Several years ago at an international conference I was at a table with some
distinguished members of the British educational establishment. They were
explaining to me how the university entrance testing system worked, in
which students had to undergo a marathon testing period of two or more
consecutive days duration, taking advanced level tests in several subjects.
In the discussion it came out that if a student failed one of the tests,
s/he had to take ALL the tests over again in another marathon. I asked why
not just let the student re-take the one test ... their horrified reaction
was 'if we let them do that, then _anyone_ could pass!'
I felt rather foolish for having briefly forgotten the primary function of
testing. As Ken says, it doesn't matter what makes the test tough.
JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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