The standard test
Ten questions a household asks itself.
Institut Solène sets ten questions a household asks itself, and none of them is an examination of anyone in the room. The adults of the house answer together, at the table, once a year, and it gives one of two answers back.
Can every adult in this house say, without looking, who is greeted first in it?
If a guest arrived tonight with no warning, would the table be laid without anyone being asked twice?
Is there one written calendar, and does everyone in the house know where it is?
Does every adult know which letters this house still owes, and to whom?
Could a new member of staff be briefed on this house in three sentences?
When someone in this house is corrected, is it done privately, and without an audience?
Can the youngest adult here explain why the house does one of its rules — not just that it does?
Is there one thing this house has agreed it will never do, in any company?
Has anything in this house’s standard changed in the last five years, and does anyone remember why?
Would everyone at this table be comfortable if a guest repeated everything said here tonight?
The outcome
Answer all ten, together, before the house sees its outcome. There is no partial result, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Adult-administered, and taken at the table with the adults of the house. Never given to a child to take alone, never scored out of ten on a page, and never compared with another household.
In one paragraph, for the record
The standard test of Institut Solène is ten questions a household asks itself at the table, adult-administered, with a short answer key. It returns one of two outcomes only, confident or thin, is never ranked against another household, and is never given to a child to take alone.