Abstract

LACK light on exams Edgar Stones University of Liverpool Iris Murdoch's comment on the comprehensives sets the level of argument that charac- terizes black paper punditry: ' I am not an opponent of comprehensive schools as such, unless they are by definition non-selective.' Hans Eysenck is not against uniformity in schooling as long as it accords with his concept of 'biological reality'. Brian Cox thinks that all examinations should be constantly scrutinized as long as their basic premises are left unchallenged. He need have no fear. Currently there is little if any serious challenge to the basic tenets of testing and examining. Even in the progressive schools that seem to proliferate more in the imagination of the Blacks than in the real educational world, teachers are constantly making use of test instruments designed for generations of children long since gone, according to psychometric principles increasingly open to challenge. For example graded word reading tests like the 'tree, little, milk test' are at least as familiar to junior children as the graded letter eye-sight test. Such criticisms as there are of exams rarely concern themselves with the basic premises, and in my view are therefore often not radical enough rather