4 ms·

Caltech had timed exams (2-3 hours) and infinite time exams, at the discretion of the professor. The students hated the infinite time ones, because nobody knew

Caltech had timed exams (2-3 hours) and infinite time exams, at the discretion of the professor. The students hated the infinite time ones, because nobody knew how much time other students spent on the test so one felt obliged to spend inordinate amounts of time on it. Besides, if you couldn't solve the exam problems in 2 hours, you simply didn't know the material.

ghaff 11mo ago
That's basically a take-home at that point (assuming open book--or at least honesty) and, yes, you're now computing with classmates who will spend a weekend on it. It's the same problem as companies giving take-home interview problems that you should only spend an hour or two on.
- WalterBright 11mo ago
  At Caltech, exams were take-home, with a 2 hour time limit. It was on your honor to abide by the 2 hour rule. I used my alarm clock. Ya know, the funny thing about students - if you presume they are honest, they tend to be honest. The students loved it, I loved it. If anyone cheated, the students would turn him in. Nobody ever bragged about cheating, 'cuz they would have been ostracized. Besides, I actually wanted to learn the stuff.
  - will4274 11mo ago
    > if you presume they are honest, they tend to be honest. The students loved it, I loved it. If anyone cheated, the students would turn him in. Nobody ever bragged about cheating, 'cuz they would have been ostracized. I think if you look at the 2012 Harvard cheating scandal, it's clear that this isn't true. There, the professor presumed honest students, hundreds cheated, and no student reported. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Harvard_cheating_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Harvard_cheating_scandal
    - WalterBright 11mo ago
      It doesn't always work, that's for sure. I suspect one of the things the admissions committee did was try to filter out the cheaters. Explaining how the honor system worked was part of the freshman orientation camp (held on Catalina Island). One reason it did work is the students liked being trusted, and they did not like anyone that would threaten the system, and would turn them in. BTW, that was 50 years ago. I have no information on how the honor system is fairing today.
godelski 11mo ago
In the upper division of my undergrad physics degree that was really common. Open book, open everything except peers. I personally loved those exams and my grades went way up. I could walk away for a few minutes if I was stuck, maybe grab a beer to relax, and get back and solve the problems. But I think this is much harder to do and getting even more difficult. I was at a small university and you really couldn't google the answers. It was really easy to write google proof questions. But a key part was that the classes were small, so it was pretty obvious if people were cheating. I went to grad school in CS after a few years of work and when I taught I centered the classes around projects. This was more difficult in lower division classes but very effective in upper. But it is more work on the person running the class. I don't think there's a clear solution that can be applied to all fields or all classes, but I do think it is important people rethink how to do things.
- LorenPechtel 11mo ago
  That's how my parents taught. Design questions to make the students apply their knowledge rather than regurgitate it. Forget a fact it's being applied to, look it up. Don't understand the concepts, you're stuck. Know the material, piece of cake. One time I was in my father's classroom because he was showing a film he wanted me to see. There was a quiz afterwards, he knew it wouldn't be alien to me and had me try it. 5 minutes later I turn it in, the class thinks I gave up. Then he says I aced it. But I graded an awful lot of his tests, I know that when I didn't know the material I wouldn't stand a chance. The day I found a question that I could guess was notable enough to me that I asked my mother about it. (A case of not knowing the fact. Her supplying the information that the tribe in question was a stone age culture in the New Guinea jungles made the why apparent.)
  - WalterBright 11mo ago
    One physics exam question I remember was derive Maxwell's Equations from the starting point of presuming the existence of magnetic monopoles. This sounds like an intractable problem, but it turned out that if you really understood how they were derived, all you had to do was switch out the charge monopoles with the magnetic monopoles, and it was a piece of cake. A similar exam problem in AMA95 was to derive the hyperbolic transforms. The trick there was to know how the Fourier transforms (based on sine/cosine) were derived, and just substitute in sinh/cosh. If you were a formula plugger or just memorized facts, you'd be dead in the water.
wildzzz 11mo ago
A couple of my upperclassmen professors used open-everything exams, notes, textbook, even the Internet was allowed. Although time was tight so if you felt like you had to Google something, you better not have to do it a second time.
- WalterBright 11mo ago
  My time was pre-intertoobs. My freshman year was the last year one saw slide rules and punch cards. The ASR-33 teletype lasted another year. I ceased knowing everything about my computer in the late 80s.
nextaccountic 11mo ago
Why should students care how long it took for other students to perform the test? Is this because tests are graded on a curve? If so, that's the real problem

ghaff 11mo ago

That's basically a take-home at that point (assuming open book--or at least honesty) and, yes, you're now computing with classmates who will spend a weekend on it. It's the same problem as companies giving take-home interview problems that you should only spend an hour or two on.

WalterBright 11mo ago
At Caltech, exams were take-home, with a 2 hour time limit. It was on your honor to abide by the 2 hour rule. I used my alarm clock. Ya know, the funny thing about students - if you presume they are honest, they tend to be honest. The students loved it, I loved it. If anyone cheated, the students would turn him in. Nobody ever bragged about cheating, 'cuz they would have been ostracized. Besides, I actually wanted to learn the stuff.
- will4274 11mo ago
  > if you presume they are honest, they tend to be honest. The students loved it, I loved it. If anyone cheated, the students would turn him in. Nobody ever bragged about cheating, 'cuz they would have been ostracized. I think if you look at the 2012 Harvard cheating scandal, it's clear that this isn't true. There, the professor presumed honest students, hundreds cheated, and no student reported. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Harvard_cheating_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Harvard_cheating_scandal
  - WalterBright 11mo ago
    It doesn't always work, that's for sure. I suspect one of the things the admissions committee did was try to filter out the cheaters. Explaining how the honor system worked was part of the freshman orientation camp (held on Catalina Island). One reason it did work is the students liked being trusted, and they did not like anyone that would threaten the system, and would turn them in. BTW, that was 50 years ago. I have no information on how the honor system is fairing today.

godelski 11mo ago

In the upper division of my undergrad physics degree that was really common. Open book, open everything except peers. I personally loved those exams and my grades went way up. I could walk away for a few minutes if I was stuck, maybe grab a beer to relax, and get back and solve the problems. But I think this is much harder to do and getting even more difficult. I was at a small university and you really couldn't google the answers. It was really easy to write google proof questions. But a key part was that the classes were small, so it was pretty obvious if people were cheating. I went to grad school in CS after a few years of work and when I taught I centered the classes around projects. This was more difficult in lower division classes but very effective in upper. But it is more work on the person running the class. I don't think there's a clear solution that can be applied to all fields or all classes, but I do think it is important people rethink how to do things.

LorenPechtel 11mo ago
That's how my parents taught. Design questions to make the students apply their knowledge rather than regurgitate it. Forget a fact it's being applied to, look it up. Don't understand the concepts, you're stuck. Know the material, piece of cake. One time I was in my father's classroom because he was showing a film he wanted me to see. There was a quiz afterwards, he knew it wouldn't be alien to me and had me try it. 5 minutes later I turn it in, the class thinks I gave up. Then he says I aced it. But I graded an awful lot of his tests, I know that when I didn't know the material I wouldn't stand a chance. The day I found a question that I could guess was notable enough to me that I asked my mother about it. (A case of not knowing the fact. Her supplying the information that the tribe in question was a stone age culture in the New Guinea jungles made the why apparent.)
- WalterBright 11mo ago
  One physics exam question I remember was derive Maxwell's Equations from the starting point of presuming the existence of magnetic monopoles. This sounds like an intractable problem, but it turned out that if you really understood how they were derived, all you had to do was switch out the charge monopoles with the magnetic monopoles, and it was a piece of cake. A similar exam problem in AMA95 was to derive the hyperbolic transforms. The trick there was to know how the Fourier transforms (based on sine/cosine) were derived, and just substitute in sinh/cosh. If you were a formula plugger or just memorized facts, you'd be dead in the water.

wildzzz 11mo ago

A couple of my upperclassmen professors used open-everything exams, notes, textbook, even the Internet was allowed. Although time was tight so if you felt like you had to Google something, you better not have to do it a second time.

WalterBright 11mo ago
My time was pre-intertoobs. My freshman year was the last year one saw slide rules and punch cards. The ASR-33 teletype lasted another year. I ceased knowing everything about my computer in the late 80s.

nextaccountic 11mo ago

Why should students care how long it took for other students to perform the test? Is this because tests are graded on a curve? If so, that's the real problem