International News

Letter from London Search for common entrance exam One of the concerns frequently voiced by universities is how they can ensure they select the best students from among the many who achieve the highest A-level results. With everyone agreeing that the present system of predicted A level results is unsatisfactory, a massive effort to devise a single national university entrance exam has been undertaken. Two agencies, the University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate (UCLES) and the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) have been working on a pilot project to test ‘thinking skills’ rather than specific knowledge, which they are now ready to sell to universities. If they succeed they could hit the jackpot. Industry experts estimate that their sales revenue could top £7.5 million (Rs. 63 crore) a year in fees if the exam is written by every university applicant. The Academic Reasoning and Thinking Skills Test (Arts) is being advanced by UCLES as a single generic test designed for all potential university candidates to write, a move recommended by Prof. Steven Schwartz in his government-backed review of the admissions system last year as an alternative to candidates writing numerous tests for different courses. The proposal is that all candidates will take the test while still in school and be assessed on the basis of their ‘academic reasoning’ abilities. There are three components of Arts: quantitative and formal reasoning with a scientific slant; critical reasoning, and verbal and plausible reasoning. Although pupils will answer questions relating to all three components, those in charge of admissions would be free to accord greater weightage to answers pertaining to the skills required for the study programme applied for. Arts which is to be piloted this September using 1,500 students across the country as test cases, will consist of 96 multiple-choice questions covering all three parts of the exam. Selected pupils will write Arts together with their A levels. The students’ results will be compared with their performance in their first year university examinations, to assess whether it is a better predictive tool for performance than actual A level results. If successful the exam could be available nationally together with A levels by 2008. But only if top universities favour the proposal. The Arts test does have a rival — the American Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) currently being promoted by the Sutton Trust charity. SAT has been established for more than 70 years and is written by nearly two million students in the US every year as well as by more than 300,000 candidates in other countries. Comments Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust: “We’re hugely supportive of any kind of aptitude test. We welcome the development of this test, but we believe the SAT is a preferable model for the UK as it is tried and tested and will not take so long to test and calibrate.” However, Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge University has his doubts. “It doesn’t seem plausible that a single common aptitude test can examine students in theoretical…