[IPAC-List] Threatening a Penalty for Guessing

[Mark Hammer]

Silly question. perhaps, but - historically -  when did the custom of deducting incorrect answers from correct emerge?  And does anyone know what the motivation behind it was?  Was the intention to discourage guessing or was it perhaps to distribute scores a little differently (change in skew or kurtosis?)?  Is it the sort of thing that was intended to apply to immense speed tests like the GRE, or did substantially shorter tests employ it too?

I'm somewhat perplexed here, because I have personally never seen any test where the pass-mark was set just above chance.  I.E., if you're guessing, you're screwed anyway.

Mark Hammer
Ottawa