Issues involved in high stakes testing are reviewed, with emphasis on the proper role of instructional preparation. The recent focus on educational accountability has increased pressure to raise test scores. One way of improving test scores is to teach what is on the test. The following guidelines concerning appropriate instructional strategies are presented: (1) a teacher should not engage in instruction that attenuates the ability to infer from the test score to the domain of knowledge/skill/ability of interest; (2) it is appropriate to teach the content domain to which the user wishes to infer; (3) it is appropriate to teach test-taking skills; (4) it is inappropriate to limit content instruction to a particular test item format; (5) it is inappropriate to teach only objectives from the domain that are sampled on the test; (6) it is inappropriate to use an instructional guide that reviews the questions of the latest issue of the test; (7) it is inappropriate to limit instruction to the actual test questions; (8) it is appropriate to teach toward test objectives if the test objective comprise the domain objectives; (9) it is appropriate to ensure that students understand the test vocabulary; and (10) one cannot teach only the specific task of a performance assessment. Grey areas and tangential issues in test preparation are discussed. (SLD)