Only men bake cookies in school textbooks. What do dinosaurs, mountains, deserts, brave boys, shy girls, men fixing roofs, women baking cookies, elderly people in wheelchairs, athletic African Americans, God, heathens, witches, owls, birthday cake and religious fanatics all have in common? Trick question? Not really. As we learn from Diane Ravitch's eye-opening book "The Language Police," all of the above share the common fate of having been banned from the textbooks or test questions (or both) being used in today's schools.
posted by dagny on May 2, 2003 - 41 comments

So you think your good on the pull? Give this little test a whirl and find out exactly how good you are or think you are.
posted by johnnyboy on Jul 26, 2002 - 45 comments

Gifted elementary kids in California could go straight to college. Students of any age, even kindergarten, could demand to take the state's high school proficiency examination under legislation approved recently by the Assembly. Passage of the test -- which measures reading, writing and arithmetic skills -- would qualify young students to enter community colleges as if they had obtained their high school diplomas.

Academically, these kids may be ready for college, but are they mature enough to handle being surrounded by students six to ten years their senior?
posted by DakotaPaul on Jun 20, 2002 - 42 comments

Good news for Lithuanian girls: ob-gyn tests no longer required in order to get a driver's license. Because, after all, an equivalent test isn't required for Lithuanian men.
posted by Badmichelle on May 21, 2002 - 4 comments

Are you a knowledgable negotiator? Another web test, this time courtesy the Consensus Building Institute, Inc. I got a 5 because I'm a sucker. How good are you at the wheelin and the dealin?
posted by andnbsp on Mar 25, 2002 - 23 comments

Like tarot or astrology in that it's a tool for introspection, only without the occult trappings. Kinda fun to play with, though. Or maybe not. (Warning: annoying The Weakest Linkesque music.)
posted by alumshubby on Mar 5, 2002 - 20 comments

Have you ever wondered about your sexuality? If you're like me, no. But, you might want to mosey over here and check on it anyway. Who knows what happened to it since the last time you looked? This quiz attempts to guess your sexuality based on the answers you give to multiple choice questions. There's a AI program behind it that grows more intelligent as more people take the quiz.
posted by RustyBrooks on Aug 29, 2001 - 54 comments

Should Teachers be Tested? In Ontario there is a power struggle between the provincial government and the teachers union over whether teachers should be subjected to testing to ensure they are current on their subject knowledge. Personally, I have enjoyed every ironic complaint of the teachers that testing is unfair. It seems to me that they are failing the test before even taking it when they implicitly claim that testing is good for the students but bad for them. What do you think?
posted by srboisvert on Aug 25, 2001 - 15 comments

warning! too much testing is hazardous to your health! is it just me, or is this silly?
posted by fuzzygeek on Apr 26, 2001 - 30 comments

Are you a woman or a man? No fair peeking. (As silly as it is, it guessed me correctly.)
posted by Steven Den Beste on Feb 24, 2001 - 75 comments