Maryville College
Information Literacy Competency Inventory (Pretest)—2001/2002
Gender:
According to the American
Library Association, information literacy is “a set of abilities requiring individuals
to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate,
evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.” At Maryville College, information literacy
skills are incorporated across the curriculum.
This pretest is designed as a starting point to measure competencies set
forth by the Association of College and Research Libraries. THIS PRETEST WILL NOT BE GRADED. It will be used to identify areas in the
curriculum that need further development.
Circle the letter to the response that best answers the following. There is only one correct answer for each question.
1. Which of the following is a characteristic of scholarly journals?
a.
contains glossy
pictures and advertisements
b.
reports news events in
a timely manner
c.
contains a literature
review within the articles
d.
provides an author’s
opinion about a controversial event
2. Which of the following titles would be considered the title of a popular magazine?
a.
Journal of Higher
Education
b.
Newsweek
c.
Economic Review
d.
American Journal of Political
Science
3. Which of the following is a primary source?
a.
a literary text, such
as The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne
b.
books written
about The Scarlet Letter
c.
journal articles
written about The Scarlet Letter
d.
dissertations written
about The Scarlet Letter
4. Conducting
a survey would be an example of?
a.
independent research
b.
secondary research
c.
primary research
d.
historical research
5. Which of the following contains an example of truncation?
a.
dogs and kittens
b.
dogs or cat
c.
kitt* and dogs
d.
cat not kitt
6. Which of the following contains a Boolean operator?
a.
cars into trucks
b.
cars and trucks
c.
cars before truck
d.
cars behind trucks
7. When using a library’s online catalog for finding books, a
subject search on John Grisham would find?
a.
magazine articles
written by the author
b.
books written about the
author and his works
c.
newspaper and magazine
articles about the author and his works
d.
books written by the
author
8. To find books written by Margaret Mead, you would use a library’s online catalog to do a/an:
a.
title search
b.
author search
c.
subject search
d.
performance search
9. The following….
Adams,
Margot. “Eudora Welty: Southern
Woman.” Southern Voices:
An Anthology. Ed. Tamara Kingsley. New
York: Random House,
1998. 35 – 41.
is
a bibliographic citation for a:
a.
journal article
b.
personal interview
c.
world wide web site
d.
book chapter
10. The following….
Mathews,
Lawrence. “Urban Development and Growth.”
American
Spectator. May 1998:
23 – 30.
is
a bibliographic citation for a:
a.
book
b.
subject encyclopedia
c.
journal article
d.
world wide web site
11. A bibliographic citation for a World Wide Web site should contain:
a.
information about
external links
b.
the date the site was
accessed
c.
members of the
organization
d.
contact information
12. Which of the following best represents a
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)?
a.
http://www.millennium2000.org/events/
b.
658.009 L653d
d.
HG 7402.3 L8555
13. Which of the following is an important criterion that you should use to evaluate information found on a web site?
a.
file size
b.
authority
c.
location
d.
bandwidth
14. If you are writing a paper on animal rights and you use information from a web site produced by PETA—the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which web site evaluation criterion should you consider?
a.
location
b.
bias
c.
currency
d.
links
15. To find peer-reviewed or refereed information on a topic of interest, you would most likely look for:
a.
websites on your topic
b.
personal interviews
with experts on your topic
c.
journal articles on
your topic
d.
newspaper articles on
your topic
16. Which of the following is the name of a periodical database?
a.
InfoTrac
b.
Yahoo
c.
Alta Vista
d.
Lycos
17. Which of the following is the name of an Internet Search Engine?
a.
Lexis-Nexis Universe
b.
JSTOR
d.
Google
18. Periodical databases will lead you to:
a.
books about people,
places and events
b.
magazine and journal
articles
c.
web sites containing
magazine and/or book articles
d.
reference books on a
specific subject
19. Not giving
proper acknowledgement for another writer’s work, thought, or argument is known
as:
a.
originalism
b.
citation
c.
referencing
d.
plagiarism
20. If you collect images from the Word Wide Web and then compile these images into a web site, paper, or display for a class project, gained permission from the owner to use these images and have given proper credit to the author, you have:
a.
committed plagiarism
b.
destroyed intellectual
content
c.
complied with
copyright law
d.
compromised
intellectual property