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Comment by kcexn | Hacker News Reader

The problem with exams is that everyone has a bad experience with a poorly written one. Well-written exams will have questions that test students at different levels of understanding across the whole curriculum.

So a student who only understands the basics should be able to answer most of the easy questions and students who have a deeper understanding can answer the harder ones.

Well-written exams should feel pretty fair and leave students feeling like the result they got is proportional to the effort they put into studying the material (or at least how well they personally felt they understood the material).

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Exams almost filtered me out of this industry before I even got started. I later went on to be a lead developer! I went to a rural high school with a poor math curriculum. I understood the concepts, but I was slow. When I got to undergrad, my first calc professor gave us a 60 question test with 50 minutes of allotted time. He told us if we couldn't do the problems fast enough we weren't cut out for the work and it would be better if we quit now. I've never felt more inadequate in my life. It's one of my only Ws.

What does W mean? Withdraw?

Yes. You can do it a set number of times, opting to either retake the course for a better grade or simply not take it again. Either way it shows on your transcript.

> a 60 question test with 50 minutes of allotted time

Is this kind of test - many short questions - a standard thing for math in your country?

My university exams were pretty much all "2-question", in 90 minutes.

The first half was an essay where you have to reproduce a lesson from the curriculum, in your own words.

The second half was "the formulas" - you have to develop one or two formulas from first principles.

I once got an A- even though I got "the formulas" half very wrong. As the teacher explained later, I simply chose the coordinate system beginning at not the same place the textbook did. And this was supposed to be a bad teacher - he actually gave Ds to almost all of us (180 people). This was a makeup exam.

Exams are kind of like interviews, at some level they are always at least a bit artificial and sometimes very artificial. I don't really think they do a good job of proving understanding but we also don't really have anything better.

Every class. Teachers think: "We want a curve, not everyone is getting an A". This pushes the teacher to ask questions not covered in the material. If they stick to what is covered it is hard to get a decent curve. So, in the end, teachers just hand out grades based on IQ, and there isn't a point of grades.

Courses aren't supposed to be pure memorization. If you can only answer questions directly covered in the material but can't apply it to new situations, you should not get an A.

Many "straight A" high school students earn their first B (or C) with this misunderstanding.

> Teachers think: "We want a curve, not everyone is getting an A". This pushes the teacher to ask questions not covered in the material. If they stick to what is covered it is hard to get a decent curve.

You've never been a teacher.

If you can't transfer the course's material onto new, unseen questions, then you might have memorised it, but you didn't understand it. Getting an A requires understanding, not rote memorisation.

You're forgetting the a large percentage of the student body simply does not care to judge the material fairly. Any difficult exam where they receive a low grade is perceived as unfair and complained about online. Professors that test fairly are reviewed harshly online. Universities that prioritize education over graduation receive poor reviews. Top universities specifically coddle and push their students making it nearly impossible to fail.

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