When I was 8 I began to notice tests. Before then I remember some arithmetic drills, but I’m not sure they were administered by a teacher; I seem to recall columns of numbers that Mom gave me to add and subtract and keep me out of her hair in the afternoons. It was when I was almost 9 and undergoing the beginning of third grade that I was first seriously examined.

I was removed from class and seated in the principal’s outer office. I was given standardized tests to complete. I was moved up a grade.

It started happening more often. Once a year the school made us take achievement tests. Once a month a teacher gave us exams. Once a week we had quizzes.

In junior high I was tested some more. It occurred now and then in upper grades too, and finally even at UC, among psych students trying to develop a less biased set of questions.

I never got it. I never saw the tests as a way to measure intelligence or personality. I understood we were being asked to demonstrate our ability to remember and regurgitate. I was usually more interested in quibbling with the questions than in selecting answers.

I’m older now but still I see tests. Not only are students measured but there are many personality-typing routines. One can be sorted astrologically, phrenologically, into introvert or extrovert or some number from 1 to 9. There are a hundred ways to do it.

For what?

The only purpose I can see is to be able to generalize about people and categorize them and maybe manipulate them. If you know a person is an intuitive introvert, then you will … what? And how is that better than treating that individual for his expressed merits and flaws?

Recently I answered the questions on a Facebook autism test. I read the average number was 16.4 and some folks with real diagnosis score like 32. I got 28. But give me a break. The first question was something like: I prefer to do things with others, and I got to express agreement or disagreement. I couldn’t honestly pick. The fact is I always prefer to do things with others, except I usually don’t prefer to do. I love to read alone, play solitaire alone, work alone. When it comes to actual doing, like leaving the house or the office and visiting somewhere, then I always want company. I can’t fairly answer the question. Oh, I know what the creator seeks: if I say alone, I’m more on the autistic end of the spectrum. But asking that way won’t yield wisdom.