The History class is a better analogy. In some systems, moving from brown to black is like going from HS to college. The test for BB is akin to testing for entrance to college, so not quite like the testing for moving from one grade of HS to another. Does that make sense?Im really late with this reply, I've been a bit lazy but here goes. From my own observations, in most systems its common for a student who is of the ranks 3rd kyu-1st kyu to be wearing a brown belt of some sort. Some schools might differentiate between the three kyu ranks with stripes on the belt some schools might not, every school has their own system but often a student who is of those ranks is wearing a brown belt. Anyway, the way I see it is that a student who is of the ranks 3rd kyu-1st kyu is being groomed for 1st dan and this is especially true for a student who is 1st kyu. I certainly would not be in favor of reducing the standards for 1st dan or Shodan as its called (1st degree black belt) to do so would be to water down the rank and water down the art which is if you ask me going in the direction of the so called McDojo. As for increasing the standards for the 3rd kyu-1st kyu ranks, especially 1st kyu that sounds like a good idea. Especially since, as I said earlier in this post, a student who is within those ranks is being groomed for 1st dan.
The letter grade analogy of A vs B might not be the best analogy. My point was that there is a ten point difference between an A and a B, a ten point difference between a B and a C and so forth. A better analogy might be history classes. Lets say a student in high school or college is taking history classes. In their first year or first semester they would take History I, than after that they would take History II then History III and finally History IV. History IV is not necessarily any harder than History III, II or I, its just sequential.
Anyway its late to say this but it would still be nice to get a response from JR 137. He often says some very intelligent, insightful, and useful stuff.
When I was talking about changing levels, what I meant was that the big gap (like there actually is in the NGAA) between brown and black doesn't exist everywhere. In some places, they don't have as high an expectation of black belts - the belt just means something different there. In others, they have the same expectations of black belts, but higher standards for brown belts. In both cases, the gap (and, likely, the testing differences) between brown and black is less extreme.