Re: Shortage of qualified Java programmers

David Alex Lamb wrote: 
In article <CZsre.4153$NX4.3552@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Patricia Shanahan  <pats@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Last time I was a student, in the early 1970's, when I only had a few
years experience, I assumed the professors knew best, and there was some
practical value to closed book testing. That value didn't show up in the
following 25 years as a programmer and architect.



Speaking as an educator, I think it's fair to say that closed-book tests are
often a way to make the grader's task easier -- one can ask a bunch of
easy-to-grade multiple choice or fill-in-the-blanks questions.

For my most recent batch of closed-book tests, that was definitely not
the case. None of them had more than a small multiple-choice component. They were more about mathematical proofs, essays, diagrams of processor pipeline states, and the like. All sorts of difficult-to-grade stuff.

Patricia
.