Diagnostic testing Questions

I was sharing college teaching stories with another instructor who also teaches a course similar to mine. She has her students do a three hour online diagnostic test and then the students do the grammar drills for each part that they did poorly on.  I was shocked  to hear that they spent three hours on the  diagnostic and then about 1/3 of each class on grammar drills and quizzes.  She shared her course outcomes with me and grammar in one of several items in only the first of  the seven outcomes.  When do our students spend more time  being tested rather than being instructed? When do we know so much about our students through diagnostic tests but do not have time to change how we teach them? When do our diagnostic tests not really measure our true goal such as writing? I took a grammar term practice test and missed a few questions although I considered myself a fairly good writer!

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