> A test can only test for a sampling of the material presented in class. Specifically looking up the test, and memorizing the answers, does not demonstrate any mastery
None were in that class because they wanted mastery. They were in that class because if it wasn't a requirement for graduation, no one would take it.
To demand mastery of worthless material so that the university can charge them another $5000 in credits, fees, and overpriced-by-the-academic-publishing-cartel books is not asinine, it's criminal.
> For example, if I teach a course in "How To Multiply", and on the final have ten multiplication problems, if the student memorizes the answers to those ten problems, he did not learn to multiply.
If that happens, it means you are a lazy fraudulent teacher. You insist that they learn more than what is on your exam, but you continue to use the same exam because you have no work ethic. Perhaps instead of multiplication you should go teach ethics in the philosophy department, where that sort of thing is considered high performance.
> The professor said some of the planted answers were obviously wrong, if one knew the material at all.
I think that "obvious" means something completely different than "if you master a university-level field of study, you will then know that it is wrong".
Such a thing is, by definition, the very opposite of obvious. I don't know how to explain that to you so that you can understand. Your words make very little sense, it's as if you said "the snow was burning hot" or "that blue thing over there is red".
> I disagree with your conclusions.
This would be disappointing, but given that I'm no longer certain of what you even mean by "disagree" or "conclusions", it might be impolite of me to take that as something other than a compliment.