Fundamental Flaws in Academic, Employment and Professional Tests: Test Score Misuses Are Responsible for Ruined Student Health, Social Injustice and Diminished Competitiveness

In this research, I investigate inherent limitations in school tests and employment tests. I found there is no statistical distribution and no defined observation for test scores. One problem is that personal knowledge must have different substances, degrees and scopes notwithstanding contrary unproved hypotheses. No real test data support the claim that human knowledge follows a well known distribution. A related but more fatal problem is that points of individual questions are assigned arbitrarily, and different points for individual test questions represent things that differ in nature, scope and significance. There is no valid basis for adding points up to arrive at an objective test score. Those findings are strongly backed up by very poor test scores in published studies. Without understanding both flaws in near a century, test scores have been improperly used as ranking parameters and passing criteria. While grades ware kept as secret in early time, the letter grading system became the standard in the U.S. in the 1940’s. Without exploring deep flaws in GPAs, GPAs are improperly used as artificial impediments to student careers. A natural response to the abuse of GPAs is cheating in test to neutralize their unfair effects. Misuse of test scores and GPAs are responsible for the vicious competition, and cheating by some students must force others to do the same. A century of abuse of test scores and GPAs have fostered a cheating culture in the U.S., which fuels a huge international cheating service industry. Now cheating was found among nearly 70% U.S. college students, nearly 90% of high school students, and a good portion of job applicants. This cheating culture and score-based employment practices are about to ruin everything from social justice, fair employment opportunities, U.S. legal process legitimacy, student health, and U.S. competitiveness. Measures for rooting out this cancer must be to reform the test system, change employment practices and eliminate the motivation of cheating.