摘要：The specialization and complexity of contemporary society have imposed upon it an unceasing need to classify and qualify its members for all sorts of tasks. As a consequence, we are currently in a state of "quizomania" which promises to rival the ritualism and stylization of the elaborate examination system of Mandarin China. In that complicated era, the aspiring civil servant was subjected to a rigorous set of exercises in Confucian orthodoxy which precisely and irrevocably assigned him a position in the world. Today's examinations have effects less direct but perhaps no less profound.
