Number of words: 182

The portrayal of grading as a bell shaped curve is an incident of stratification by educationists and psychologists of a predetermined system that they want implemented universally. It is an equation with the physical sciences, to draw principles which are considered objective and always true. Yet how can such an equation correlate with human conduct, achievement and aspirations incapable of measurement. The IQ test, by borrowing from measurement in the physical sciences, test skills are instruments for measuring unvarying dimensions, when applied to the behaviour of people expect constancy and concreteness to apply here as well. This can be dangerous because this very constancy has reduced the mass media, teachers and parents into believing them objectively true, and believed as such by educators and psychologists. But human beings are far more complex and unpredictable, so that scientific methodology is incapable of teaching us more about human behaviour. Remember Benet’s caustic comment:  You can weigh John Brown’s body well enough but how and in what balance can you weigh John Brown?

Excerpted from page 82 of ‘Examinations: An Informative Update’ by M Mascarenhas.