> Simple solution is to have tests in class on a sample of the work done during the quarter/semester. If you can't do this, then you don't understand how to tes

> Simple solution is to have tests in class on a sample of the work done during the quarter/semester. If you can't do this, then you don't understand how to test for knowledge Possible counterexample: The absolute best math professor (in terms of success educating, not how fun his classes were) I had was legendary for his exams. They usually only had a couple questions. But 3 hours were allotted to take them - not as take-home exams; he would arrange special evening test sessions. Everyone did the test on a computer in Mathematica. Internet access was not available. Mathematica was necessary; the questions were designed to reflect real-life problems someone in a math-related field might be asked to solve, and like in the real world the nature of the problem was such that doing the actual calculation by hand would not have been practical. We really needed that time to figure out how to solve the problems. And I think there's no way the professor could have managed exams that tested our knowledge as deeply without creating problems that required that kind of time to solve. That said, I agree that take-home exams are problematic. As an option for trying to come up with exams that ask students to think rather than just regurgitating knowledge, I think they might once have been quite effective. But they're terribly unsuited to the Google era.