5 ms·
Clearly needs to be solved and fast, and I have huge sympathy for those affected. However to me the more interesting point is why anyone would want to submit a
by nmstoker 6y ago
Clearly needs to be solved and fast, and I have huge sympathy for those affected.
However to me the more interesting point is why anyone would want to submit a handwritten script when they could type it. Not to sound like an old foggey, but in my day the only people who got to type were dyslexic and it gave them a huge advantage (no doubt why so many parents were having their children tested). Even if you could write fast, why take the chance that your exam efforts could be rejected based on a marker not being able to read your writing. Add to that the ability to compose text far more easily when typing and for those with a modest amount of practice the dramatically faster rate of output and it seems really strange that everyone doesn't type them and they just avoid this problem entirely.
- elliekelly 6y agoMy first thought was students who don't have access to a computer outside of school. It seems like these students are taking the exam from their phones: > But the testing portal doesn’t support the default format on iOS devices and some newer Android phones, HEIC files.
- ReverseCold 6y agoSome tests require symbols (like greek letters), which aren’t easy to type by default. Also, people have been practicing all year by handwriting responses (since we didn’t know it would be online, obviously) - so a handwritten option is accommodating that.
- nmstoker 6y agoI see, so typing entries is purely a Covid-19 reaction? Sorry, hadn't appreciated that earlier. Definitely feels like something to keep after things go back to closer to how they were.
- snazz 6y agoSome of the exams (like biology) no longer require calculations this year--instead of doing the calculation, you just explain how you would do it. This has been confusing for a lot of students, but it solves the "special input methods" problem.
- j-james 6y agoRight, but Biology isn't the only AP exam that requires calculations. Dealing with integrals for AP Calculus is much more of a pain.
- mywittyname 6y agoThis brings back horrible memories of the janky-ass software we used in calculus for our exams. It took probably 10x longer to answer a question with the GUI because of the symbols and half the time they'd be marked wrong because the system couldn't handle equivalent variations of the correct answer. I doubt things are much better today. This was probably the "low-tech" solution to a decade+ of dealing with the above problem.
- vaidhy 6y agoAP stat/ AP Chem/ AP Phys etc are about math formulae and explaining the calculation. I do not want my kids to learn TeX or figure out word formula editor just before the AP exams.
- Mirioron 6y agoThis brings up an interesting point: how come math input is so difficult on a computer? Even TeX seems like an awful solution for this.
- gowld 6y agoAsk a Chinese or Japanese friend why typing is hard.
- Mirioron 6y agoIt's not though. You just type out the pronunciation and pick from a list if there are multiple. I'm actually surprised we don't have something like that for standard math input.
- Jach 6y agoChinese friend: "If you use pinyin not at all. There are other ways such as stroke based, I have never learned it." This matches my prediction. Typing Japanese isn't hard either (and I'm just a beginning learner) -- typing ha in JP mode gives は, or if you're only in JP mode the typical layout assigns that to qwerty 'f'. Like Chinese, IME drop-down selection works well for kanji.
- Jach 6y agoIt's not though? $x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$. If you have a visualizer hooked up while you're typing, even easier. And then there's Mathematica.
- ativzzz 6y agoI mean you essentially need to learn a pseudo language on top of math to be able to do that. The barrier to entry compared to writing pen and paper is much higher, and math is hard enough for a vast number of Americans.