>It's perfectly relevant. Tests are used all the time to gauge mastery of a topic. I think you must just be extremely mistaken on what people are talking about

>It's perfectly relevant. Tests are used all the time to gauge mastery of a topic. I think you must just be extremely mistaken on what people are talking about then. I can't understand why you think that anyone is calling for pilots not to be given tests. >It's not at all irrelevant. When you've mastered something, it doesn't take long to produce the answer. For example, the better at math I got, the faster I could answer the questions. If it takes one an hour to multiply 123x456, one is reinventing multiplication rather than knowing multiplication. You aren't everyone though. Some people get major test anxiety, some people are good at doing math but bad at memorizing equations. Just call a spade a spade. Do we care about how fast a student can do 10 math problems? Or do we care that the student can do the 10 math problems? Those are just different things. Most people only care if the student can do the 10 math problems. >Mastery and speed are strongly correlated. But speed is irrelevant to mastery. You can master a skill without doing it as quickly as others. > But the students hated them. There was always the temptation to do more on them, and the students wanted an end to it, as they had lots of classes with exams. That sounds like a personal problem. Probably because they grew up taking tests that were more about memorization and regurgitation than they are about recognizing when you've answered a question completely. At the end of the day it comes down what are metric for success is. If you can cram for a test, that is a good indication that the test is mostly a test of your ability to regurgitate answers. If two students can get 100% on a math test, and one student takes an hour and the other takes an hour and half, most people would consider them both proficient on those math questions. You, for whatever reason, think speed at answering questions is important. Lots of others, including most people who study education, don't share that view.