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The world needs a lot of Physical examination testing spaces that are run on open standards but which can be rented by different institutions. These physical sp

The world needs a lot of Physical examination testing spaces that are run on open standards but which can be rented by different institutions. These physical spaces should have the most stringent rules to prevent unethical behaviour. It is difficult to depend on honor system in ultra competitive societies like India and as an Indian it has impacts honest people like me more. Having said the above, unfortunately there are very few ways to do all round assessment of individuals in a purely objective manner. Human biases would always be there in subjective assessment and an interesting thing i see in India is that a lot of people mistake English speaking ability and communication skills for overall ability.

jimbob45 5y ago
Universities and community colleges will typically let you use their exam rooms (with proctors) if you call ahead and schedule with them (sometimes with a fee).
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  Yes definitely. I've used this one [1] multiple times because it is a short distance from Chicago's central business district and they are responsive and highly competent for just a small amount of money. I think that when you look at public university systems in the USA, you'll see that they already have an internal need to offer test proctoring because they have students temporarily at one campus location but enrolled at a different one. Offering the service to the outside public is not much extra effort on their part. [1] https://testing.uic.edu/tests-administered/proctoring-services/ https://testing.uic.edu/tests-administered/proctoring-servic...
np_tedious 5y ago
I took a few actuarial exams at center like this (USA, passed some failed others). I was pretty impressed. Cost was fair, seemed like it'd be hard to cheat. Most common exams being taken there looked like TOEFL, GRE, MCAT. I don't see why more professional certs couldn't do the same
TranquilMarmot 5y ago
If people are having to hire other people to cheat on tests like this, it makes me wonder if it's the system that's broken. Maybe tests aren't the best way to judge somebody's capabilities.
- chickenmonkey 5y ago
  Any system will have people who aren't performing well, and some fraction of those people will be tempted to cheat. Cheating in this case doesn't provide any indication that the system is broken.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    I'm currently interviewing for a mix of tech lead and equivalent staff engineering roles that more "individual contributor" focused The ones that skew towards heads down work ask a lot of LC questions (the kind cheated on in the article). These are that you can find the exact solution for in the time it takes you to read the question out loud for the interviewer... - Meanwhile ones that skew towards leadership are asking questions that you can't cheat nearly as easily on. Having in-depth conversations with technically knowledgeable people, sure you could maybe you could get some sort of teleprompter, but the breadth and depth of knowledge being asked means you'd be hard pressed to keep up if you didn't already know the domain pretty well. There's also a greater focus on talking about yourself, like things you've done for example. Now you can borrow someone's story, but again, it's many many times harder to deliver it convincingly than it is to deliver a LC answer that has a known optimal solution that you're already expected to follow near verbatim. - The difference is simple, the amount of resources you're willing to put into testing. Places asking LC questions are doing so as a cheap filter. Places assigning a high ranking engineer to talk to you are making an investment. I understand the dilemma a few companies in tech face, like FAANG. There's so much demand they can't afford that in-depth approach for everyone. But I do see a problem with how systemic the cheap filter approach has gotten. So many companies hurting for applications in the pipeline are putting up silly hoops that ironically seem to favor people who aren't that technically experienced. I mean who's going to do better on a LC Hard with dynamic programming, the person who's spending 8 hours a day at work writing code, mentoring, doing code reviews, meeting stakeholders, etc... or the fresh grad who spends 8 hours a day running through your company's question list on LC? I recently saw a post on Blind about a company dealing with a bad hire... they hired a CS PhD as a Senior dev only to find they were executing at the level of a Junior. Want to venture a guess as to how they managed that?
ninju 5y ago
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the closure of many physical examination testing spaces over the last 18 months. Hopefully these spaces will re-open soon
shmde 5y ago
Yes we have/had this in India. There will always be a physical exam centre near you for various govt, University, private company recruitment exams. I have given my University, GRE in physical centres. There are cameras and proctors who roam around constantly to check for cheating. But now due to covid things have completely changed and have become remote. I saw a few interviews where candidates are blatantly cheating and its actually quite funny. https://youtu.be/HpGGmE4ayLY https://youtu.be/HpGGmE4ayLY https://youtu.be/09gS6TykNQM https://youtu.be/09gS6TykNQM
- buporin 5y ago
  There are these are well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47mfohGyeBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47mfohGyeBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77BUW-2hhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77BUW-2hhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDk9UQcI8dU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDk9UQcI8dU
necovek 5y ago
While it's true that cheating can reflect badly on otherwise well-performing students (testees?), the problem is in the score-adjusting based on group performance. If that does not happen, your score is yours only. Ensuring that different versions of tests are comparable in their "hardness" is what we should focus on. Perhaps India is a culture where academic/certification performance is highly valued, instead of hands-on experience. However, if "cheats" end up getting all the jobs because of that, and they end up performing well in their jobs, there is really no harm[*], other than highlighting how certification is useless. If they end up performing bad, commercial interests should incentivize employers to not look for good academic/certification performance anymore, like it's done, for instance, in most IT jobs in the "West". I've witnessed plenty of cheating in my University days, and I never felt "threatened" by "cheaters": I knew what I was in for, and if they weren't, that's their loss (and win, because we were not matched against each other). The only regret I have is that many of them ended up taking teaching jobs (I can't see how they can properly make their students excited about the art of CS), but it's because those good at CS had good industry jobs waiting for them at significant pay raise compared to academic careers (so it's not academic scores that hindered them from continuing in academia). [*] Sure, principled cheaters (it may sound like an oxymoron, but it's not), should try to get rid of the certificate-valuation (by eg anonymously exposing how easy it is to cheat, and how irrelevant it is to their on-the-job performance) to stop this money-grabbing scheme altogether.

jimbob45 5y ago

Universities and community colleges will typically let you use their exam rooms (with proctors) if you call ahead and schedule with them (sometimes with a fee).

OldHand2018 5y ago
Yes definitely. I've used this one [1] multiple times because it is a short distance from Chicago's central business district and they are responsive and highly competent for just a small amount of money. I think that when you look at public university systems in the USA, you'll see that they already have an internal need to offer test proctoring because they have students temporarily at one campus location but enrolled at a different one. Offering the service to the outside public is not much extra effort on their part. [1] https://testing.uic.edu/tests-administered/proctoring-services/ https://testing.uic.edu/tests-administered/proctoring-servic...

np_tedious 5y ago

I took a few actuarial exams at center like this (USA, passed some failed others). I was pretty impressed. Cost was fair, seemed like it'd be hard to cheat. Most common exams being taken there looked like TOEFL, GRE, MCAT. I don't see why more professional certs couldn't do the same

TranquilMarmot 5y ago

If people are having to hire other people to cheat on tests like this, it makes me wonder if it's the system that's broken. Maybe tests aren't the best way to judge somebody's capabilities.

chickenmonkey 5y ago
Any system will have people who aren't performing well, and some fraction of those people will be tempted to cheat. Cheating in this case doesn't provide any indication that the system is broken.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  I'm currently interviewing for a mix of tech lead and equivalent staff engineering roles that more "individual contributor" focused The ones that skew towards heads down work ask a lot of LC questions (the kind cheated on in the article). These are that you can find the exact solution for in the time it takes you to read the question out loud for the interviewer... - Meanwhile ones that skew towards leadership are asking questions that you can't cheat nearly as easily on. Having in-depth conversations with technically knowledgeable people, sure you could maybe you could get some sort of teleprompter, but the breadth and depth of knowledge being asked means you'd be hard pressed to keep up if you didn't already know the domain pretty well. There's also a greater focus on talking about yourself, like things you've done for example. Now you can borrow someone's story, but again, it's many many times harder to deliver it convincingly than it is to deliver a LC answer that has a known optimal solution that you're already expected to follow near verbatim. - The difference is simple, the amount of resources you're willing to put into testing. Places asking LC questions are doing so as a cheap filter. Places assigning a high ranking engineer to talk to you are making an investment. I understand the dilemma a few companies in tech face, like FAANG. There's so much demand they can't afford that in-depth approach for everyone. But I do see a problem with how systemic the cheap filter approach has gotten. So many companies hurting for applications in the pipeline are putting up silly hoops that ironically seem to favor people who aren't that technically experienced. I mean who's going to do better on a LC Hard with dynamic programming, the person who's spending 8 hours a day at work writing code, mentoring, doing code reviews, meeting stakeholders, etc... or the fresh grad who spends 8 hours a day running through your company's question list on LC? I recently saw a post on Blind about a company dealing with a bad hire... they hired a CS PhD as a Senior dev only to find they were executing at the level of a Junior. Want to venture a guess as to how they managed that?

ninju 5y ago

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the closure of many physical examination testing spaces over the last 18 months. Hopefully these spaces will re-open soon

shmde 5y ago

Yes we have/had this in India. There will always be a physical exam centre near you for various govt, University, private company recruitment exams. I have given my University, GRE in physical centres. There are cameras and proctors who roam around constantly to check for cheating. But now due to covid things have completely changed and have become remote. I saw a few interviews where candidates are blatantly cheating and its actually quite funny. https://youtu.be/HpGGmE4ayLY https://youtu.be/HpGGmE4ayLY https://youtu.be/09gS6TykNQM https://youtu.be/09gS6TykNQM

buporin 5y ago
There are these are well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47mfohGyeBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47mfohGyeBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77BUW-2hhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77BUW-2hhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDk9UQcI8dU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDk9UQcI8dU

necovek 5y ago

While it's true that cheating can reflect badly on otherwise well-performing students (testees?), the problem is in the score-adjusting based on group performance. If that does not happen, your score is yours only. Ensuring that different versions of tests are comparable in their "hardness" is what we should focus on. Perhaps India is a culture where academic/certification performance is highly valued, instead of hands-on experience. However, if "cheats" end up getting all the jobs because of that, and they end up performing well in their jobs, there is really no harm[*], other than highlighting how certification is useless. If they end up performing bad, commercial interests should incentivize employers to not look for good academic/certification performance anymore, like it's done, for instance, in most IT jobs in the "West". I've witnessed plenty of cheating in my University days, and I never felt "threatened" by "cheaters": I knew what I was in for, and if they weren't, that's their loss (and win, because we were not matched against each other). The only regret I have is that many of them ended up taking teaching jobs (I can't see how they can properly make their students excited about the art of CS), but it's because those good at CS had good industry jobs waiting for them at significant pay raise compared to academic careers (so it's not academic scores that hindered them from continuing in academia). [*] Sure, principled cheaters (it may sound like an oxymoron, but it's not), should try to get rid of the certificate-valuation (by eg anonymously exposing how easy it is to cheat, and how irrelevant it is to their on-the-job performance) to stop this money-grabbing scheme altogether.