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My networking final in high school was probably my favorite test taking experience - there was a small written portion on eg subnets, but the bulk of our grade

My networking final in high school was probably my favorite test taking experience - there was a small written portion on eg subnets, but the bulk of our grade was setting up a physical network, testing it, and leaving the room. Our teacher sabotaged three parts of our network - could be hardware, router misconfiguration, etc. when we came in we had iirc 20-ish minutes to diagnose and fix it. The best was when she barely unscrewed one of this big DIN connectors so at quick glance it looked fine, but wasn’t fully connected.

onionisafruit 6mo ago
That does sound like fun, but it would probably be even more fun. to be the instructor giving this test.
thunfischtoast 6mo ago
> The best was when she barely unscrewed one of this big DIN connectors so at quick glance it looked fine, but wasn’t fully connected. That's evil haha. It's the case where you unplug and plug again everything, changing seemingly nothing, but then it works
altmanaltman 6mo ago
Sounds more like a gameshow than education, like IT version of Hogwarts
- Y-bar 6mo ago
  I agree. But it hinges a lot of how it is graded. If it is mostly a ”show your work”/”show your reasoning” kind of grading where your width and depth of attempts are more important than success then it seems OK.
- bitwize 6mo ago
  "For Miss Granger's ingenuity and resourcefulness, finding and patching a zero-day vulnerability in the router firmware... I award fifty points to Gryffindor."
- ryandrake 6mo ago
  It also sounds vulnerable to bias, unless the teacher modified each project in the same ways. How did they ensure they gave each student an equally difficult challenge and didn't consciously or unconsciously make it easier and harder for different students?
  - onionisafruit 6mo ago
    Presumably they do the same thing for every student. I hope they aren’t unplugging a cable for one student while taking a sledgehammer to the next student’s router.
    - QuantumNomad_ 6mo ago
      “You have 20 minutes to get to RadioShack and back with a new router. It’s 11 minutes one way by car. Good luck.”
jazzyb 6mo ago
That sounds like the CCIE.
- red-iron-pine 6mo ago
  yeah was gonna say. sounds like some of the technical exams i'ev taken, and/or one or two job interviews

onionisafruit 6mo ago

That does sound like fun, but it would probably be even more fun. to be the instructor giving this test.

thunfischtoast 6mo ago

> The best was when she barely unscrewed one of this big DIN connectors so at quick glance it looked fine, but wasn’t fully connected. That's evil haha. It's the case where you unplug and plug again everything, changing seemingly nothing, but then it works

altmanaltman 6mo ago

Sounds more like a gameshow than education, like IT version of Hogwarts

Y-bar 6mo ago
I agree. But it hinges a lot of how it is graded. If it is mostly a ”show your work”/”show your reasoning” kind of grading where your width and depth of attempts are more important than success then it seems OK.
bitwize 6mo ago
"For Miss Granger's ingenuity and resourcefulness, finding and patching a zero-day vulnerability in the router firmware... I award fifty points to Gryffindor."
ryandrake 6mo ago
It also sounds vulnerable to bias, unless the teacher modified each project in the same ways. How did they ensure they gave each student an equally difficult challenge and didn't consciously or unconsciously make it easier and harder for different students?
- onionisafruit 6mo ago
  Presumably they do the same thing for every student. I hope they aren’t unplugging a cable for one student while taking a sledgehammer to the next student’s router.
  - QuantumNomad_ 6mo ago
    “You have 20 minutes to get to RadioShack and back with a new router. It’s 11 minutes one way by car. Good luck.”

jazzyb 6mo ago

That sounds like the CCIE.

red-iron-pine 6mo ago
yeah was gonna say. sounds like some of the technical exams i'ev taken, and/or one or two job interviews