As strange a move as this may seem outside of India, the culture’s huge focus on competitive exams means this is: 1. A very cheap way for them to build trust with a whole generation at a time. 2. A good way to leverage their brand and distribution to provide an accurate measure that a lot of these students need in order to improve.
1a - build trust specifically with IIT aspirants who, even if they don't get into IIT, will hold amazon in high regard and consider amazon for employment down the line. 3. get data / insight / early access to top level test takers and build a recruiting funnel before these students start college.
When I worked for Sybase there was following brain drain pipeline from India office:
* Hire a bunch of people.
* Move brightest and hardest working to U.S. on H1B.
* Use that PR to hire a bunch more people in India.