THE NEW EXAMINATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 190, 13 August 1928, Page 6

THE NEW EXAMINATION.

We are not surprised to learn from a country correspondent that he is amazed and rather bewildered to find that it is becoming a common practice to include in examination papers questions that can be answered by a simple "yes" or "no." Statements are put before the candidate, and he is invited to indicate whether he thinks them true or false. "The best New Zealand coal comes from Westport"; "Taranaki is an important sheep grazing province"; "wheat and oats are grown largely in North Auckland"—such are specimens of the questions criticised. We agree with "Country Teacher" that such questions can have no educational value, because the process of answering them is purely mechanical, and there is nothing in them to draw out the intelligence of the pupil or to induce him to use his mind as a whole. The utmost that answers to such questions can give is some vague indication of the candidate's memory-power or of his capacity for observation. But the limitation of the answer to two alternatives, positive and negative, reduces the whole test to a farce. For, as our correspondent points out, the most ignorant pupil, if he simply guesses, has always an even chance ol being right. Not long since an Auckland educational expert who is entirely sceptical of the value of such examinations answered such a paper set in a Southern centre by the primitive process of "tossing up"—heads for "yes,-' tails for "no"; and he passed with an average of about 70 per cent! We need hardly add that such methods of examination are based on the principle of the so-called "intelligence tests," and we ask for no more convincing proof of the essential worthlessness ana | absurdity of that system. - i