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A lot of people seem to misunderstand the purpose of tests in school. When a test for a calculus class asks you to find a particular integral or a test for a m
by tzs 2y ago
A lot of people seem to misunderstand the purpose of tests in school.
When a test for a calculus class asks you to find a particular integral or a test for a music theory class gives you a melody and asks you to add two more voices to produce a three voice fugue following the voice leading and counterpoint rules that would be used by typical Baroque composers the professor is not asking because the calculus professor actually wants to know value of the integral or the music theory professor actually needs to have a fugue written around that melody.
They are asking because they were supposed to have taught you how to evaluate such integrals or apply the rules of Baroque fugue composition, respectively, and they want you to demonstrate that you have learned that.
Doing this requires that you solve the problem, not that you get some tool to do it.
Yes, after school you will use such tools to do most such problems that come up but that's completely irrelevant because at work you are not being asked to solve those problems to demonstrate you know how to solve those problems manually. You are being asked to solve them because you actually need the solution.
- talldayo 2y ago> Doing this requires that you solve the problem, not that you get some tool to do it. Ideally, yes. But this reveals the problem at the heart of busywork assignments and standardized testing; there is more than one way to skin a cat. You're still graded by an objective set of qualities that can be gamed and manipulated to make yourself stand out against more competent students. You probably shouldn't just copy a calculator or the circle of fifths for your homework assignment; but if it fulfills the demands of the question, you might as well. You have to award points for what you want to see. If you grade for completion, you will get minimum-effort work back from your students. If you award points for writing out computation by-hand, you'll get more procedure-oriented students. Testing fails students because it inherently forces them to look at their grade from a results-oriented perspective.