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malcolmocean comments on An attempt at a short no-prerequisite test for programming inclination - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'm forced to remind myself that that test was not actually designed to be a literacy test.
It includes riddles/illusions (Paris in the the spring for example), irrelevant terminology ("bisect"?) and unnecessary arbitrary things like knowing the order of the letters in the alphabet. If you became literate chiefly by reading...
Correct. Not an actual literacy test but a tool of oppression. (For a less blatant example at a much higher level, see "Jewish problems".)
I suggest that the history of this sort of thing is part of why the response to "hey, it turns out black people do worse than white people on IQ tests" is often to suggest that there's something very, very wrong with the tests. I mention this only because it's a topic that comes up every now and then on LW.
[EDITED to add: I should reiterate that I'm not suggesting any such sinister motive in the present case!]
You might want to rot13 that, in case people are considering taking the test themselves.
I wouldn't consider that that unnecessary and arbitrary -- I guess most people in jobs requiring literacy need to sort a list alphabetically or look something up in an alphabetic list at some point in their life, especially back then before electronic computers.
Okay fair, that makes sense. But then, why not have the test just say "write down the letters of the alphabet, in order", rather than being tricky. Plenty of very literate people still need to sing the mnemonic song in order to recall the order.
Oh wait, no, the being tricky is testing to see if people are literate enough to understand the fiddly details of the question. Still, I'd say testing that separately from alphabet skills is more efficient etc.