I don't mean to derail, but what is a "spoken" math exam like? It sounds like my nightmare and I graduated with a STEM degree in a competitive program.
There were printed tickets that contains different question (typically 3) from all math coursed tough in school.
A person randomly picks the ticket (that were present, and questions unknow before you pick it) and was given time to answer the questions. After that he sit face to face with person who take the exam (typically if was the professor form university) and explain him your answer, while examiner can ask you additional questions related to your answer, etc. Based on your answer he grades you. In this system you cannot cheat the exam, since examiner will quickly realize if your answer were from cheat or you knew the subject.
You stand in front of a few adults as a middle schooler. You have a chalkboard and chalk. They ask you to prove that n^2+1 is never divisible by 3. You do so with aplomb.
Decades later you ask an American middle schooler to do the same. He covers a ream of paper with attempts to find the right answer, and stares at you in confusion. You wonder if escaping the Soviet Union was worth dealing with lazy fools who can't already do calculus at 13.
I think the system is great. The main downside is that one-on-one tests just don't scale. But other than that, I wish they would be more common in undergraduate studies in the US.
It's basically like a coding whiteboard interview, but instead of being asked to invert a binary tree, you're asked a math question (proof of something, etc)
Written, are just like that, written tests, usually not multiple choice, (that is an american invention), but you have to show the work you did to get the result of the problem.
They can be easy or brutal, it very depends on how hard is the teach doing the 'interrogation' on you....