India, July 15 -- Every February, as board exams approach, a familiar ritual grips Indian households. Timetables go up on bedroom walls, coaching schedules tighten, and a single number - the aggregate score - comes to stand in for a child's worth, ability and future. We have built one of the most examination-intensive school cultures in the world. The uncomfortable question is whether it produces what we think it does. Are we raising young people who can learn, or young people who are merely good at being tested?

These are not the same thing, and the distinction matters more than we admit. In a widely cited review, cognitive scientists Nicholas Soderstrom and Robert Bjork drew a sharp line between performance and learning: How a student ...