Why are there still closed book examinations when in the real world we always have Google and YouTube?

[SecondSlip]

[Muloghonto]

Because when i was lost in the middle of the Andes with a serious sun-burn and dehydrating fast, i didn't have google or facebook or youtube to tell me which direction to go and how long it will take, therefore, how i should pace myself.

 

Kids need to understand the purpose of school. It is to give you life skills. Life sills are not just plug-n-play 'get this to find job/do this to fill taxes well' only. Life skills are also training your MIND. Closed book exams are there for this reason.

 

I once read a story about a Calculus professor who started the first class with the a question- why do you need calculus -like why do all 30-50 students need this, when in life maybe 1 or 2 will use it for jobs or problem-solving in their whole life ? Its the same reason when you want to be a tennis player, you don't just run around a court playing tennis till you drop, you also go for long runs, springs, weight training of some sort, stretchings, etc. Its TRAINING. 

Its the same general concept. 

[fineleg]

47 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

Because when i was lost in the middle of the Andes with a serious sun-burn and dehydrating fast, i didn't have google or facebook or youtube to tell me which direction to go and how long it will take, therefore, how i should pace myself.

 

Kids need to understand the purpose of school. It is to give you life skills. Life sills are not just plug-n-play 'get this to find job/do this to fill taxes well' only. Life skills are also training your MIND. Closed book exams are there for this reason.

 

I once read a story about a Calculus professor who started the first class with the a question- why do you need calculus -like why do all 30-50 students need this, when in life maybe 1 or 2 will use it for jobs or problem-solving in their whole life ? Its the same reason when you want to be a tennis player, you don't just run around a court playing tennis till you drop, you also go for long runs, springs, weight training of some sort, stretchings, etc. Its TRAINING. 

Its the same general concept. 

+1

[MechEng]

Open book exams are not easy always too.

We had this professor last semester, and all his exams were open book. But very few take his class because he is popular for failing students.

 All his open book exams would have very ambiguous questions in which there is a desired goal to achieve and how you do it depends on your own method. This makes grading unpredictable as well.

[diga]

Real world situations also require one to react within a fraction of a second.. Google search & the right search result can take you more than 5 seconds

[Muloghonto]

3 hours ago, diga said:

Real world situations also require one to react within a fraction of a second.. Google search & the right search result can take you more than 5 seconds

funny thing is, i didn't grow up with a calculator in high school. Then went to the west to study and everyone has a calculator. Now its great when you are trying to do 0.3234904/0.2237 and stuff like that....but my classmates were doing stuff like ( 17+33-11+4)*3 on the calc and its way slower than just doing it in your head....

[Clarke]

They can & should co-exist together. I used to love the various types of exams (closed/no book, cheat sheet only, textbook + cheat sheet) depending on the course & professor in a single program.

[fineleg]

7 hours ago, Clarke said:

They can & should co-exist together. I used to love the various types of exams (closed/no book, cheat sheet only, textbook + cheat sheet) depending on the course & professor in a single program.

You loved exams? That's cool, what program of study? @Clarke

Edited December 22, 2018 by fineleg

[PBN]

we had open book exams and a 'cheat sheet' allowed in uni. It didn't matter because due to the time limitation, you had to know all your concepts, they could be used as a reference, but the questions were obviously application type not basic memory times.

[Clarke]

58 minutes ago, fineleg said:

You loved exams? That's cool, what program of study? @Clarke

What I meant is it was a breath of fresh air compared to the usual exams in India. Somehow 4 complex problems didn't sound as bad when compared to 1/2/5 mark questions that came by the dozen.

[Muloghonto]

11 hours ago, Clarke said:

They can & should co-exist together. I used to love the various types of exams (closed/no book, cheat sheet only, textbook + cheat sheet) depending on the course & professor in a single program.

in my experience, open book exam = you are so so screwed. My 2nd year electromagnetics prof used to love giving open book exams - a typical desi MIT educated professor in North America. He used to write a monstrosity on the board, go ' prove it and u get 100%' and walk out. Less than 10% of us could prove it. hated the concept ever since. 

 

There is no point to open book exams in STEM fields - just hunting out an equation is useless and if you dont know it by the time you walk into the exam hall, finding it in the book wont help u.

[MechEng]

55 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

in my experience, open book exam = you are so so screwed. My 2nd year electromagnetics prof used to love giving open book exams - a typical desi MIT educated professor in North America. He used to write a monstrosity on the board, go ' prove it and u get 100%' and walk out. Less than 10% of us could prove it. hated the concept ever since. 

 

There is no point to open book exams in STEM fields - just hunting out an equation is useless and if you dont know it by the time you walk into the exam hall, finding it in the book wont help u.

The professor I was talking about in my previous comment was a Russian who did his PhD from St. Petersburg University I think, the course was finite element method - an advanced version of strength of materials in case you don't know. While what we studied was calculating stresses and strain matrices of nodes on a cantilever beam and etc. the exam problem was based on a aircarft component (he did not teach that), we had to assume properties for the component and design it to be safe for use, all this inside 80 minutes. The entire exam hall had students with both hands on their head, not a single confident student. I luckily passed that course.

 

The good thing about open book exams is that although it's hard it actually prepares you for real world problem solving skills. 

 

 

[zen]

I agree to a certain extent that closed books exams that you have to give in a limited time frame (2-3 hours) are pointless 

[sourab10forever]

On 12/22/2018 at 1:55 AM, Muloghonto said:

Because when i was lost in the middle of the Andes with a serious sun-burn and dehydrating fast, i didn't have google or facebook or youtube to tell me which direction to go and how long it will take, therefore, how i should pace myself.

 

Kids need to understand the purpose of school. It is to give you life skills. Life sills are not just plug-n-play 'get this to find job/do this to fill taxes well' only. Life skills are also training your MIND. Closed book exams are there for this reason.

 

I once read a story about a Calculus professor who started the first class with the a question- why do you need calculus -like why do all 30-50 students need this, when in life maybe 1 or 2 will use it for jobs or problem-solving in their whole life ? Its the same reason when you want to be a tennis player, you don't just run around a court playing tennis till you drop, you also go for long runs, springs, weight training of some sort, stretchings, etc. Its TRAINING. 

Its the same general concept. 

You really think life skills are thought at schools at days? Life skills are learnt from real world experience. Schools only teach facts and those facts are available on Google.

[Muloghonto]

2 hours ago, sourab10forever said:

You really think life skills are thought at schools at days? Life skills are learnt from real world experience. Schools only teach facts and those facts are available on Google.

Math is a life skill. It teaches you to objectively discern governing principles of situations, prioritize and simplify. It teaches you how to think and problem-solve. Its pretty much the most important life skill for dealing with the material universe. 

[sourab10forever]

3 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

Math is a life skill. It teaches you to objectively discern governing principles of situations, prioritize and simplify. It teaches you how to think and problem-solve. Its pretty much the most important life skill for dealing with the material universe. 

Do you use tringnometey and Integration/differentiation in everyday life? Does a common man need it?.

The math you are talking about can be easily learned in the real world without a need for a force called exams. 

 

Open book exams will continue to test these basic math skills because the papers will be problem oriented and not memory oriented.

 

 

[Muloghonto]

4 hours ago, sourab10forever said:

Do you use tringnometey and Integration/differentiation in everyday life? Does a common man need it?.

The math you are talking about can be easily learned in the real world without a need for a force called exams. 

 

Open book exams will continue to test these basic math skills because the papers will be problem oriented and not memory oriented.

 

Again, its not about whether you NEED to use trig, but what learning it, understanding it, etc. does for your brain. 

A tennis player has no need to bench press 200 pounds. or use squeeze tools. But this training has amazing effects on his/her game. 

Same with triginometry. You don't need to use it any more than a tennis player has the necessity of lifting weights. But the training it provides, serves to help in a million different ways in other avenues of life. 

 

Without exams, no learning is taken seriously in school. So its necessary. 

[sourab10forever]

24 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

Again, its not about whether you NEED to use trig, but what learning it, understanding it, etc. does for your brain. 

A tennis player has no need to bench press 200 pounds. or use squeeze tools. But this training has amazing effects on his/her game. 

Same with triginometry. You don't need to use it any more than a tennis player has the necessity of lifting weights. But the training it provides, serves to help in a million different ways in other avenues of life. 

 

Without exams, no learning is taken seriously in school. So its necessary. 

The question isn't about exams or no exams. Ofcourse there have to be exams.

It's about open book vs closed book. All I'm saying is current closed book format exam is focusing on memory rather than application. Open book exam can help solve that.

 

Application will give the training and problem solving skills to the mind not fact checking exams.

[Muloghonto]

16 minutes ago, sourab10forever said:

The question isn't about exams or no exams. Ofcourse there have to be exams.

It's about open book vs closed book. All I'm saying is current closed book format exam is focusing on memory rather than application. Open book exam can help solve that.

 

Application will give the training and problem solving skills to the mind not fact checking exams.

because unless the exam is about reciting a poem or what exactly did Sherlock Holmes say to Watson under the clock tower on tuesday, 1907 type, open book exams are just dumbing down the system.

Never once in my engineering studying days did i find open book exams helpful - i already knew the formulas by simply using them to do assignments and studying. 

For stuff like math, physics,biology, compsci - if you have to look it up, you are already screwed and looking it up wont help you.

Yes, with chemistry it is helpful but then again,serious chemistry exams always provides the periodic table - the only thing you need to look up with a legit basis.

 

[Pollack]

Open book exams are better. Closed book exams are crap. Pointless rote memorization.