Word: exam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Britain's "eleven-plus exam," an IQ measurement plus tests in arithmetic and English composition, was set up in 1944 as the fairest way to channel children into state secondary schools geared to their abilities. But it has turned out to be the infamous instru ment that with dread finality determines whether a child aged 10½ to 11½ is to be high or low in Britain's totemistic society, whether he gets topflight pre-university training or a quick go at a lesser school...
This life-blighting system has anguished parents, embarrassed teachers and worried doctors, who find the young exam takers suffering from all sorts of mental and physical tensions. Eleven-plus is "the invention of the devil," says the Rev. Arthur Morton, director of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson argues that "a child's future should not be decided by how many butterflies are in the tummy one cold Saturday morning in February...
Bowing to the criticism, school officials have now abolished the exam in Essex, Leicestershire and Manchester. Last week the influential London County Council (1,300 schools, 425,000 pupils) carried on the trend by dropping the one-shot exam in favor of a wholechild "profile" compiled in primary school years. Results will place primary graduates in one of seven standardized ability groups. Parents will be allowed to "nominate" any two London secondary schools, although a child's profile will determine where he finally goes...
Harvard feels that 90 per cent of its law graduates should be able to pass any bar exam on the first...
...committee may decide to support a movement within the American Bar Association to create a national bar exam as the best solution to the problem. A national test would eliminate the state bar exams with their wide regional variations, and encourage law schools to drop highly specific courses in favor of more general ones...