One difficulty in testing conversation ability, especially at higher levels, is deciding what information students should be responsible for. Even with a common subject, such as vacations, we can not assume that all students will be able to talk about their vacations simply because they all have had vacations. The student who has just returned from a one week cycle tour around Hokkaido will probably have more to say than the student who has stayed at home during the same week. Although there are subjects that we can reasonably assume students can discuss, these are usually so generic that only the best students can make them into something interesting. Avoiding this problem by giving students topics in advance can often lead to recitations that have less to do with conversational ability and more to do with memorization skills.