ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the mechanics of examining, the ways and means of questioning, answering and marking. However, it is helpful in an analysis of techniques to consider each separately, with the exception of answers and marking which are so closely related that they are best considered together. The techniques of mass examining, which have been the main burden of this chapter, have almost reached their limit, certainly in written and oral examining. The principle appears simple and obvious; the practice, however, is beset with many problems. It is all very well to invite diverse answers, and even to promise to give some regard to perverse answers provided that they show originality and imagination; but examining, at least as far as the general public is concerned, is supposed to be an exact science; and exactness declines greatly in these permissive circumstances.
