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Comment by zeteo | Hacker News Reader

Do you have any arguments why exams would be pointless and dated out? From meeting lots of students, I found out that their understanding of the subject correlated much better with exam than assignment grades. The way I see it, there are two main proofs that you've really grokked something:

1. You can recall and use it under pressure, without the luxury of consulting books and friends.

2. You can use it in a creative manner, to solve new problems.

Only exams can furnish such proofs. The exam system is not perfect, but the best we have (and incomparably less corrupt than the assignment system). The proper way to see things is that assignments are rehearsals for the exam; and the student who never turns in a homework but aces the exam well deserves his/her A-.

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Sorry I should have qualified that with some kind of research. When I say my experience, I mean myself and a few dozen fellow students I had spoken to. I understand that that does not constitute any way close to a majority.

Our experiences were that with the assignments we had undertaken we felt enriched doing the research and learning about the things that needed to be done. Exam time was inevitably cram time. Pure short term memory work (coupled with going over past exams - which coincidentally were templates for the current exams).

Now both your arguments about using something under pressure and doing so creatively would be fair, if it was not the case that most of our exams were based on previous years' ones.

I do agree with you about exams being less corrupt. But I am talking about students who actually enjoy doing their assignments and the whole research process (and students who learns for the sake of learning rather than doing well for exams).

I absolutely agree with #2; using knowledge in a creative manner to solve new problems is a perfect demonstration that you have grokked something. #1, however, just proves the ability to cram, which is frequently the same as cram-and-forget.

I agree with you until your last sentence. Especially in upper division courses, the material is more complicated and problems that really test understanding are too ambitious for an exam. This means that if you want to see the student solve interesting problems, they have to complete problem sets or a project. (The corruption of the assignment system means that you're still stuck with exams until the students reach a certain point, though.)

Of course, my experience is only with math courses, and your mileage may vary.

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