Fulcher is highly successful in his presentation of foundational testing knowledge within broader historical and social contexts. In fact, the continual embedding of language testing practices within larger historical and social frameworks is one of the real strengths of this volume as well as its coverage of the statistical foundations of classical test theory, the history of large-scale testing, the social uses and consequences of testing, and the relationship between testing and assessment. The presentation and discussion of material within this volume not only represents current trends in testing and assessment but also invites both application and critique in a manner that will be of interest to a broad audience including students, teachers, and seasoned language testers.

A hallmark of this volume, as well as of Fulcher’s other writing, is his effective use of examples and analogies for instructive purposes. This skill—along with the author’s ability and willingness to draw on a wide array of sources to get his point across—results in a text that is both informative and readable even when the more arcane aspects of testing and measurement are presented and discussed. For example, Fulcher’s use of Yerkes’s (Reference Yerkes1941) data describing score distributions of subpopulations of enlisted army men is an effective and impressive introduction to the technical characteristics of distributions and the normal curve. The presentation of a transcript of an unbalanced dialogue between two speakers—“Deciding What to Test”—is an excellent example of the difficulty of defining and measuring interactional competence. The discussion of reverse engineering, peppered throughout, reminds readers that arguments for validity often involve a considerable amount of speculation and uncertainty. Fulcher’s balance of the technical and interpretative illustrates the potential and the challenges of language testing.