ABSTRACT
This is a chapter of contradiction. It is commonly assumed that if we are defining the able in a school as the top ten per cent of the ability range then these pupils should stand out and be glaringly obvious to us. However, there are a number of paradoxes that confront us which make this job harder:
1. The tighter we try to define the ways in which able pupils can be defined, the more unsatisfactory the definition becomes.
