Education: Report Card

¶Promptly at 9 a.m. local time one day last week, 60,000 high-school seniors trooped into classrooms all over the U.S., Alaska and Hawaii, took up special black electrographic pencils, and addressed themselves to answering 115 questions. Sample: "In a certain factory the rate of absenteeism for the 60 male employees is 10%, and the rate for the 45 female employees is 337%. What is the rate of absenteeism for the factory as a whole?" Two hours later, the 60,000 went home to await word as to whether they had passed the first hurdle towards a National Merit Scholarship (TIME, Sept. 12)....

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