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The material is one thing, testing on it is another... a 4 hour test sounds bad, but one would think that if they're teaching philosophy in the first place, the

• nnq 13y ago
  there's nothing wrong with a 4 or even a 6 hours test for a subject such as philosophy! there's no point in adding time pressure to a philosophy test - the point is not to think efficiently (it's not math or science!), but to think deep, think wide/laterally and to be creative in confined area of thought and to express your thought in a finished and refined form. If you add time pressure, they will just memorize the "correct interpretations" for the test, the "correct way to talk/write about topic x" and so on, just to be able to do things in time (and those who don't memorize ...or cheat, will get worse test scores, so there will be no incentive do things the right way) nulling the whole point of it! ...otoh, having a "philosophy test" in school kind of kills all the use or fun of the subject, but if you do it, at least try to get something out of it by not adding unnecessary constraints!
  • eru 13y ago
    > the point is not to think efficiently (it's not math or science!), That's not the difference between philosophy and math. The difference is one of effectivity, not efficiency. Science adds real-world relevance, but substracts rigour.