Making a Grade

Making a Grade looks at how standardized testing practices quietly appeared and then spread worldwide.

The book situates mass exams, marks, and credentials in an emerging paper-based meritocracy, arguing that such exams often first appeared as cameras to neutrally record achievement, and then became engines to change education as people tailored their behaviour to fit these tests.

Taking the perspectives of both examiners and examinees, Making a Grade claims that our own culture’s desire for accountability through objective testing has a long history.