It was at last accepted that, as a matter of quite elementary justice, neither man nor child should be judged stupid until he was proved to be. The presumption was always of cleverness. So at any age any person became entitled, more than entitled, encouraged to apply every five years for re-test at a Regional Centre for Adult Education, and if his hopes were realized then justice was invariably done. The copy of his National Intelligence card at H.Q. was destroyed, and a new card susbtituted containing the re-test score, so that no employer (or fiancée) who applied in the ordinary way for his I.Q. and aptitude scores would ever know about the lowlier status he once had. It was also decided in the Courts that there was no obligation to put anything more than his current I.Q. in his "Who's Who" entry. A successful re-test was quite genuinely a fresh start.
Michael Young, The Rise of the Meritocracy.
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