What's your I[CT]Q?

The Educational Testing Service (ETS), the very same people who bring us the SAT, GRE, and other scourges of educational existence, has taken a page from Steve Jobs' book iPod Shuffle book.

Out of nowhere - not even whole cloth - they've created a need, and they know just how to fill it.

Now available, at a testing center near you - in fact, it was just released last week - is the new Information and Communications Technology Test (ICT).

Basically, it's to see if you can use a computer.

All tricked-out, no doubt, with the usual Type K questions and suchlike.

It's meant to be used, at least initially, by colleges, who are supposed to give the Web-based exam in classrooms or instruction labs, with students logging on with access codes purchased by their schools.

The test costs colleges $25 a student, discounted to $20 if they sign up during the first testing period, which ends March 31.

Teresa Egan, the project manager, said in a January 17 New York Times article that "the test is fun."

Tom Zeller, Jr., who wrote the story, then asked her if she'd taken it.

"What a cruel question," Egan responded.

Yeah.

Here's the story.