THAT one will find a test difficult when one has not prepared adequately for it is a no-brainer. And a test will always be an agonizing exercise for the dense. So, it is not these cases about which I write.
Some examinations are notoriously difficult. Among these are the Bar examinations for lawyers, the Foreign Service Examination for career foreign service officers and diplomats, and the licensure examination for certified public accountants (CPA). Of these, two are not standardized: the Bar and the Foreign Service Examination — meaning that: the examiners are free to ask anything they please within the subject matter assigned them, to style their questions as they see fit, and to demand of the examinee the answer that meets not some objective criterion, but the examiner's inclinations. That more flunk the CPA test than the Bar does not prove that the former is the more difficult examination because those who sit for the CPA licensure test are graduates for four-year courses. Those who are bludgeoned by the Bar examination have been in tertiary education for eight years and one-half more for review! There is no doubt that the medical licensure examination is difficult. Medicine is not for the faint of heart. But Colleges of Medicine have evolved an excellent screening system that weeds out the unfit through the long and laborious years of the medical course — up to and until internship.
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