A Study of English Verbal Ability of School Students of Gujarat State with Respect To Gender, Age and Area

Aptitude tests have existed from the decade of 1940s with the title of the General Aptitude Test Battery. This was an initiative of the United States Employment Service which for the following decades, have helped students to determine their career aptitude. It has been documented that it leads people to their respective choice of careers with an up sloping growth and with so much feelings of professional fulfillment. Presently, the career aptitude tests have evolved to include not only the tests of skills and abilities but also the tests of personality class or type. Aptitude is not synonymous to one’s intelligence or mental abilities. It should not be confused with other terms such as intelligence quotient or intelligence level that dictate mental classifications such as the genius, child prodigy, mentally delayed, and mentally retarded, to name a few. Aptitude simply means and implies an individual’s good fit and suitability for a certain skill or task in a given environment.

Now that it has been settled that career aptitude tests can be administered to both high school undergraduates and graduates, there emerged several discussions regarding the benefits taking the career aptitude tests may render to students who are in their junior and senior high school years, versus when it is taken at a latter age. Early adolescence and late adolescence stage is filled with a lot of developmental tasks and adjustments. Chances of peer pressure, influences of advertisements as well as of those who are within their social circle may create more confusion to the many decisions they have to make, including career related decisions. Although this conclusive theory does not apply to all, this implies that increasing their awareness will somehow provide them an idea of a path that they may take, or a direction in their future careers, and decrease the chances of career mismatches by strengthening their viewpoint on their capabilities and matched career options.