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Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

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Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#61

Post by OptionOfT »

CompoundEyes wrote: post #34

There are schemes happening in interviews too. I've been doing many technical interviews for a senior role with off shore candidates lately. They come to me after passing a challenging online test that has controls to check for browser focus lost, opening new tabs etc. I think it may require a camera to be on too. Even with that more than half of the candidates can't code. Our interview usually starts with them breat…

> They come to me after passing a challenging online test that has controls to check for browser focus lost, opening new tabs etc.

These are the absolute worst.

You're taking people out of their comfort zone (highly customized IDE like JetBrains / VSCode / Vim) which cause them to lose shortcuts and decently working intellisense. Yes, my TypeScript in my projects is configured in such a way that I get way more information from the compiler than the standard config. After all, you're testing my ability as a software engineer, not a code monkey, right?

In this very uncomfortable place there is no way of asking questions. Yes, sometimes stuff is ambiguous. I rather have someone who asks questions vs someone who guesses and gets it right.

The testing setup is horrible too. No feedback as to what part of the tests fail, just... fail.

No debugger. No way of adding log messages. When was the last time you've been in that situation at your workplace?

All under the pressure of time, and additional stress from the person that they really NEED a new job.

Oh, and when you use compiled languages, they're way slower than say TypeScript due to the compilation phase.

And then even when your score (comprised of x passed tests and y failed tests) is of passing grade there is a manager out there looking at how many times someone tabbed outside of the window/tab?

Where am I supposed to look up stuff? Do you know all of this information by heart: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/collections/struct.BTreeMap.ht...

Which reminded me that one time I used a function recently stabilized, but the Rust version used was about 8 versions behind. With that slow compilation cycle.

/sigh.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#63

Post by xphos »

siliconc0w wrote: post #62

The other side is with AI tutoring, you don't even really need exams. You have a constant real time map of where the student is strong and where they're weak.

But like you don't have that because AI will lie to you but kindly. People who are learning don't have the tools to point out those types of mistakes yet either so they will learn things the wrong way. Not to say teachers dont teach the wrong thing most of math is learning the wrong way only to later distill the right lesson but I think the automation of it is much worse

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#64

Post by mlpoknbji »

Syzygies wrote: post #36

One can't have an informed opinion on this without witnessing how grading a college exam takes place, first hand. Grading a stack of blue books is a "just kill me now" brutal experience. A majority of cognitive effort is just finding the page for the next problem to grade, with finding the answer another delay; any programming language with this kind of access latency would stay a "one bus" language. So of course pro…

This problem is solved by software like gradescope. Makes grading extremely fast and much more consistent (because of easy rubric adjustments on the fly). This is more concerning a STEM exam, admittedly I don't know how well this works on humanities essays.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#65

Post by nxobject »

pessimizer wrote: post #53
nxobject wrote: post #8

As someone whose college papers always went through multiple drafts, I genuinely hope that the "joy" the author feels doesn't get in the way of teaching writing skills. And, as someone who got paid minimum wage to proctor tests in college, I couldn't keep a straight face at this: > The most cutting-edge educational technology of the future might very well be a stripped-down computer lab, located in a welcoming campus…

> I think the author's leaning heavily on vibes to do the convincing here. I have no idea what you're trying to express in your comment, so who's using vibes?* Were you triggered by the word "caring?" A waiter usually cares that the people they're serving have an enjoyable meal. It doesn't mean that they love them, it means that they think the work of feeding people is purposeful and honest (and theirs.) ----- [*] It…

Why would you assume I was angry? (Where is your snark coming from?)

Drafting and redrafting a cumulative course paper, as well as iteratively honing a thesis, is a writing skill.

I would argue it as important than demonstrating recall and interconnection of the material. It is being lost if long-term work on papers is being replaced with 3-hour blue-book essays.

That is why I thought it was relevant. That's it.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#66

Post by Merrill »

bdowling wrote: post #25
belinder wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure school is for acquiring skills, but it's also day care. A place to keep children during the day so their parents can work, especially in a society where more and more the expectation is that both parents work.

The article is about college-level education, which is primarily about ranking students in order of who should get the best entry-level jobs. If technology is disrupting the effectiveness of that ordering function, then something needs to change.

There is evidence that the ranking of students in order of who should get the best entry-level jobs is done mainly by the college admissions process which bins students into more or less selective colleges.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#67

Post by refulgentis »

mlpoknbji wrote: post #12

The commenters lamenting this trend presumably have not given a takehome assignment to college students in recent years. The problem is huge and in class tests are basically the only way to test if students are learning. Unfortunately this doesn't solve the problem of AI assisted cheating on in-class exams, which is shockingly prevalent these days at least in STEM settings.

I'm curious, how is AI assistance on an in class exam even possible? I can't picture how AI changed anything from, say, post-iPhone. i.e. I expect there to be holes in security re: bathroom breaks, but even in 2006 they confiscated cell phones during exams.

I guess what I'm asking is, how did AI shift the status quo for in class exams over, say, Safari?

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#68

Post by i_am_proteus »

refulgentis wrote: post #67
mlpoknbji wrote: post #12

The commenters lamenting this trend presumably have not given a takehome assignment to college students in recent years. The problem is huge and in class tests are basically the only way to test if students are learning. Unfortunately this doesn't solve the problem of AI assisted cheating on in-class exams, which is shockingly prevalent these days at least in STEM settings.

I'm curious, how is AI assistance on an in class exam even possible? I can't picture how AI changed anything from, say, post-iPhone. i.e. I expect there to be holes in security re: bathroom breaks, but even in 2006 they confiscated cell phones during exams. I guess what I'm asking is, how did AI shift the status quo for in class exams over, say, Safari?

People bring in second phones: one to have confiscated, one to use on the exam.

A common mode I have seen is phone in lap, front-facing camera ingests an exam page hung over the edge of the desk. Student then flips the page and looks down for the answer.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#69

Post by apparent »

When I was in school, some older students complained that tests were hybrid: you could handwrite or you could type. They complained that they had grown up before typing was as common and that it wasn't fair to let students type, since they could write much more. They argued for a word limit, which was denied.

Now we'll see the reverse, with students arguing that they can't handwrite effectively and need more time or whatever in order for exams to be fair. Hopefully handwritten exams will become the norm from grade school onward, so that this complaint will be rendered moot.

Re: Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam

#70

Post by twic »

OptionOfT wrote: post #61
CompoundEyes wrote: post #34

There are schemes happening in interviews too. I've been doing many technical interviews for a senior role with off shore candidates lately. They come to me after passing a challenging online test that has controls to check for browser focus lost, opening new tabs etc. I think it may require a camera to be on too. Even with that more than half of the candidates can't code. Our interview usually starts with them breat…

> They come to me after passing a challenging online test that has controls to check for browser focus lost, opening new tabs etc. These are the absolute worst. You're taking people out of their comfort zone (highly customized IDE like JetBrains / VSCode / Vim) which cause them to lose shortcuts and decently working intellisense. Yes, my TypeScript in my projects is configured in such a way that I get way more inform…

The flip side is that the expectation is not very high. The interviewer knows you're not working in a proper professional coding environment, so they don't expect proper professional code. They do expect you to be able to produce basic working code without those tools, and to think about the problem, which does not require tools.
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