I bought a Whirlpool electric dryer that has a plug that won't fit the 220 receptacle in the wall. I bought a receptacle that fits the plug of the Whirlpool dryer, but want to make sure that I am doing it correctly. Can you advise what to avoid and how to test this circuit?

The new outlet has 4 wires and the wall wiring should match. Red, Black, White and ground. Terminals are marked and the dryer installations should show the connections. In the older 3 wire configuration, ground and neutral were connected, in the new configuration they are separate.

Look in these and find your dryer, or find one that is close: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...l%20Dryers.zip
There are 3 and 4 wire plugs for appliances. The 3-prong plug has one ground and the 4-prong plug has 2 grounds, or actually a neutral and a ground on some. The neutral is white and the green is ground. They usually go to the same place on the dryer, but with the 3-wire plug you will have a jumper on the terminal block. Just make sure you get the hot wires on the correct terminals. They are black and red, normally.