Archive - August 3, 2012

In the very early days of the agency the Peace Corps had a set of Placement Tests that applicants were required to take. One was a 30-minute General Aptitude Test, another a 30-minute Modern Language Aptitude Test. One-hour achievement tests in French and Spanish were also offered during the second hour. The tests were ‘non-competitive; there were no passing or failing grades. The results, the agency said, were used to help find the most appropriate assignment for the person. Of course, those of us who took the tests had no confidence that that was ever done, given the assignments we finally got. The General Aptitude Test was composed of three different types of problems: verbal, mathematical, and spatial. The verbal questions require an applicant to select from five alternatives the synonym for a given word. The mathematical questions call for one to solve a problem, stated in a sentence or two, using . . .