ABSTRACT
Much of this book has been concerned with how teachers and testers can develop language tests in professional ways. This chapter looks at the effects that tests can have on classrooms. Teachers, as we have observed, have to respond to the demands made by testing regimes and students’ desires to pass tests. It is therefore about evaluating the impact that test use may have on teaching and learning, in the broadest sense. The effects of the use of language tests are the measure of the meaning of the test in practice. If the test has been well designed, with its purpose and effect in mind, we might expect to see many positive practical effects for most stakeholders.
