A test or an examination (or "exam") is an assessment, often administered on paper or on the computer, intended to measure the test-takers' or respondents' (often a student) knowledge, skills, aptitudes or many other topics . Tests are often used in education, professional certification, counseling, psychology (e.g., MMPI), the military, and many other fields.

A standardized test is one that compares the performance of every individual subject with a norm or criterion. The norm may be established independently, or by statistical analysis of a large number of subjects.

The SAT and other high-stakes exams

In the United States and other countries, tests based primarily on multiple-choice questions have come to be used for assessments of great importance, with consequences including the funding levels of public schools and the admission of students to institutions of higher education. The most important such test in the U.S. is the SAT, which consists almost entirely of multiple-choice questions (though some of these are specifically designed to inherent inaccuracies of that question type). Originally developed as a test of a student's intrinsic intelligence, its methodology has proven vulnerable to specialized test-preparation programs that improve the subject's score. The SAT is written and administered by the College Board. For this reason, certain commentators have suggested that high stakes testing should be based more on content learned during the schooling years. Difficulties arise with respect to comparability across different schools, sectors, states and so on. A key challenge is to balance the need for comparability with the need to assess the skills, knowledge and abilities students have developed during the schooling years.

The SAT has also been criticized for an alleged racial bias; ethnic minorities supposedly fare worse on the exam than they should. As a result, it began to fall out of favor in the late 1990s, with increasing emphasis on standardized tests that measure actual knowledge. Some of these replacements have likewise come from the College Board, but many states have taken the initiative to design tests of their own. The ACT examination, introduced in 1959 as a competitor to the SAT, also features more knowledge-based questions, and is accepted as an alternative to the SAT for admission to many United States colleges. Many colleges are also placing more emphasis on measures of long-term performance such as the high-school grade point average, the difficulty of classes taken in high school, and teacher letters of recommendation.

There are also other high-stakes exams at higher educational levels, like; Fundamentals of Engineering exam administered by National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES).