Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Paderborn, course: Einfuhrung in die Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien: Electronic Tools and Resources for Linguists, 11 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Testing is an important part of language teaching. Tests can be used to place students in courses according to their knowledge, to diagnose their strengths and weaknesses, to identify their proficiency etc. There are many theories about what tests should analyse and how they should be taken. Depending on the relevance of the results, tests need to be more or less accurate. Furthermore, they should have a beneficial backwash on teaching. It is thus at least as important to examine testing itself.