Alan McLean wrote:
> This describes a BAD closed book exam. It also describes a bad open book
> exam.
Not entirely. I have found that many students still worry about such
things regardless of the information they have about the 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!
I don't agree here. As a semi-trivial counterexample, would you
suggest that I don't understand a concept if I am given an
unfamiliar formula (e.g., because it is rearranged for some purpose
such as ease of calculation, or because it uses a notation that I am
unfamiliar with?). A single concept can give rise to an infinite
number of formulae or forms of notation.
In the context of evaluating a student if you test memory for a
formula as a component of a question this leads you to unable to
distinguish poor performance due to complete lack of understanding
and a student who has a partial understanding (but can't recall the formula).
Thom
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