Robert P. Craig St. Mary's College Orchard Lake, Michigan Immanuel Kant contended that though we may imagine a world without things, as, for example, a room without furniture, it is impossible to imagine a world without time and space. They are the "givens" of our experience. To most of us who have attended schools, testing and grading are not unlike time and space-a set of unquestioned and unquestionable assumptions that give meaning to the educational experience. In recent years, it is true, testing and grading practices have been subjected to some criticism, and a number of reforms have been proposed. A few critics-Sidney Simon, for one-have even advocated the total abolition of tests or grades, but they are usually regarded as visionaries, if not crackpots. For the general public, schools without tests and grades remain as inconceivable as schools without teachers, books, pencils, and paper. An examination of the system of testing and grading requires first a look at the representational quality of test results and grades. Representations are, by definition, at least once removed from the truth. Hence, test results and grades cannot be fully descriptive. Though necessarily fallible, they still may be reasonably accurate and, therefore, useful. The questions that need asking are: How closely are test scores and grades related to actuality-to what they purport to measure? How much do they reveal, for instance, about a student's knowledge or values or interests? How well do they measure learning potential? How precisely do they predict job performance?