Khaniya 1990; Wall and Alderson 1993; and Alderson and Hamp-Lyons 1996, among others). Washback, a term popular in British applied linguistics and commonly referred to as backwash in the field of general education, may be understood as the influence that a test has on teaching and learning. The “Washback Hypothesis”, as explained by Alderson and Wall, assumes that “teachers and learners do things they would not necessarily otherwise do because of the test” (1993:117).