Maybe there's not much you can do with such simple subject matter, but I still feel the tests are still sorely lacking.
It appears designed to be relatively easy for good students.
It is often the case that "good students" are merely people who follow instructions, not necessarily people who are truly intelligent. I'll agree that the tests would be easy for people who actually understand the material, but that's not the problem; the problem is that many people can pass such tests by only memorizing facts. Of course, I don't think that memorization is always a bad thing (as some things need to be memorized), but the way we're having students in the public school system memorize material, rather than have them understand it, is seriously disappointing.
It seems to get worse and worse as the subject matter gets more complicated.
It's an non-ideal test for a non-ideal system
Of course.
Tests like these exist because there is a demand for "accountability" through quantitative and behavioral performance metrics. Their scale and desired uniformity require simple multiple choice exams, which in turn must test many small, concrete problems in using some common vocabulary.
NCLB only made this problem even worse. As I see it, our public school system has had these same problems (one-size-fits-all education, rote memorization, ridiculous testing, etc.) for a very long time.
Well, I agree with you that the problem is certainly not going to get better if we keep cutting funding like we are.