What was going on when I was born?

ACONTINUING series of incidents involving defective questions on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and other admissions examinations has sparked debate among testmakers over how far they should go in correcting mistakes. In the past, when confronted with a defective test item, Educational Testing Service, which designs and administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test and other examinations, has corrected the question on future tests but made no effort to change the test scores of students who might have been misled by the erroneous questions. Two weeks ago the Graduate Record Examination Board, which recently discovered faulty items on two of its specialized tests, voted not to change any scores unless they made a difference of more than 10 points on a scale of 200 to 900. ''We continually tell colleges that it is dangerous to make judgments about students on the basis of 10-point differences,'' said Robert Altman, acting vice president for higher education programs of the testing service, which also administers the Graduate Record Examination. ''If we sent out corrections of this magnitude, it would contradict everything we have been telling them.''

The General Motors Corporation today reported a marginal first-quarter profit of $190.3 million, or 63 cents a share, which the nation's largest auto manufacturer attributed to costcutting rather than any improvement in car and truck sales. The net income for the quarter was up 23 percent from the $154.7 million, or 52 cents a share, earned in the first quarter of 1980. Sales totaled $15.72 billion, virtually the same as the $15.71 billion reported in the same period last year. Sales of cars and trucks in the period declined to 1.69 million units worldwide from 2.03 million, despite a rebate program in the United States that the company said improved auto sales in the final weeks of the quarter.

Democratic leaders in the House voiced serious doubts that they could muster sufficient votes to alter President Reagan's budget, while Republican leaders in the Senate said they had succeeded in bringing rebellious conservatives into line behind the Administration's spending plan. The developments enhanced the chances of Mr. Reagan's proposals passing Congress virtually intact. (Page A1.) Major collective bargaining agreements in the first quarter produced average wage increases of 9 percent in the first year of the new contracts, down from an average of 9.5 percent a year earlier, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. But the settlements involved no pattern-setting contracts. Productivity in private business rose 3.9 percent in the first quarter over last year's fourth quarter, the department reported. The increase in productivity, often considered a key factor in reducing inflation, was the biggest since 5.1 percent in the third quarter of 1977. (D1.)

State Senator William V. Musto and eight others, including three other Government officials and a reputed organized crime figure, were indicted here today by a Federal grand jury on charges of racketeering, extortion and fraud. The announcement was made by William W. Robertson, United States Attorney for New Jersey. Senator Musto, who is an influential Hudson County Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is charged with taking bribes and using his influence in connection with federally financed school construction projects in Union City, where he is Mayor.

CENTURIES after Galileo was condemned by the Vatican for holding views which were said to contradict the Bible, the spectacular case of the scientist versus the theologians still excites the curiosity and the emotions of historians of science. The name Galileo commonly symbolizes the wisdom of science against the foolishness of the Roman Catholic Church. He is seen as the martyr representing freedom while his accusers are portrayed as the cold authoritarians. But the picture is changing. A new debate over the causes and meaning of the 17th-century dispute was evident at a conference of science historians at the University of Wisconsin last week. Several views were expressed, sometimes heatedly, suggesting that Galileo had been an eccentric publicity seeker, driven by arrogance; that the church's response was not only defensible but inevitable, under rules even Galileo agreed should apply; that Galileo's condemnation had indeed been an atrocity, poisoning relations between faith and reason ever since.

The New York City Council approved extensive changes yesterday in a tax-abatement program that permits developers to claim benefits for rehabilitating multifamily housing or converting nonresidential buildings to residential use. But to the disappointment of a gallery crowded with residents of single-room-occupancy hotels and their supporters, the Council did not approve an amendment that would have eliminated the incentive throughout Manhattan, The program, known as J-51, provides two types of tax abatement. Under one, the taxes on a rehabilitated building are frozen for up to 20 years; under the other, a developer may subtract from the frozen tax up to 90 percent of the cost of rehabilitation. Scheduled to Run Until 1984 Enacted in 1955, the program was intended to induce landlords to rehabilitate cold-water flats and was scheduled to run until 1984. The Koch administration credits it with having created or upgraded 800,000 apartments in New York City.

that of Mount St. Helens - approaches, scientists have found a variety of clues that, they believe, pin down for the first time the rapid-fire sequence of events culminating in that deadly blast of flame-hot gas and ash. The clues involve precisely timed seismic records, including one cut short last May 18 when the blast destroyed an observing site six miles northeast of the mountain. Photographs taken from various angles and at different times during the eruption, some of them by visitors who had illegally penetrated the danger area (and survived) have been assembled. Using such pictures an avalanche specialist has mathematically run avalanches ''backwards'' up the mountain to determine their time of origin. From these clues scientists have deduced that the triggering event on May 18 was a fairly severe earthquake (magnitude 5) that dislodged a gigantic bulge, formed in recent weeks on the mountain's north side. In the largest landslides ever recorded by American geologists, this bulge slipped down the mountain like a vast sliding door.

Wage increases reached in major collective bargaining moderated in the first quarter and worker productivity improved substantially, the Labor Department reported today. But Government and business experts warned that the improvement might be short-lived. If both these trends were to continue, they would be likely to relieve inflationary pressures, but experts from the Labor Department and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service said that wages were likely to rise in the second quarter and productivity to decline. Major collective bargaining settlements in the first three months of 1981 produced average wage increases of 9 percent in the first year of the new contracts compared with average first-year increases of 9.5 percent in 1980 settlements, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

An article in Business Day last Thursday incorrectly reported first-quarter income from refining and marketing operations for the Standard Oil Company (Ohio). Sohio earned $48.2 million from those operations in the quarter.

A prosecutor at the opening of the murder trial of Craig S. Crimmins said yesterday that Mr. Crimmins had told the police that he tried to rape a violinist at the Metropolitan Opera House last summer and that he then bound and gagged her, cut her clothing from her body and kicked her from a sixth-floor roof onto a steel beam three floors below. The prosecutor said that Mr. Crimmins, a 22-year-old former stagehand at the opera house, had told the police this happened after a chance encounter with the violinst, Helen Hagnes Mintiks, on a backstage elevator, during which Miss Hagnes slapped him. The description by Assistant District Attorney Roger S. Hayes during his opening statement to the jury in State Supreme Court provided the first official details of what Mr. Crimmins is said to have confessed to the police prior to his formal booking on the morning of Aug. 30. All along, the defense lawyers have contended that detectives used ''psychological threats'' to force their client to make the incriminating statements.

Visa USA is planning to offer commercial banks across the country the opportunity to offer their customers money market mutual funds, a top Visa executive said yesterday. In a letter to senior executives of the 1,200 banks that issue Visa credit cards, Charles T. Russell, president of Visa USA, said the purpose of the money market fund program was to help banks compete against financial conglomerates. The letter specifically cited the proposed acquisition of Shearson Loeb Rhoades Inc., the nation's second-largest securities firm, by the American Express Company. Many securities firms sponsor money market mutual funds, and the proposed acquisition would enable American Express, a Visa competitor, to enter the business.

The Center for the Study of American Business has often been a target of ridicule since its founding six years ago at Washington University here. Some faculty members have questioned the center's objectivity, and a cartoonist has pictured it as an exuberant cheerleader for business with skimpy garb and pompons. But the snickers have subsided. Since its founding director, Murray L. Weidenbaum, became chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, the center has found its stature increasing and its advice more widely sought.