PArticularly to the fresher

In all seriousness, all my aptitude tests said the best I could hope for was to be an idiot. Career testing showed I should resolve myself to being a general laborer doing mindless, tedious, repetitive work.

20 years later I'm a (thus far) sucessful engineer. I define sucessful as being steadily employed and having never knowingly killed anyone. At least not accidentally.

I'll leave it to you to decide whether the test results were wrong or eerily predictive.

very much essential?

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is essential. All it does is filter out those who, in the institution's opinion, are not qualified to enter their hallowed gates. It's also a way to keep the school population down to a manageable level. Of course, if you want to keep the population low, you'd want the best students to get in. So, you devise a test to find those lucky few.

Is it unfair? Perhaps. I happened to study in one of those institutions. I was good enough to get in. It made me feel proud and the teachers and school officials made sure that I would measure up to the school's standards. It gave the students a certain "air" that distinguishes them from other institutions.

One of those who didn't get in was a neighbor. He was really downcast when he didn't make it. For him, the school he eventually transferred to was not even half as good. He became a bum, cutting classes, bribing his teachers to get passing grades, generally became one of those people who "never made it".

In my opinion, he made himself. He didn't get into the school he wanted. He saw himself as "not good enough" and lived his life fulfilling it. He did it to himself.

In the ideal world, the test would only serve to determine what you needed to learn and the system would take you in anyway. They'd teach you what you lacked while those who scored higher would learn the higher things. Unfortunately, most schools don't do it that way and they can't handle everyone who wants to come in.

That's the reality of it.