently is doingthe worst damage in that area by falsely leadingpeople to believe that doing well in school meansthat people are more competent and therefore morelikely to do well in life because of some real abilityfactor. Concretely, what would an organizationlike the Educational Testing Service do differentlyif it were to take these six principles into account?As a start, it might have to drop the term intelligencefrom its vocabulary and speak of scholasticachievement tests that are more or less contentspecific. The non-content-specific achievements(formerly called "aptitudes") do predict test-takingand symbol manipulation competencies, and thesecompetencies are central to certain life-outcomecriteria—like making up tests for others to pass orbeing proficient as a clerk (Ghiselli, 1966). But itis a serious practical and theoretical error to labelthem general intelligence, on the basis of evidencenow available.

Once the innate intelligence philosophy is discarded,it becomes apparent that the role of sucha testing service is to report to schools a profile ofscholastic and nonscholastic achievements in anumber of different areas. Then, in the case ofselection, it is for the college to decide whether ithas the educational programs that will promotegrowth in given areas of low performance. If performanceis already high, say in mathematics, thenthe college probably can produce little improvementin that area and should ask itself in what otherareas it can educate such a student, as shown byhis lower levels of accomplishment at the outset.The profile particularly should include measures ofsuch general characteristics as ego development ormoral development (Kohlberg &Turiel, 1971)based on thought samples, because these generalcompetencies ought to be improved by higher educationalsystems anyway. The profile of achievements should be reportednot only at entrance but at various points throughoutthe schooling to give teachers, administrators,and students feedback on whether growth in desiredcharacteristics actually is occurring. Test resultsthen become a device for helping students andteachers redesign the teaching-learning process toobtain mutually agreed-on objectives. Only thenwill educational testing turn from the sentencingprocedure it now is into the genuine service itpurports to be.

would rather, rather than 与other than 用法总结Microsoft Word 文档

would rather,rather than与other than 用法总结would rather, rather than 与other than 这三个短语形式相近,意思相关,用法值得总结。一、would rather的用法：首先，我们注意到would do ...rather than do与would rather do...than do,这两个短语均是“宁可做...而不做...”的意思。其实，这两个短语非常容易掌握。Would是can系列情态动词（can, may, must，could, would, should, might, ought to, used to, shall, will）,其后必接动词原形。rather than是一个并列连词,根据对等原则，其后自然也接动词原形。如： She'd rather die than surrender.=She'd die rather than surrender. ①would do ...rather than do...与would rather do...than do…也可以颠倒为： rather than do…would do …。若选用的动词相同，那么than 后的动词还可以省略。如： I would rather have noodles than rice. Rather than work in such bad condition, he would give up. ②would rather do…than…, than 的前后要用两个同类的词或词组，如两个名词、两个不定式、两个介词短语等。如： I would rather go to work by bike than by bus. I would rather talk with his mother than with his father. ③ would rather 的否定形式为would rather not do ...。 He’d rather not work in the city than in the city countryside. 在疑问句式中，would rather 与would rather…than…中的would要放在主语之前 Would you rather stay here than go home? Which would you rather have, apples or bananas? Would you rather read a novel than read a poem? ④would rather that…that后接虚拟语气。如： He would rather that he got back home right now. ⑤如果只涉及主语本人而不涉及另一个人，则would rather之后不接that从句而接have done结构。如： I would rather have gone to the movies than stayed home night. He would rather be poor than have got money by dishonest methods．其次，我们还要知道would prefer to do...rather than (to ) do...也是“宁可做...而不做...”的意思。这个短语的对等形式是Rather than do...would prefer to do...,只是此时rather than后必须省略to；“宁可做..”.的内容放在would prefer to do...之后，“而不做...”的内容放在rather than...之后，不能弄错。 We would prefer to listen to the teacher attentively in class rather than stay up late. Rather than stay up late we would prefer to listen to the teacher attentively in class. 再次，我们要知道结构：would rather do…than do…，与prefer doing... to doing...和prefer sth. to sth的区别与联系。如： He prefers wine to beer．= He would rather drink wine than beer． I prefer tennis to golf．= I’d rather play tennis than golf．最后，would rather do = would prefer to do I’d rather fly than go by sea．= I’d prefer to fly．顺便提及would prefer to do这个短语中不能省略to的原因是would like/love/prefer 用法与want一样，所以其后接动词时必须接to。二、rather than的用法。 rather than “而不是”之意。其实，前面would do...rather than do...,would prefer to do...rather than do... 已经涉及到rather than 的具体用法。下面只是补充一下。正如前面谈到的它是一个并列连词,它连接的并列成分可以是名词、代词、形容词、介词(短语)、动名词、分句、不

英语语法专项：动名词用法讲解及练习(附答案)

你听过英文语法有动词(verb)、名词(noun)；但你听过有动名词(gerund)吗？ 1. The girl is singing a song. 2. The girl singing now is my sister. 3. Singing is one of her hobbies(爱好). 三个句子中都有singing。第一个句子的singing是常见的现在进行式(Present Continuous)，是说眼下正在做什么；第二个句子的singing是现在分词(Present Participle)，它把sing这个动词转为形容词，但仍有动词的成份（哈哈，这么一说，要把你搞晕了吧:-) 。关于分词，以后有空再谈OK？）。好戏在后头，你看看第三个句子的singing到底是什么东东呀？原来就是我们的主角动名词(Gerund)了！憧矗瑂ing原本是个动词，可是现在它加上ing后，看来竟像是一个名词了。一、名词性的动名词(Nominal Gerund) Nominal Gerund 可以加上定冠词(Definite article，如the)或不定冠词(Indefinite article，如a, an)，其他可加在动名词前的还有如：my, this, some, any, all, no 等等。举例如下： 1. The mellow(愉快地) singing of the birds announces the coming of spring. (singing前加定冠词the及形容词mellow；coming 前加the) 2. We knew the robber was near when we heard a faint rustling(沙沙声) in the bushes. (rustling 前加不定冠词a及形容词faint) 从上面的例子可看出如何将一个动词转成名词；但它和真正的名词还是有区别的，那就是没有单数或复数之分。不过，有一些动名词是可以变成真正名词的喔，如：saying, writing, opening, painting, cutting, heading, feeling, being,saving, surrounding, crossing, misunderstanding 等等。它们都可以有复数的喔，方法就是在它们的后面加个s，如：paintings。二、动词性的动名词(Verbal Gerund) 看看下面的句子： Carelessly writing essays annoys the teacher. 上面的句子里的writing是动名词，但前面有副词carelessly（粗心地），后面又有受词(Object) essays。因此writing就有动词的特征。注意：Verbal Gerund 这类动名词的前面可不能加上任何冠词(the, a, an ...)喔。动名词的功能与用法一、在句子中用作主语(Subject)或主语的补语(Subject Complement): 1.1 作主语 1. Listening to music gives me pleasure. (主语Listening ） 2. Running is good exercise. （主语running) 3. Walking to school is a good idea. (主语walking) 1.2 作主语的补语 1. My cat's favorite activity is sleeping. (补语sleeping) 2. Seeing is believing. (主语seeing, 补语believing) 1.3 主语置于句尾 1.3.1 用It + be + ... +v-ing 句型 1. It is fun speaking English. 2. It is of great importance fighting against pollution(污染).

Would rather 用法小结

Would rather 用法小结文/郭李强一、would rather意思是“宁愿、宁可、更、最好、还是为好”，后接动词原形,常省略为’d rather，表示优先选择的一种方式其否定形式是would rather not do sth. would rather没有人称和数的变化，所有的人称一律用would rather.“would rather+动词原形”是英语中常见的一个惯用句式，美国英语中多用had rather。would (had)在此决无“过去”之意，它是一个情态助动词，且无词性、时态变化。例：Mr. Li would rather not listen to rock music. 李先生不愿意听摇滚音乐。 Sh e’d rather work in the countryside. 她宁可到农村去工作。二、如果在两者中进行取舍，表示“宁愿……而不愿……，与其……宁可……”的意思时，则可用would rather…than…或would…rather than…的句型例: I would rather watch TV at home than go to the cinema.我宁可在家看电视而不愿去看电影。请注意: 1) would rather…than…/would…rather than…也可以颠倒为：rather than…would…。Would(rather)和than后都接不带to的动词不定式，若选用的动词相同，那么than 后的动词可以省略。例：He would rather drink tea than coffee．他喜欢喝茶而不喜欢咖啡。 Rather than work in such bad condition, he would give up. 与其在这样差的条件下工作，他宁愿放弃。 2)使用would rather…than…句型时要注意“平行结构”，即在than 的前后要用两个同类的词或词组，如两个名词、两个不定式、两个介词短语等。例：I would rather talk with his mother than with his father. 我宁愿和他妈说话而不愿和他爸说话。三、在疑问句式中，would rather 与would rather…than…中的would要放在主语之前例：Which would you rather have, apples or bananas? 你喜欢吃苹果还是香蕉？ Would you rather read a novel than read a poem? 你宁愿看小说而不愿朗读诗歌吗？四、would rather+从句，是一个常用的虚拟语气句型 Would rather+从句,谓语一般用过去时来表示现在或将来。其意为“宁愿……,还是……好些”“一个人宁愿另一个人做某事”。引导从句的that常省略。在谈到过去的动作时，谓语则用过去完成时。例：John wants to see me today. I would rather he came to tomorrow than today. 约翰今天想去看我。我宁愿他明天来看我而不是今天。(句中came不是表示过去而是表示将来) We’d rather he paid us the money tomorrow. 我们宁愿他明天付给我们那笔钱。 Don’t come tomorrow. I’d rather you came next weekend. 明天别来。我希望你下周末来。2）如果只涉及主语本人而不涉及另一个人，则would rather之后不接that从句而接have done结构。例：I would rather have gone to the theatre than stayed home night. 我真希望昨天晚上去看了戏而不是呆在家里。 He would rather be poor than have got money by dishonest methods．他宁可穷也不愿意用不诚实的手段获取金钱。五、would rather/sooner和prefer/would prefer的区别 would rather和would sooner 之间一般没有区别，但经常接触到的是would rather。例：Tom would rather/sooner read than talk．汤姆宁可读书而不愿谈天。 Tom prefers reading to talking．汤姆喜欢读书而不喜欢谈天。

商务写作指南：超好记的appreciate的用法

WRONG: We would appreciate if you corrected the entry in the register as soon as possible. 错误用法：如果你能尽快更改登记处的入口，我将非常感激。 RIGHT: We would appreciate it if you corrected the entry in the register as soon as possible. 正确用法：如果你能尽快更改登记处的入口，我将非常感激（英语原句比前者多了一个it）。This is a very common mistake, and remember that when you use the phrase “I would appreciat e…”you MUST include the word “it”before “if”: 这是一个常见错误，记住当你要用“I would appreciate…”这个表达式时，一定要在if前加一个it。 More examples: 更多例子： E.g.1:I am sure the supervisory authority would not appreciate it if you took that course of action. 例1：我相信监督部门对你的所作所为不会表示欣赏。 E.g.2:We would appreciate it if you would arrange for immediate payment. 例2：如果您能立即付款，我们将很感激。 There is no need to add “it”if you do not include “if”. 如果你不用if从句的话，就没有必要在appreciate后面加it了。 E.g.: We would much appreciate a letter informing us of the result of your enquiries. 例句：如果您能对您的询盘结果给我们回信的话，我们将非常感激。 An alternative phrase to “I would appreciate it if…”is, “I would be grateful if…”This is the more formal phrase of the two and does not require that troublesome“it”! “I would appreciate it if…”这个表达式的替代用法有“I would be grateful if…”，但是这个用法更为正式，而且不需要加那个麻烦的“it”！

调料大全

调料大全盐别名：食盐、咸鹾使用提示：每天6～10克盐知识介绍：盐是人们日常生活中不可缺少的食品之一，每人每天需要6～10克盐才能保持人体心脏的正常活动、维持正常的渗透压及体内酸碱的平衡，同时盐是咸味的载体，是调味品中用得最多的，号称“百味之祖(王)”。放盐不仅增加菜肴的滋味，还能促进胃消化液的分泌，增进食欲。我国盐的资源很丰富，产盐区遍及全国，产量也很大，不仅能充分满足国内人民生活的需要，而且还可以组织出口。我国所产的食盐主要有海盐、井盐、池盐、矿盐等。食盐按加工程度的不同，又可分为原盐(粗盐)、洗涤盐、再制盐(精盐)。原盐是从海水、盐井水直接制得的食盐晶体，除氯化钠外，还含有氯化钾、氯化镁、硫酸钙、硫酸钠等杂质和一定量的水分，所以有苦味；洗涤盐是以原盐(主要是海盐)用饱和盐水洗涤的产品；把原盐溶解，制成饱和溶液，经除杂处理后，再蒸发，这样制得的食盐即为再制盐，再制盐的杂质少，质量较高，晶粒呈粉状，

色泽洁白，多作为饮食业烹调之用；另外，还有人工加碘的再制盐，为一些缺碘的地方作饮食之用。盐营养分析： 1. 食盐调味，能解腻提鲜，祛除腥膻之味，使食物保持原料的本味； 2. 盐水有杀菌、保鲜防腐作用； 3. 用来清洗创伤可以防止感染； 4. 撒在食物上可以短期保鲜，用来腌制食物还能防变质； 5. 用盐调水能清除皮肤表面的角质和污垢，使皮肤呈现出一种鲜嫩、透明的靓丽之感，可以促进全身皮肤的新陈代谢，防治某些皮肤病，起到较好的自我保健作用。盐补充信息： 1. 盐储存时应阴凉避光密闭； 2. 若长期过量食用食盐容易导致高血压、动脉硬化、心肌梗死、中风、肾脏病和白内障的发生； 3. 虽然多吃盐有碍健康，饮食宜清淡，但并不是吃盐越少越好； 4. 盐除了食用之外，还可以作防腐剂，利用盐很强的渗透力和杀菌作用保藏食物； 5. 盐在工业上用途也很广，是重要的工业原料； 6. 盐用于催吐，应炒黄后溶化服用；水化点眼，洗疮。盐适合人群：一般人群均可食用高血压患者、肾病患者、白内障患者、儿童不宜多食，水肿者忌食。盐食疗作用：盐味咸、性寒，入胃、肾、大肠、小肠经；有补心润燥、泻热通便、解毒引吐、滋阴凉血、消肿止痛、止痒之功效；主治食停上脘、心腹胀痛、胸中痰癖、二便不通、齿龈出血、喉痛、牙痛、目翳、疮疡、毒虫螫伤等症。盐做法指导： 1. 由于现在的食盐中都添加了碘或锌，硒等营养元素，烹饪时宜在菜肴即将出锅前加入，以免这些营素受热蒸发掉； 2. 制作鸡、鱼一类的菜肴应少加盐，因为它们富含具有鲜味的谷氨酸钠，本身就会有些咸味； 3. 烹调前加盐：即在原料加热前加盐，目的是使原料有一个基本咸味，并有收缩，在使用炸、爆、滑馏、滑炒等烹调方法时，都可结合上浆、挂糊，并加入一些盐，因为这类烹调方法的主料被包裹在一层浆糊中，味不得入，所以必须在烹前加盐；另外有些菜在烹调过程中无法加盐，如荷叶粉蒸肉等，也必须在蒸前加盐，烧鱼时为使鱼肉不碎，也要先用盐或酱油擦一下，但这种加盐法用盐要少，距离烹调时间要短； 4. 烹调中加盐：这是最主要的加盐方法，在运用炒、烧、煮、焖、煨、滑等技

appreciate表示感谢的用法

外教一对一https://www.wendangku.net/doc/7a18884093.html, 用appreciate表示「感谢」，用对不容易在邮件里表示「感谢」的时候，我们常常会用到appreciate一词;在比较正式的场合，你也会偶尔听到有英美人在口语中使用appreciate 来表示「感谢」的含义。本帖将教会大家如何用对appreciate一词。1)表示感谢的时候，appreciate的对象通常不是某人，而是某件事。和动词thank不一样的地方在于：thank 后面常常是某人。比如：Thank you for doing sth。但是appreciate后面常常是某件事，比如：I really appreciate your help. 很感谢你的帮助。Your support is greatly appreciated. 很感谢你的支持。以上的两个例句，通常都用在帮助或者支持完成之后说。而下面的这句话，是我们邮件中最常用的句式：I would appreciate it if you paid in cash. 如果你用现金支付，我会非常感谢。这个邮件的高频句式其实很容易出错，注意以下三点：appreciate后面的it不能漏掉appreciate后面不能直接加you以上面的句子为例，主句里的would和从句里的paid使用了过去式，是为了让语气更加婉转，而非表达过去的含义。I will appreciate it if...do...这样的句式也正确。2)中文里可以「欣赏」某人的品质;appreciate也一样。中文里「欣赏」一词有两层含义：领略欣赏。比如：欣赏一段音乐认为……好。比如：老板很欣赏他的才华。巧合的是，appreciate 也有这两层含义：领略欣赏。You can't fully appreciate foreign literature in translation. 看翻译作品很难欣赏到外国文学的精髓。认为……好。His talents are not fully appreciated in that company. 在那个公司，他的才能得到充分地赏识。丨There's no point buying him expensive wines - he doesn't appreciate them. 别给他买很贵的酒，他不懂得品赏。3)appreciate还有一层生僻的含义：增值我们会在财经新闻里看到appreciate及其反义词depreciate，分别表示「增值」和「贬值」。Their investments have appreciated over the years. 他们的投资在几年间增值了。currency depreciation 货币贬值文章来源：https://www.wendangku.net/doc/7a18884093.html,

would rather的用法

would rather用法总结一、“would rather+动词原形”是英语中常见的一个惯用句式（美国英语中多用had rather）。’d rather为would（或had）rather的缩写形式。would (had)在此决无“过去”之意，且无词性、时态的变化。该句式常用来表示选择的意愿，意为“宁可……；宁愿……；最好……”。例如： He'd rather work in the countryside. 他宁可到农村去工作。 If you'd rather be alone, we'll all leave here. 如果你宁愿独自呆着，那我们都离开这儿。 You would rather stay at home and do some reading this evening. 今晚你最好呆在家里看点书。二、would rather与than连用，可构成另一个惯用句式，即：“would rather...than....”意为“宁可（愿）……（而）不要（愿）……；与其……不如……”。用以表达主语的意愿，强调经过选择后做其中一件事，而不愿做另一件事。例如： I would rather watch TV at home than go to the cinema. 我宁可在家看电视而不愿去看电影。三、在使用“would rather...than...”句型时，应注意以下几点： 1. than 后边也应接动词原形，但如该句型前后连接的两个动词相同，则than之后的那个动词可省去。例如： I'd rather know that now than afterwards. 我宁可现在就知道这件事，而不是以后。 2. would rather...than...也可改写成“would...rather than...”,其用法及含义仍不变。例如：Facing the enemies, our soldiers would die rather than surrender. 面对敌人，我们的战士宁死不屈。 3. 有时为了表示语气上的强调，可将rather than置于句首。例如： Rather than refuse to help you, I would borrow money from my friends. 我宁可向朋友借钱，也不愿拒绝帮助你。 4. would rather后也可跟从句，表示主语宁愿让某人干某事。这时，从句谓语动词要用虚拟语气，即用一般过去时表示现在或将来要做的事；用过去完成时表示已经做过的事或过去要做的事。例如： I'd rather she set out to do the work now. 我宁愿她现在就着手做这项工作。 I'd rather you met her at the airport tomorrow morning. 我但愿你明天早上能在机场见到她。 I'd rather you hadn't told him the news that day. 我真希望你那天没有把那个消息告诉他。 5. would rather后还可接动词的完成式，表示主语要做某事，而结果却事与愿违。例如： I'd rather have left a note on her desk. 我本想留张字条在她书桌上的。（事实上没有留）试比较 I'd rather I left a note on her desk. 我宁可留张字条在她的书桌上。四、巩固练习。 1. 选择最佳答案。 1）—Shall I open the window to let some fresh air in? —No, _______ . A. I'd rather not B. I'd rather you not C. I'd rather you didn't D. I'd like not to 2) I would rather you _______ with us yesterday, but you left. A. had stayed. B. stay C. stayed D. have stayed

表语从句用法详解

表语从句用法详解(例句丰富) 一、表语从句的引导词引导表语从句的词有连词that, whether，连接代词和连接副词，关系代词型what，以及as if, as though, because等连词。 1. 由that引导 The fact is that he doesn’t really try. 事实是他没有做真正的努力。 The trouble is that I have lost his address. 麻烦的是我把他的地址丢了。 My suggestion is that we should tell him. 我的建议是我们应该告诉他。 His sole requirement was (is) that the system work. 他唯一的要求是这个制度能起作用。 My idea is that we should start making preparations right now. 我的意见是我们马上就开始做准备工作。 2. 由whether引导 The question is whether the film is worth seeing. 问题是这部电影是否值得看。【注意】whether 可引导表语从句，但与之同义的if却通常不用于引导表语从句。 3. 由连接代词引导 You are not who I thought you were. 你已不是我过去所想像的人。 The problem is who we can get to replace her. 问题是我们能找到谁去替换她呢。 The question is who (m) we should trust. 问题是我们应当相信谁。 What I want to know is which road we should take. 我想知道的是我们应走哪条路。 4. 由连接副词引导 The problem is how we can find him. 问题是我们如何找到他。 That was when I was fifteen. 这是我15岁时发生的事。 That’s where I first met her. 那就是我第一次遇见她的地方。 That’s why he didn’t come. 这就是他没有来的缘故。 That’s why I object to the plan. 这就是我反对这个计划的原因。 That’s where you are wrong. 这就是你不对的地方。

英语中标点符号的用法大全

英语中标点符号的用法大全 1、逗号(comma) , 英文中逗号的作用和汉语是一样的。另外，逗号还使用于用who和which的定于从句。英文中的分号和逗号是同一符号。分号隔开并列关系的单词和短语。需要注意的是，使用了分号的短语一般最后一项内容前都是用了and或者or，此时和汉语所不同的是and或or前也应该使用分号（这是最最最常犯的语法错误之一，很多英语使用者都不知道），否则有可能造成歧义。比如，猫、狗和牛应该是"cat, dog, and ox"而非"cat, dog and ox"。 2、句号(period) . 英文中的句号的作用和汉语一样。英文中的简写符号和句号是同一符号，比如Mr.、 Ms.、etc.等等。如果句号作为简写符号使用，那么这个词语简写前后面的符号应该照常写上，因为简写号并非句号，也不遵循句号的语法。比如Entreprise Co., Ltd或者I invited Tom, Jerry, etc..（注意两个点）。

3、冒号(colon) : 英文中的冒号的作用和汉语一样。当冒号后是引用一个人说的话，也可以使用逗号。 4、分号(semi-colon) ; 英文中的分号的作用和汉语一样。需要注意的是，分号和逗号有时是可以互相交替的，比如如下的情况。 Tom met me, and later he met Joan. Tom met me; later he met Joan. 或 Tom hates cheese, but he likes butter. Tom hates cheese; he like butter, though. 当只有两个句子相并列时，分号可以和被逗号+连结词互替。但注意第二个例子里，but的转接意是需要用其他成份补充的。 5、引号(quotation mark) 英文中的引号的作用和汉语一样，可用于引用和戏虐。引号同时可以作为书名号，但只能使用于短诗歌，短故事，短电影和歌曲上。参见下文中“斜体字”。在英国，引用原话应该使用单引号，而话中话应该使用双引号。自然，引用和戏虐应该使用单引号了。在美国，情况恰恰相反。另外，在美国，如果后引号和一

would rather语法

“would rather do sth.”是英语中常见的一个固定惯用句式（美国英语中多用had rather）。would（或had）rather的缩写形式为’d rather。would (had) rather中的would并无过去的意思。该句式常用来表示选择的意愿，意谓“宁可……”、“宁愿……”、“最好……”。例如： He’d rather work in the countryside. 她宁可到农村去工作。 If you’d rather be alone, we’ll all leave here. 如果你宁愿独自呆着，那我们都离开这儿。 You would rather stay at home and do some reading this evening. 今晚你最好呆在家中读点书。 would rather与than连用，可构成另一个惯用句式，即：“would rather...than....”，意谓“宁可（愿）……（而）不要（愿）……”、“与其……不如……”。用以表达主语的意愿，强调经过选择后做其中一件事，而不愿做另一件事。例如： I would rather watch TV at home than go to the cinema. 我宁可在家看电视而不愿去看电影。 The children would rather walk there than take a bus. 孩子们宁愿步行去那里而不乘公共汽车。在使用“would rather...than...”句型时，应注意以下几点： 1. than 后边也应接动词原形，但如该句型前后连接的两个动词相同，则than之后的那个动词可省去。例如： I’d rather you know that now than afterwards. 我宁可你现在就知道这件事，而不是以后。 2. would rather...than...也可改写“would...rather than...”，其用法及含义仍不变。例如： Facing the enemies, our soldiers would die rather than surrender. 面对敌人，我们的战士宁死不屈。 3. 有时，为了表示语气上的强调，还可将rather than置于句首，例如： Rather than refuse to help you, I would borrow money from my friends. 我宁可向朋友借钱，也不愿拒绝帮助你。 4. would rather后可跟从句，表示主语宁愿让某人干某事。从句谓语动词用虚拟语气，即用一般过去时表示现在或将来要做的事；用过去完成时表示过去要做的事。如： I’d rather she set out to do the work now. 我宁愿她现在就着手做这项工作。 I’d rather you met her at the airport tomorrow morning. 但愿你明天早上能在机场见到她。 I’d rather you hadn’t told him the news that day.

动名词的用法详解

动名词的用法详解今天给大家带来动名词的用法详解，我们一起来学习吧，下面就和大家分享，来欣赏一下吧。英语语法：动名词的用法详解动名词因同时拥有动词和名词两者的特点而拥有及其丰富的用法，熟练的掌握这些用法不仅可以使口语表达更地道生动，也能在写作中增分添彩。动名词主要有四种用法，做主语，作宾语，作表语，作定语，每种用法下又分小类别，是一个非常复杂庞大的系统，学习者们往往会理不清脉络，今天就为大家带来动名词的用法讲解。一.作主语 1.直接位于句首 eg.Swimming is a good sport in summer. 2.用it作形式主语，把动名词(真实主语)置于句尾作后置主语。 eg.It is no use telling him not to worry.

.mportant，essential，necessary等形容词不能用于上述结构。 3.用于“There be”结构中 eg.There is no saying when hell come. 4.动名词的复合结构作主语: 当动名词有自己的逻辑主语时，常可以在前面加上一个名词或代词的所有格，构成动名词的复合结构,动名词疑问句通常使用这种结构做主语 eg.Their coming to help was a great encouragement to us. Does your saying that mean anything to him? 二.作宾语 1.作动词的宾语某些动词后出现非限定性动词时只能用动名词作宾语，不能用不定式。不定式通常指某种特定的动作，但动名词表示泛指，常见的此类动词有： admit,appreciate,excuse,stand,advise,allow,permit,avoid,consider,e njoy,finish,give up,cannot help,imagine,include,keep,understand,keepon,mind,report,risk,mis s,put off,delay,practise,resist,suggest,depend on,think about,set about,succeed in,worry about,burst out,insist on,feel like,be used

46种厨房常见调料用法

2、酱油老抽起上色提鲜的作用，尤其是做红烧菜肴或者是焖煮、卤味时。生抽生抽用来调味，适宜凉拌菜，颜色不重，显得清爽。老抽和生抽的区别可以把酱油倒入一个白色瓷盘里晃动颜色，生抽是红褐色的，浓度稀;而老抽是棕褐色并且有光泽，浓度稠。 3、醋 1）解腥：在烹调鱼类时可加入少许醋，可破坏鱼腥； 2）祛膻：在烧羊肉时加少量醋，可解除羊膻气；

3）减辣：在烹调菜肴时如感太辣可加少许醋，辣味即减少； 4）添香：在烹调菜肴时加少许醋能使菜肴减少油腻增加香味； 5）引甜：在煮甜粥时加少许醋能使粥更甜； 6）催熟：在炖肉和煮烧牛肉，海带，土豆时加少许醋可使之易熟易烂； 7）防黑：炒茄子中加少许醋能使炒出的茄子颜色不变黑； 8）防腐：在浸泡的生鱼中加少许醋可防止其腐败变质；此外，醋在日常生活中还可以起到皮肤护理、头发护理、护甲美甲、消除疲劳、预防感冒、去除异味等作用。醋的75种妙用辨别：购买时要看配料表，选择酿造醋，切勿选择危害健康的醋精或者其他工业醋酸勾兑的醋。发酵成熟的陈醋口味更回味悠远，勾兑醋味道更尖锐，酸味刺鼻。一瓶约500ml的酿制醋价格大概是勾兑醋的2~3倍。 4、酒类

烹饪作料，可以增色、添酸、助鲜。如糖醋鱼、糖醋排骨、锅包肉、披萨等。

沙拉酱市场有千岛酱、蛋黄酱、油醋汁等，可根据口味购买。可以拌食沙拉、制作三明治等。 6、糖类白糖是由甘蔗或者甜菜榨出的糖蜜制成的精糖。以甘蔗为原料的叫白砂糖，以甜菜为原料的叫绵白糖。红糖原料为甘蔗，虽杂质较多，但营养成分保留较好。具有益气、缓中、助脾化食、补血破淤等功效。冰糖在制作红烧类菜肴时使用冰糖会使菜品颜色更加红亮，此外使用冰糖冲泡茶水或制作甜品，有补中益气，和胃润肺，止咳化痰的作用。