ABSTRACT
Since we have all been to school, we have taken all kinds of tests, often without knowing why. Tests are as much a part of the framework of schooling as desks, books, and teachers. When Hugh was a child, intelligence tests were used in English state schools to sort children according to their abilities. By the time a child was 11, it had been decided by examination whether s/he would go to a grammar, technical, or modern school. Then, of course, children were sorted again as teenagers because those in the grammar schools competed seriously for positions in the top universities. Other children, like Hugh, who went to boarding schools, competed for acceptance into the most prestigious boarding schools. When Pamela applied to Ph.D. programs in the United States, the first question asked of her in every interview at every university (sometimes before asking her name) was: “So what did you get on the Graduate Record Exams?” For Hugh, tests were mainly comprehensive. He doesn’t recall ever taking a multiple-choice bubble test. Pamela rarely sat examinations of any other type.
