Read the excerpt from "Mother Tongue." Those tests were constructed around items like fill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such as “Even though Tom was ______, Mary thought he was _____.” And the correct answer always seemed to be the most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, “Even though Tom was foolish, Mary thought he was ridiculous.” Well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what Tom could have been and what Mary might have thought of him. So I never did well on tests like that. What can be inferred from the excerpt?
Answer
A
Tan believes that achievement tests should be constructed by published authors of fiction.
B
Tan believes that achievement tests give inflated measurements of language ability.
C
Tan believes that achievement tests give inadequate measurements of language ability.
D
Tan believes that achievement tests should include a wider variety of fill-in-the-blank questions.
Explanation
Tan describes the test questions as allowing only bland, supposedly “correct” responses, even though her mother could imagine many other ways to complete the sentences. This suggests the tests fail to account for the flexibility and creativity of real language use, so they measure language ability inadequately. Choice C, “Tan believes that achievement tests give inadequate measurements of language ability,” best matches that inference.
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