He wrote textbooks for arithmetic, vocabulary, and spelling that were all standardized around the average student of a particular age, a practice still used in our school systems today. He designed entrance exams for private schools and elite colleges; he even fashioned an entrance exam for law school.39 Thorndike’s ideas gave birth to the notion of gifted students, honors students, special needs students, and educational tracks. He supported the use of grades as a convenient metric for ranking students’ overall talent and believed that colleges should admit those students with the best GPAs
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