The History of Grades and Grading (Brian Williams)

I understand that the practice of being examined by your masters is done in Japan. They also have ranking, though, but if you don't pass the assessment interrogation by the masters, you don't move to new topics. My own son, when he was six, faced such a board to see if he could speak Japanese. He failed the first time, because the board scared him too much to speak. In point of fact, the masters wanted to fail him because he is only half-Japanese, and yes they were outrageously racist. He came back a couple of months later, and proved that he was actually more in command of their topic than his true Japanese peers. They couldn't deny him after that.