Closed book exams are fucking pointless(especially in College)

[InsanePyro]

I find them amusing with my computer classes in college....no don't use the manual because your employer won't let you on the job or anything /sarcasm

[yawmwen]

[QUOTE=megafat;27451557]I would like to request more threads like this, and not necessarily by the same person either.[/QUOTE]

:frown:

[megafat]

[QUOTE=yawmwen;27452386]:frown:[/QUOTE]

Not about the same thing. Just something like this.

[Jojje]

When we had tests my history teacher would let us search the books, for things like dates or names and such. We could've just copied down whatever was in the book, but we would've only passed by a hair if we'd done that, and there wouldn't have been enough time to jump around and search for the answers.
It worked quite well, actually.

[Shrapnel :3]

College in the UK is a different age range than college in America. All you people saying, "you learn X in college? I learnt that when I was Y", you maybe talking to some one in the UK.

On topic: I myself dislike remembering vast quantities of information, my brain is more of a processor than a memory brain. It's important to have some parameters to test against though. If every exam were open book then the only constraint would be the time of the exam, that is, putting you under pressure to know the stuff from memory to reduce recall times. In this case the exam quality could vary wildly from year to year (if the only "pressure" mechanism was the time limit, it would be very hard to design good quality exams).

If time was the only limiting factor, well designed exams would require you to memorise most your shit anyway.

If you're complaining about having to memorise shit for history exams, all I can say is, "what did you expect going into history"?

[Tymoschuk]

[QUOTE=MedicWine;27440039]I don't believe in studying. Isnt the point of a test to test what you know? Not what you can memorize in a day and forget a day later?[/QUOTE]

I agree, I got a "2", the second highest mark available on my French writing assignment, but now the teacher believes I can obtain a "1", the highest mark, but I've already forgotten most of the essay. She's annoyed because I show no ambition, the ambition to relearn something in a matter of days.

[fo631]

ITT: people who took a too big bite

[Eluveitie]

I love exams. I have a fantastic memory. I hate essays though. I cannot for the life of me write out a formal essay, my thought processing always makes it conversational and questioning.

[Godflex]

Subjects these days are much more than simply regurgitating the relevant knowledge in that said topic. (in History, English and Economics anyway)

For example, History is all about how that knowledge is applied, where to analyse and when to evaluate. Sure you might say, 'well then it doesn't matter if it's open book then, because the marks in exams aren't predominantly directed at knowledge'
But closed book exams are simply a measure to make exams harder, to sift out the dedicated students that are willing to put in the effort and time as well as demonstrating the ability to draw upon your own knowledge rather than what's in front of you

[W00tbeer1]

School teaches you how to intake knowledge for a period of time and then spit it all out and not remember any of it.

[JohnnyMo]

[QUOTE=Number-41;27450918]You forgot to set your integration borders from a to z :v:[/QUOTE]

It's indefinite silly

[Raptor_Girl]

[QUOTE=Magick;27440254]Then I'm pretty sure you are confusing college with middle school. College math is Calculus AKA derivatives and integrals of those linear and quadratic equations you learned way back in middle/high school.

Also, I said BASIC Trig. Which is taught in high school. Several times. Not in honors/advanced classes.

The ACT is a test for high school students to take. There would be no point to putting college level math on a test taken in high school.[/QUOTE]

Lol. I never had trig in highschool. I went as high as geometry and algebra II.

---

Anyways. Open book/note doesn't always make the tests easier. My financial accounting class was open book/note/homework. Had almost three hours to finish the test. Sure, you had access to all the formulas and what to do, but if you didn't pay attention in class, you were fucked. Of course, the professor was awesome and would give you half points on the problem for just attempting it.

[Magick]

[QUOTE=Raptor_Girl;27457389]Lol. I never had trig in highschool. I went as high as geometry and algebra II.
[/QUOTE]

I believe basic trig concepts are taught in geometry, and maybe algebra II. I'm not talking about difficult stuff, just finging the missing angle or side of a triangle.

[Raptor_Girl]

[QUOTE=Magick;27457612]I believe basic trig concepts are taught in geometry, and maybe algebra II. I'm not talking about difficult stuff, just finging the missing angle or side of a triangle.[/QUOTE]

I did poorly in them. I did my highschool online. They had these tiny images that made it impossible to see the lines/angles/etc. Sadly, there was no way to make the images larger.

[Atchell]

i agree

[yawmwen]

[QUOTE=Magick;27457612]I believe basic trig concepts are taught in geometry, and maybe algebra II. I'm not talking about difficult stuff, just finging the missing angle or side of a triangle.[/QUOTE]

In the basic math class the closest we got was the Pythagorean Theorem which is like, the most basic concept in trig out there.

[turkeysandvich]

I agree, but we still need to memorize things. Like for example, you're a doctor and you're operating on a patient, you aren't gonna go like "Oh i forgot which part of the guts to cut lol lemme get a book" while the patient is right in front of you with his/her life on the line. Basically what i'm trying to say is, closed book exams are a bitch, but it is what it is and we have to do it. It'll be nice though if they could let us check our notes when we really need to.

[Number-41]

Also: knowing stuff is fun. I enjoy being able to explain things without having to look them up.

[Strider_07]

While you usually have some sort of handy reference in the real world, it's better to at least have a fairly good idea what you're doing.

[moore123]

I think the differences between closed and open is that closed are testing your memorization of the material and open is probably timed, so it tests whether or not you had read the material that you are able to locate the information quickly.

This is interesting on how they compare the two in law school: [url]http://lawvibe.com/closed-book-vs-open-book-exams-in-law-school/[/url] which is really interesting because I really think it depends on what subject you're studying. Something really intense would probably be hard whether it was open or closed. When I took online courses at [url]http://www.marketingdegree.net/[/url] every exam was open, but timed of course. A lot of times, when I didn't actually read the material, it was pretty pointless in having a book in front of me because I had NO idea where to go for the answer.

I mean, it also depends on how the questions are asked too. If they're straight on definitions, then it'd be easy to find as opposed to application questions which would take some brain power to test if you actually read the material.

[Capn'Underpants]

Timed exams are bullshit same with open book exams.
It's about what you learned not how well you can look into the index of a book.

[xZippy]

ACT/SAT tests were the dumbest.