Scantron

The Scantron Corporation is a subsidary of The John H. Harland Company in Atlanta, GA. Their headquarters is in Tustin, CA. They've been operating for twenty-eight years. What do they do; what is their function? They invent, produce, and market scantron sheets. If you're taking a multiple choice test in an American high school, odds are high that you're using a Scantron Corporation product. Scantron Corporation has about four thousand contracted customers; they're annual revenue exceeds $97 million.

For all the Scantron information you ever wanted, visit:
www.scantron.com

To find out if scantron tests are necessary, see The Insanity of the ScanTron.

Scantron sheets are primarily used by the public school system, including public colleges and universities, as well as ETS and the AP board. When the guide at your orientation to the public university you're going to attend talks about "scantrons" and you've attended private institutions all your life, just smile and nod.

I, and probably many other people, would do a lot better in life if scantron was used beyond big state colleges and into real life.

Imagine your work days, finishing the scantron test in about 30% of the alloted time, getting paid in the 99th percentile as per your score, and being back home by 1pm....

As a bonus, no one would do worse than 20% of perfect, which anyone could attain by random choice.

Then, of course, there would be the smart/stupid people, who would get a score lower than what you would get by chance, because they had all the answers correct, but put the answer for question 2 on row 1, and so on...

This happens because people design tests, and don't like to repeat letters for correct answers. So if you transpose answers by one, you are likely to score less than 20% (assuming standard A-E scantron forms.)