This article presents a critical review of the use of cognitive ability testing for access to graduate and higher professional occupations to promote further debate and reflection in both the academic and practitioner community. The main contentions are that the practice of applying cognitive ability testing in these contexts has strong potential to both maintain and exacerbate social inequality in access to higher occupations and professions, and that validity evidence does not justify this to the extent that has previously been presumed. Five critical observations are examined, namely (1) evidence of adverse impact in test outcomes; (2) the tendency to position cognitive ability testing early in selection processes in high-volume recruitment; (3) recent evidence challenging the meta-analytic validity of cognitive ability tests; (4) weaknesses in historical primary validity studies; (5) conceptually flawed examination of differential validity evidence in the literature. Implications for practice are discussed, contrasting strategies that involve modifying selection systems that include cognitive testing, versus removing and replacing cognitive tests.

中文翻译：

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对使用认知能力测试选择研究生和更高专业职业的批判性审查

本文对使用认知能力测试进入研究生和更高专业职业进行了批判性评论，以促进学术界和从业者界的进一步辩论和反思。主要论点是，在这些背景下应用认知能力测试的做法很可能会维持和加剧获得更高职业和专业的社会不平等，而有效性证据并没有像之前假设的那样证明这一点。检查了五个关键观察结果，即（1）对测试结果产生不利影响的证据；(2) 在大批量招聘的选拔过程中倾向于将认知能力测试置于早期；(3) 最近的证据对认知能力测试的荟萃分析有效性提出质疑；(4) 历史主要有效性研究的弱点；(5)文献中差异有效性证据的概念上存在缺陷。讨论了对实践的影响，对比了涉及修改包括认知测试在内的选择系统的策略与删除和替换认知测试的策略。