4 ms·
To be clear, I'm not advocating for students get pigeonholed into a particular major because of the subject exams they took. They should be free to change major
by MyHypatia 5y ago
To be clear, I'm not advocating for students get pigeonholed into a particular major because of the subject exams they took. They should be free to change majors the same as they do now.
Passing 1 or 2 subject tests just shows that a student can: pick a subject, study it, and pass an exam on it. Which is what almost every class in college is like. There is no "general intelligence" class in college, or high school. Studying for a general intelligence test is not what college, high school, or any job is actually like. Studying for a test in a particular subject is useful for high school, college, and a requirement for some jobs (i.e. law, medicine, etc.)
- mbg721 5y agoIt's an interesting thought; the problem then would be that everyone would take the exam for the easiest subject. I guess that's no worse than the SAT, but a lot of my non-math college courses weren't really like that anyway. Some of them based the grade on a presentation, regular correct participation (I'm thinking of a foreign-language class), homework, or smaller quizzes with regular feedback. Enroll > Study > Pass Final was kind of rare.
- MyHypatia 5y agoI'm sure students will do a cost/benefit analysis to what exams to study for vs. the perceived difficulty. But a lot of students already take AP physics, AP calculus, AP chemistry, etc. and submit those scores with their college application, which is factored into their admission. So I don't think there will be a mass exodus of students away from those subjects. You're right that some classes are just participation/presentation. But I still think subject tests are a lot closer to "real" high school/college/job than a general intelligence test.