4 ms·
It sounds like it's gameable because it's predicatable. Imagine the next year's Todai entrance exam was totally different and unpredictable (say, transcribing
by aianus 11y ago
It sounds like it's gameable because it's predicatable.
Imagine the next year's Todai entrance exam was totally different and unpredictable (say, transcribing an Eminem song or something similarly off-the-wall), then all the people who studied ways to game last year's exam would be SOL and only the people who actually know English would get in.
That's the kind of system I'm advocating for: get a bunch of smart test writers together with the express intent of coming up with novel ways to destroy the people who game the exams.
- mikekchar 11y agoThe reason they can't reasonably make ungameable tests is that they have tens of thousands of applicants. The need for an easy to mark test is more important than the need for an ungameable test. Otherwise you could simply interview applicants in English. (Todai actually considered this approach, but I understand that they abandoned it as being impractical). In my more cynical periods, I suspect that they don't mind people gaming the exams. After all, most Todai students don't actually need to speak English (or know crazy details of history, or write thousands of kanji, or whatever). They are more interested in clever students who are willing to study like insane people and practice boring stuff over and over again. That's what you need to do to game the exams. In a twisted way, it works...