What language testing does is to compel attention to meaning of ideas in linguistics and applied linguistics. Until they are put into operation, described, and explained, ideas remain ambiguous and fugitive. A test forces choice, removes ambiguity, and reveals what has been elusive: thus a test is the most explicit form of description, on the basis of which the tester comes clean about his/ her ideas. (Davies, 1990, p. 2)

These words express what many applied linguists recognize: that language assessment and testing intersects almost all language-related issues that applied linguists study...