Editing Standardized test (section)

=== Statistical validity ===
[[File:US Navy 030313-N-3228G-002 Nearly 250 candidates for E-5 mark their answer sheets while taking the March 2003 advancement exam at the Club Pearl Complex.jpg|thumb|upright|Enlisted members of the military take a paper-based, multiple-choice standardized test, in the hope of earning a promotion. All of them answer the same questions and get graded the same way.|alt=Young adults wearing light blue uniforms sit at tables with test papers and pencils]]One of the main advantages of larger-scale standardized testing is that the results can be empirically documented; therefore, the test scores can be shown to have a relative degree of [[Validity (statistics)|validity]] and [[Reliability (statistics)|reliability]], as well as results which are generalizable and replicable.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Kuncel|first1=N. R.|last2=Hezlett|first2=S. A.|year=2007|title=ASSESSMENT: Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students' Success|journal=Science|volume=315|issue=5815|pages=1080–81|doi=10.1126/science.1136618|pmid=17322046|s2cid=143260128}}</ref> This is often contrasted with grades on a school transcript, which are assigned by individual teachers.  When looking at individually assigned grades, it may be difficult to account for differences in educational culture across schools, the difficulty of a given teacher's assignments, differences in teaching style, the pressure for [[grade inflation]], and other techniques and biases that affect grading.

Another advantage is aggregation. A well-designed standardized test provides an assessment of an individual's mastery of a domain of knowledge or skill which at some level of aggregation will provide useful information. That is, while individual assessments may not be accurate enough for practical purposes, the mean scores of classes, schools, branches of a company, or other groups may well provide useful information because of the reduction of error accomplished by increasing the sample size.