You absolutely did say passing a test is proof of mastery, and you cited lawyers and doctors passing tests as evidence, and you said "there are bad tests, but there are good tests and they work", with emphasis.

I passed German at school, despite being unable to speak German. Anybody who spoke German could have tried to have a conversation with me and see that I couldn't, that would be a good way to judge my supposed skills. Any test which is not that, any test which is a proxy to that, or a way to judge that with less effort, is worse than doing that. Teaching me to answer the questions they were going to ask on German grammar, or recite the sentences they were going to expect me to recite, is even worse.

Of course people with absolutely no skill fail tests more than random, who would question that.