ABSTRACT
In the design of an examination, setting out the objectives is a relatively easy matter and there is no lack of examples, although rather surprisingly the present custom of prescribing objectives in a formal way is comparatively recent in public examinations. Present practice is to express the performance required of students only in terms of subject-matter, but in terms of generalized abilities, usually mental ones. The attractions of these models, in which examination objectives are set out in a hierarchy of generalized behaviours. The danger of undue reliance on Bloom’s work, or any model of intellectual processes for that matter, is that however effective it is as an analytical tool, it is a good deal less effective as a basis for the design of curricula and their related examinations. The implication is that schools should be concerned with much wider human attributes than purely intellectual ones.
