ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors present some statistical concepts to which reference is frequently made in the literature dealing with examinations and tests. When we are dealing with a set of marks or trying to interpret the evidence that it discloses it is important not only to secure a measure of central tendency but also to discover the spread or variability of the marks. Teachers are not expected to become statisticians in their own right, but there is an increasing need for them to gain some insight into the ways in which statistical techniques can help to improve the art of examining. If a teacher is able to estimate the means and standard deviations of sets of marks and to determine the shape of their distribution, he is equipped to carry out most of the basic operations involved in comparing and combining them.
