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One question is often risen in response to international __1__ test comparisons: Do these results really mean anything? In the past, international testing programs have been criticized on variety of grounds. Two allegations, in particular, have __2__ been common: first, that other nations have not tested as large a percentage of their student population, and nevertheless their __3__ scores have been inflated; and second, that our best students are among the world’s best, with our average brought down by a __4__ large cohort of low-achievers.
Whatever the historic validity of such concerns, they are now, __5__ if anything, reversed. Particularly in the fourth and eighth grade, education has become universal in all of the leading nations.
Therefore, in science, the percentage of randomly selected __6__ U.S. schools and students that actually did participate at the eighth-grade level was just 73 percent—the third-lowest of all 45 participating countries, and 11 percentage points under the __7__ United States had third-lowest overall participation rate for both __8__ grades in both subjects. Japan, Taiwan and Singapore all had participation percentages in the 90s.
How about our best and brightest? At the fourth-grade level, there is some real truth to the idea that the best American students __9__ are among the best in the world. Looking only at the top 5 percent of test-takers, American fourth-graders beat the average of wealthy nations by 13 percentage points. By the eighth grade, however, the tables have turned, with America’s brightest students fallen to __10__ percentage points behind their foreign peers.
