4 ms·

I've been always talking that grades are irrelevant because there's too much external factors (easy/difficult profs, biases) and standardized tests are the way

I've been always talking that grades are irrelevant because there's too much external factors (easy/difficult profs, biases) and standardized tests are the way to go Grades could at best be proxy for effort, but still grades talk about the past, not what's now. If somebody takes grades seriously then for me that's huge red flag and I think that person is naive and focuses on not really important things. I wish there were standardized exams after graduation, so you could compare students from top schools and bottom more easily, that would allow students from bottom schools to bootstrap themselves purely on their skills and knowledge

derbOac 4y ago
The problem with standardized tests is that they tend to be very brief slices of time in a very limited format, with no documentation of actual work. They have the advantage of being, well, standardized, but that's also their weakness (think, for example, about the legal requirements that tests be adapted for medical conditions, and then generalize accordingly). You might think actual work shouldn't matter, it's the endpoint, etc. but think about it this way: tests are subject to cheating problems, and randomness in scores. Let's say you have a choice of two surgeons: one who has passed a standardized written test, and one who has been certified by a panel of expert surgeons as reaching a certain level of proficiency by means of graduated practice exercises over the course of a year. Which would you prefer? This is an extreme contrived example, but it illustrates a broader point, which is the reason why traditional grades exist is because they reflect a long-term process and documentation of actual time in activity, which is important to learning.
- tester756 4y ago
  It's hard for me to talk about med school cuz that's not my world, I'm talking from CS perspective. >tests are subject to cheating problems I think official tests/exams are way, way more cheating resilient than "normal" approach. Think of ceremony similar to school leaving exam
starky 4y ago
The problem with standardized tests as they are implemented in nearly every case is that they only test how well the students have been taught the test, not the topic the test is on. This makes them just as pointless as GPA at being an indicator of capability. The real problem is that universities have become degree mills. Pretty much all jobs require a university degree even when the actual degree often only demonstrates that the person can learn an arbitrary set of courses which have zero relevance to the job being performed and all the practical skills are learned on the job.
- tester756 4y ago
  >The problem with standardized tests as they are implemented in nearly every case is that they only test how well the students have been taught the test, not the topic the test is on. This makes them just as pointless as GPA at being an indicator of capability. I'm hearing this argument very often, yet I don't see anyone easily scoring high score on advanced math exam in my country without being somewhat decent at those topics. >This makes them just as pointless as GPA at being an indicator of capability. I disagree. GPA is fundamentally flawed, test exams are flawed if it is just ABCD that you can guess

derbOac 4y ago

The problem with standardized tests is that they tend to be very brief slices of time in a very limited format, with no documentation of actual work. They have the advantage of being, well, standardized, but that's also their weakness (think, for example, about the legal requirements that tests be adapted for medical conditions, and then generalize accordingly). You might think actual work shouldn't matter, it's the endpoint, etc. but think about it this way: tests are subject to cheating problems, and randomness in scores. Let's say you have a choice of two surgeons: one who has passed a standardized written test, and one who has been certified by a panel of expert surgeons as reaching a certain level of proficiency by means of graduated practice exercises over the course of a year. Which would you prefer? This is an extreme contrived example, but it illustrates a broader point, which is the reason why traditional grades exist is because they reflect a long-term process and documentation of actual time in activity, which is important to learning.

tester756 4y ago
It's hard for me to talk about med school cuz that's not my world, I'm talking from CS perspective. >tests are subject to cheating problems I think official tests/exams are way, way more cheating resilient than "normal" approach. Think of ceremony similar to school leaving exam

starky 4y ago

The problem with standardized tests as they are implemented in nearly every case is that they only test how well the students have been taught the test, not the topic the test is on. This makes them just as pointless as GPA at being an indicator of capability. The real problem is that universities have become degree mills. Pretty much all jobs require a university degree even when the actual degree often only demonstrates that the person can learn an arbitrary set of courses which have zero relevance to the job being performed and all the practical skills are learned on the job.

tester756 4y ago
>The problem with standardized tests as they are implemented in nearly every case is that they only test how well the students have been taught the test, not the topic the test is on. This makes them just as pointless as GPA at being an indicator of capability. I'm hearing this argument very often, yet I don't see anyone easily scoring high score on advanced math exam in my country without being somewhat decent at those topics. >This makes them just as pointless as GPA at being an indicator of capability. I disagree. GPA is fundamentally flawed, test exams are flawed if it is just ABCD that you can guess