Question

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?
Tan believes that achievement tests should include a wider variety of fill-in-the-blank questions.
Tan believes that achievement tests should be constructed by published authors of fiction.
Tan believes that achievement tests give inadequate measurements of language ability.
Tan believes that achievement tests give inflated measurements of language ability.

Answer 1

Answer: Tan believes that achievement tests give inadequate measurements of language ability.

Explanation: She says the tests only accept bland, limited answers while her mother’s language allowed many possibilities, so the tests failed to capture her true language ability. The other choices are not supported: she doesn’t argue for published authors writing tests, ask for a wider variety of blanks, or claim the tests give inflated scores.