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"I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Machine Test Scoring | ||
| A device that scans a specially prepared grade sheet and determines a student's score. |
In the story, Margie has a mechanical teacher in her house, like every child old enough to need schooling. She must present homework in a particular form so the machine can read it and grade her work.
| The part Margie hated the most was the slot where she had to put homework and test papers. She always had to write them out in a punch code they made her learn when she was six years old, and the mechanical teacher calculated the mark in no time. |
| Technovelgy from The Fun They Had,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Children's Magazine in 1951 Additional resources -
|
Punch cards or tape have been in use for a long time; the Hollerith 1890 census tabulator is a famous example. Most students today are familiar with the Scantron system, which combines machine-readable test papers with a reader/tabulator. I don't know how old mechanical test grading is.
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'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
