You're right, the PC, "every child is special" approach in the US (esp. in colleges) is not doing the students any good and some level of rigorous reinforcement

You're right, the PC, "every child is special" approach in the US (esp. in colleges) is not doing the students any good and some level of rigorous reinforcement of knowledge is beneficial. However, tests let the kids focus only on the "answer" for a narrowly specified question. This may be good for school but is a horrible way to approach real-life problems which are broad and do nor have clear answers.