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Dr. David Martin provided this response to a deaf student who took a professional school admissions test and wanted information to share with the admissions decision-makers of the chosen professional school.

Fundamentally, we see several flaws with multiple-choice tests for deaf test-takers: (a) insufficient context in the "stem" of multiple-choice items; (b) use of idiomatic English to which profoundly deaf test-takers have little access; (c) some inappropriate item content--e.g., items about music--even though such items are a small portion of regular standadized tests, even one or two unfair items can make a difference in failing or passing a high-stakes examination; (d) sometimes a lack of interpreters for instructions if the test-taker is taking the test with hearing persons; and (e) unnecessary time pressures, given that English is a second language for many deaf persons.

With such identified flaws, your question is how to cope. Strategies fall into two categories : (a) how to make currently structured multiple-choice tests more fair for deaf persons; and (b) how to find other supplemental measures to remove the dependence on one criterion for a high-stakes decision. For category (a), several strategies have been useful: (l) provision of a sign-language interpreter for all instructions, throughout the test (not for interpreting the test content, but for all instructions); (2) providing extended time--Educational Testing Service makes this provision automatically if the deaf test-taker can identify himself as deaf and can document that he has had such accommodations before; (3) revising such examinations to eliminate unfair items--a rather easy statistical procedure would adapt the score, with no penalty to the test-taker; (4) a more extensive strategy would be to actually revise the item stems to provide more context--but this would mean the test is no longer the same as the other version;(5) giving practice sessions to deaf test-takers so that they become as familiar as hearing persons with the strategies for managing and approaching multiple-choice situations--something that many deaf students have had little or no experience with, and we have documentation that such sessions result in clear improvement on test results; (6) some review of idioms in English.

On the other hand, category (b) of alternatives is also important for the long-term. That is, in our view , no such important decision as graduation, for example, should rest on a single criterion; yet we are savvy enough to know that the political context of the testing movement today means that it is not realistic to expect legislators to change such requirements immedidately (although opinion is just beginning to start in that direction). Thus, instead of advocating what for now would be futile--abolishment of tests of this kind--we propose advocating for providing supplemental measures to be adopted as additional criteria for such decisions. I refer to such techniques as systematic observation, systematic interactive interviews, and portfolios of students' work evaluated by valid and reliable rubrics. These latter techniques are expensive in terms of time but give a far fuller picture than a standardized test--and this is also true for HEARING people as well.

I have gone on too long, but I wanted to share both short-term and long-term strategies. I hope these are helpful.