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No kidding. Every question on that midterm came out of a test bank. Why didn't the professor come up with the questions himself? If his "team" was able to writ

No kidding. Every question on that midterm came out of a test bank. Why didn't the professor come up with the questions himself? If his "team" was able to write a new midterm exam in a few days without any recycled questions, I'm not sure why his "team" couldn't do this for every exam. This would ensure that no student would be able to cheat even if they wanted to.

anigbrowl 16y ago
Using standardized questions for part of the academic evaluation gives the schools and students some sort of objective benchmark. If all I know is that 'X% of students passed a test set by Professor Y,' it's not very informative, because I have no idea how rigorous or easy that test was. Schools competing for student applicants want a meaningful way to measure the performance of their faculty against those of other schools, so as to attract more students and thus more funding. The same is true for students who work to achieve a good score on exams such as the LSAT or MCAT which can aid them in getting a scholarship; graduates competing for jobs want to demonstrate good performance at a school which is known for high standards. Academic brands can have a considerable impact on graduates' future earning potential, and so the tuition fees a school can charge, and the quality of the applicants for admission, are heavily dependent on how well its brand stacks up against those of its competitors in academic rankings. Unless a school already has a good academic reputation - either because it is considered elite, or as a new school hiring a demonstrably well-qualified faculty - it may well be more effective to outsource part of their evaluation process than to spend years trying to improve their reputation by word of mouth. Excellent schools will tend to graduate excellent students who go on to do well in their academic or professional fields; but it takes a long time for such a pattern to become apparent. An external evaluation tool provides results within a single semester.
- gte910h 16y ago
  Nice theory, I've never heard of anyone caring how students performed against a test bank.

anigbrowl 16y ago

Using standardized questions for part of the academic evaluation gives the schools and students some sort of objective benchmark. If all I know is that 'X% of students passed a test set by Professor Y,' it's not very informative, because I have no idea how rigorous or easy that test was. Schools competing for student applicants want a meaningful way to measure the performance of their faculty against those of other schools, so as to attract more students and thus more funding. The same is true for students who work to achieve a good score on exams such as the LSAT or MCAT which can aid them in getting a scholarship; graduates competing for jobs want to demonstrate good performance at a school which is known for high standards. Academic brands can have a considerable impact on graduates' future earning potential, and so the tuition fees a school can charge, and the quality of the applicants for admission, are heavily dependent on how well its brand stacks up against those of its competitors in academic rankings. Unless a school already has a good academic reputation - either because it is considered elite, or as a new school hiring a demonstrably well-qualified faculty - it may well be more effective to outsource part of their evaluation process than to spend years trying to improve their reputation by word of mouth. Excellent schools will tend to graduate excellent students who go on to do well in their academic or professional fields; but it takes a long time for such a pattern to become apparent. An external evaluation tool provides results within a single semester.

gte910h 16y ago
Nice theory, I've never heard of anyone caring how students performed against a test bank.