when instruction is narrowly focused on specific knowledge skills and question formats test results become an increasingly misleading measure of student achievement hout and elliott this problem is often exacerbated when teachers perceive tests as high stakes as a result of incentive systems it can also be caused inadvertently if tests are not updated frequently for example in sweden the year standardised test is used over successive years and teachers may inadvertently teach to the test in the second year leading to score inflation and reducing the validity of the results nusche forthcoming in denmark teaching to the test takes the form of increased focus on tested content areas and reduced focus on creative innovative and oral skills wandall cited in shewbridge et al