The Big Test
Catalogued August 31, 2026
The Work
Drew's Copy
Acquisition & Provenance
Place in My Physical Library
The book is kept as a history of standardized testing, the institutions that shaped it, and its role in constructing the modern American idea of meritocracy.About This Copy
This is the 1999 first edition hardcover published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A former owner wrote the date October 18, 1999, along with Borders and SH Mall, on the front free endpaper.Memories & Connections
Awhile back there was a scandal about how a high number of celebrities were bypassing the testing standards required to get their kids into ivy league schools. Turns out there were known paths set aside for students with poor grades and test scores which involved sports scholarships and what not. I do not recall the specifics.
Anyways, during that cultural discussion about Meritocracy I had heard Dr. E Michael Jones refer to this book about how another cultural minority group had traditionally gotten their kids into the best schools. He made the point that while the public was told the reason for proportionately higher percentages in Ivy Leagues was because of genetically higher IQ rates when in fact it was just tribal cheating on the standardized tests. Anyways, E Michael Jones said that this book documented that scandal.
Lemann traces the people, institutions, and political ideas behind standardized testing in twentieth-century America. The book follows the development of the Educational Testing Service and examines how testing reshaped access to elite education and the composition of the country’s professional class.
