Is there comparability across cultures and national boundaries?
In terms of scores, we did a study where we looked at U.S. students, English and non-English speakers, males and females, and U.S. populations that were white, African-American, Hispanic-American, and Asian-America and within each group, compared their paper and CAT scores. In all of those cases, we found that there was a comparability of scores. But even though we know there is comparability for the group as a whole, that doesn’t mean that when you’re dealing with an individual person, that that one person will not have a predilection toward the paper or the CAT — there’s definitely preference involved. We’re concerned with a balanced playing field, while also providing a platform for testing new things in the future. Ultimately, we were trying to make sure that we did not have some big swing in scores from the paper test to the CAT. Since we did the comparability studies in October of 1996 and April of 1997 about 190,000 people have taken the CAT. Every month we look at people who’v
