New Test Measures Aptitude in Languages

A new test to discover language aptitude even in a person with no experience or training outside of his native tongue has been developed at the Graduate School of Education after five years of study, John B. Carroll, professor of Education, said yesterday.

The hour-long, five-part test was developed by Carroll and Professor Stanley M. Sapon, now at Ohio State University, principally under Carnegie Corporation grants. Existing tests, Carroll declared, are not doing a sufficiently good job of predicting language success and have not kept pace with changes in the teaching of languages.

Through exercises in phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, the new test gives the individual "a sample of what it's like to learn a foreign language," Carroll explained.

While the test's emphasis is on spoken language, he said, it also predicts written language aptitude.