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Prayfuss and Disclaimer: This is under Faustian copyright, so use it as you wilt to your pleasure.

It was only a few days ago that Faustus was again reminded of a pattern Faustus had noticed in yesteryear's Armorica relating to eliciting language, when Faustus was taking online word association tests (a very lame idea for something online, if you ask him), that of the relation between linguistic competence and associative psychological processes and resulting graphs (mathematical topology), allow him to call them, of an individual. Faustus relates it here because Faustus wishes to emphasise the fact that a test-taker's response is contingent upon the individual taking a test, and besides many others, matters of will and intent materialise as factors determining an individual's response to such tests. Of course, stating how this is relevant in an English class is in order and Faustus must therefore state that this has more to do with assessment than being any more directly related to classes in themselves. Also, as Faustus comes to think of it, he is reminded on a old friend whose dear name begins with M.

Faustus wishes to list out the factors affecting such tests and individual response, then. When one talks about linguistic competence, one must go to the actual definition that was proposed and elaborated upon in various writings by Chomsky and only when one has gone through everything he has to say on it, should one use it in their arguments. But this seldom happens, for, to quote a ready example, Empson's reading of Milton's Paradise Lost titled Milton's God has as the first chapter, a consideration of the prevailing arguments selected by him, and there Faustus finds evidence to allow him to assert this (see Empson's comments on misreading of some lines or passages by some critic).

As a parallel, only when a learner has mastered given material (as an aside, see Watterson on the matter, however) should he or she proceed further with the subject. And when one is capable of consciously handling situations like word association tests with the essential condition that its medium is a given language (and not in some cocktail like Hinglish) and provides for different levels of linguistic competence, only then should he or she be considered as an eligible candidate for such tests. Because if such is not the case, the questioner has a high hand and the interlocuter is taken by surprise, and this element of surprise seems to be key in tests of psychology, or in fact, to the whole idea of testing (for instance, consider exams which can be taken only once in a lifetime). But, once the surprise element is lost, the test no longer remains a test per se. This incidentally is very conspicuous in the present scenario in testing in India, where the matter has become more of odds and speed than of anything else. To estimate roughly, the chance is five to one for a university examination paper and hundred to one...