Herman Rubin wrote: > > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > Thom Baguley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Glen wrote: > >> As a student I *always* preferred closed book exams. If I know the > >> material I don't need the book, and if I don't know the material, > >> the book isn't going to help in the exam enough anyway. For open > > >Yes. Also, closed book exams tend to be easier because the range of > >questions is more restricted. I have found them a way to avoid > >students spending most of their time memorizing near-useless material.
The main reason why closed book exams tend to be easier for students is that they actually realise they have to do some work in preparation! > > On the contrary, closed book exams emphasize memorizing > near-useless material. This describes a BAD closed book exam. It also describes a bad open book exam. A good one-hour exam would have > three, or at most four, multi-part PROBLEMS. > > A good exam would be one which someone who has merely > memorized the book would fail, and one who understands > the concepts but has forgotten all the formulas would > do extremely well on. Since to understand the concepts almost always means understanding (and hence knowing) the formulas, I would interpret someone who has 'forgotten all the formulas' as understanding the concepts only in the most superficial manner, and so should do badly! Overall, the evaluation of students is driven mostly by budget, (lecturers') time, lecturers' interest, the number of students, politics - the best one can do is to assess students as honestly as possible within the range allowed by these factors! My eight cents' worth. Alan > > -- > This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views > are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. > Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558 > > ================================================================= > Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about > the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES are available at > http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ > ================================================================= -- Alan McLean ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Melbourne Tel: +61 03 9903 2102 Fax: +61 03 9903 2007 ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES are available at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ =================================================================
