Volume 46, Number 18 · November 18, 1999
The Twisted Path to the Top
By Alan Ryan
The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy
by Nicholas Lemann
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 406 pp., $27.00
Nicholas Lemann's engrossing history of the infamous SAT—once known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, but now known only by its initials—raises a lot of questions to which none of us have very convincing answers. The Big Test begins with the bizarre tale of how the Educational Testing Service, a private company based on the outskirts of Princeton, a company with no official (that is to say, with no governmental) backing, came to determine which American students get into the best universities and colleges, and therefore who gets the most attractive jobs. Since its heyday in the 1950s, and with almost no public discussion, ETS has laid down a system that dictates the way high school students estimate their success, encourages the public to think of some ethnic groups as successes and others as failures, and imposes extraordinary social burdens on higher education. It is no small achievement for a not-for-profit company. Whether it is one to admire is another matter.
Review, 5357 words
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