Number of words: 132

From the time in 1897 when Rice devised his spelling test, there has been popular antipathy towards IQ tests which seems strange for something that claims to be scientific and whose purpose is to provide information about the inherent capacities of a person and therefore an indication how we will fare in his later academic work.

What is often forgotten is that these tests have had their origin in the rationalisation of a process carried out by good teachers. The only difference is that whereas the teacher makes recurring intuitive judgements, the IQ test can be carried out only at intervals. Another difference is that whereas the teacher’s judgement throughout must remain subjective, the IQ test claims to be objective.

Excerpted from pages 71-72 of ‘Examinations: An Informative Update’ by M Mascarenhas.