Re: Would like to find study group for computer science comprehensive exams.

In article <5o4gmfFkuvvhU2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jamie Andrews; real address @ bottom of message <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If you would prefer an open-book test, you may not have
seen the creative ways in which students use the blank spaces in
a textbook... even at the graduate level.

My experience is that students claim that they would prefer
an open-book exam until they experience one, and discover that the
consequence is that the exam is *much* harder [because there is no
point setting a question that says, effectively, "copy out the
theorem and proof that you will find by looking up BLAH in the
index"].

FWIW, I'm unconvinced that exams, of any sort, are of any
great value. If we didn't have them, and tried to introduce them,
we'd be laughed out of court. "So, to find out if X is a good
mathematician, you're going to lock him in a room for several
hours, stop him using his books, his computer, the library, the
interweb thinggy, his coffee machine, not let him talk to his
colleagues, or any putative client, and make him solve unseen
problems against the clock. Remind me not to use a surgeon with
qualifications obtained that way. Ho, ho, ho!" We have them only
because of the weight of tradition. And because every other form
of assessment has its own problems [such as plagiarism].

Up to a certain level, assessment, "even by" exam is not
such a bad thing. There are some things that every mathematician
[eg] needs just to *know*. Beyond that level, certainly as soon
as there is any research element to the education, but probably
somewhere around second year of university, assessment is mostly
pretty daft. We should just educate people, and let them find
their own level in employment [or life].

--
Andy Walker, School of MathSci., Univ. of Nott'm, UK.
anw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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