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The End of Scantron Tests

theatlantic.com

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Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#21

Post by pixl97 »

JasonFruit wrote: post #4
murphyslab wrote: post #3

> Soon, however, teachers and government officials sought ways to evaluate rapidly increasing numbers of students. In 1900, roughly 10 percent of teens attended high school; by 1940, some 70 percent did. It reminds me of looking at a 1930s census, not long ago, while compiling a family history. Some of the adults on a rural farm were listed as having completed "4th grade". It's rather difficult to imagine a world whe…

I wonder how much the actual average level of education has changed, though the topics may be different. Could those 4th-grade dropouts read and understand a newspaper, calculate how many pounds of barley it takes to plant the south field now that we cleared that new area, and work out a 1-in-10 slope for the new shed roof? I bet most of them could, and that a lot of the time the average person spends in school now i…

And pretty much all those jobs you're talking about are gone or low paying. Farmers aren't calculating how many pounds of barley per acre they need. They are operating computer controlled heavy equipment that does a huge amount of the calculations for them because someone thousands of miles away wrote magicial electric symbols in sand. The world is a vastly more complicated place now.

Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#22

Post by gnicholas »

callalex wrote: post #19
gnicholas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never thought about the power consumption of TI calculators. I had an 85 and I recall changing the batteries occasionally, but not very often. I also didn't find the performance speed to be a hindrance during HS, including on the SATs. What did you use your calculator for that it was noticeably too slow for? How often did you have to replace batteries? I get that there are newer technologies out there, and perha…

With current technology, 4 AA batteries should be able to power a calculator for an entire educational career from 6th to 12th grade, maybe more. Edit: in terms of performance, the buttons and LCD are very unresponsive, you can type faster than they display. When making any kinds of graphs with more than 2 functions, the drawing happens in the order of 5-10 seconds, modern hardware could do that in micro-to-milliseco…

No doubt. But is it a big deal to have to swap batteries once every couple years? I think the bigger waste is that these things still cost so much. I cannot believe that the TI-85 I used over 20 years ago is $70 on Amazon.

Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#23

Post by callalex »

gnicholas wrote: post #22
callalex wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With current technology, 4 AA batteries should be able to power a calculator for an entire educational career from 6th to 12th grade, maybe more. Edit: in terms of performance, the buttons and LCD are very unresponsive, you can type faster than they display. When making any kinds of graphs with more than 2 functions, the drawing happens in the order of 5-10 seconds, modern hardware could do that in micro-to-milliseco…

No doubt. But is it a big deal to have to swap batteries once every couple years? I think the bigger waste is that these things still cost so much. I cannot believe that the TI-85 I used over 20 years ago is $70 on Amazon.

I agree, I think my point got bogged down in the details. Declaring scantron dead because the SAT is planning to go digital soon is so clearly out of touch nonsense on its face given how slowly technology is adopted in this space.

Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#24

Post by onetimeusename »

bl4kers wrote: post #12

> The SAT will go fully digital next year; the ACT, AP exams, and numerous state tests have already done so or will follow. Future headline: teen hacker caught with stolen tests Also might be a good attack vector for nation states. Could get assets into prestigious schools or publish anonymously online to cast doubt on the entire system I've looked at the CollegeBoard's engineering job listings before and they were f…

There is a history of tests being leaked in Korea and China. Here is an example https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-...

I followed the stories closely and what's weird is how little the College Board did about it. A number of times, whistleblowers would inform them about a test leak and even show them copies of it and they would do nothing about it. I think you're on to something as far as attempting to hack the SAT and the College Board just not having an adequate response.

Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#25

Post by LarsDu88 »

JasonFruit wrote: post #4
murphyslab wrote: post #3

> Soon, however, teachers and government officials sought ways to evaluate rapidly increasing numbers of students. In 1900, roughly 10 percent of teens attended high school; by 1940, some 70 percent did. It reminds me of looking at a 1930s census, not long ago, while compiling a family history. Some of the adults on a rural farm were listed as having completed "4th grade". It's rather difficult to imagine a world whe…

I wonder how much the actual average level of education has changed, though the topics may be different. Could those 4th-grade dropouts read and understand a newspaper, calculate how many pounds of barley it takes to plant the south field now that we cleared that new area, and work out a 1-in-10 slope for the new shed roof? I bet most of them could, and that a lot of the time the average person spends in school now i…

Take a look at this entrance exam to Harvard from 1869: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvarde...

Good luck finding high school students today who could get a good score on this test.

There's vastly more emphasis on classical knowledge: Greek, Latin, ancient history, mathematical proofs...

Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#26

Post by F00Fbug »

I remember working on a project to put scantron machines in every public school in DC back in the 80s. We built the interface from the scantron machine to the DECmate II (a micro-PDP-8, if I remember correctly); async io in assembler... I learned a lot on that part of the project. Then we wrote the scanning software to allow lots of teachers to scan their tests in at the end of the day. Next we built a network over dial-up phone lines to allow the DECmates to upload their daily scans to a VAX (using Kermit, I think). Finally we built the tools to load all of the daily scans into a database and do all kinds of analysis and reporting. All pre-internet -- good times!

I remember learning a lot about the scantron forms and realized that if you made a black box at a certain place, that form would be interpreted as the answer key and would screw up a whole pile of scanning!

Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#27

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pixl97 wrote: post #21
JasonFruit wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much the actual average level of education has changed, though the topics may be different. Could those 4th-grade dropouts read and understand a newspaper, calculate how many pounds of barley it takes to plant the south field now that we cleared that new area, and work out a 1-in-10 slope for the new shed roof? I bet most of them could, and that a lot of the time the average person spends in school now i…

And pretty much all those jobs you're talking about are gone or low paying. Farmers aren't calculating how many pounds of barley per acre they need. They are operating computer controlled heavy equipment that does a huge amount of the calculations for them because someone thousands of miles away wrote magicial electric symbols in sand. The world is a vastly more complicated place now.

> operating computer controlled heavy equipment that does a huge amount of the calculations for them

They're also measuring soil nutrient and nitrogen content, integrating global price signals into their sourcing and supply chain, and paying attention to the genetic characteristics of their cultivars. I'd wager American farmers, today, are vastly more knowledgeable about their craft, at a fundamental level, than farmers in the 1930s.

Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#28

Post by JumpCrisscross »

F00Fbug wrote: post #26

I remember working on a project to put scantron machines in every public school in DC back in the 80s. We built the interface from the scantron machine to the DECmate II (a micro-PDP-8, if I remember correctly); async io in assembler... I learned a lot on that part of the project. Then we wrote the scanning software to allow lots of teachers to scan their tests in at the end of the day. Next we built a network over d…

> if you made a black box at a certain place, that form would be interpreted as the answer key and would screw up a whole pile of scanning

Out of curiosity, where?

Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#29

Post by F00Fbug »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28
F00Fbug wrote: post #26

I remember working on a project to put scantron machines in every public school in DC back in the 80s. We built the interface from the scantron machine to the DECmate II (a micro-PDP-8, if I remember correctly); async io in assembler... I learned a lot on that part of the project. Then we wrote the scanning software to allow lots of teachers to scan their tests in at the end of the day. Next we built a network over d…

> if you made a black box at a certain place, that form would be interpreted as the answer key and would screw up a whole pile of scanning Out of curiosity, where?

In the left margin, about 2/3 of the way down... between a couple of alignment marks. But that was 35 years ago... I could be wrong. I always felt like I held an immense power with that knowledge, but never used it!!!

Re: The End of Scantron Tests

#30

Post by gnicholas »

callalex wrote: post #23
gnicholas wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt. But is it a big deal to have to swap batteries once every couple years? I think the bigger waste is that these things still cost so much. I cannot believe that the TI-85 I used over 20 years ago is $70 on Amazon.

I agree, I think my point got bogged down in the details. Declaring scantron dead because the SAT is planning to go digital soon is so clearly out of touch nonsense on its face given how slowly technology is adopted in this space.

I dunno, my elementary school kids have never done a multiple choice test on paper. It does require that the schools have enough computers, but these days most schools seem to.
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