Comments on: Weekend discussion

By: Fabien Besnard

Fabien Besnard — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 18:53:36 +0000

>So much for anonymity.

Peter : Exams should not be corrected by the same professor who train the students. In any case, you can always find a flaw in any system… The question is not which system is perfect but which one is the best.

By: PeterMcB

PeterMcB — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 11:39:12 +0000

I’m not sure written exams are that anonymous, unless the classes are very large. I review anonymous research papers, and I can usually tell who are the authors when the papers are in my own field. The same is true for anonymous reviews I receive on my own submitted papers. Likewise, with student exam scripts — either the hand-writing or the style of argument can give away the identity of the student to the marker.

I was an undergrad student with a guy who was a brilliant theoretical physicist and pure math’n, who used to write in his exams: “This question is beneath me!”. This was true, and both he and his professors knew it to be true. So he rarely lost any marks for doing this. So much for anonymity.

By: Fabien Besnard

Fabien Besnard — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 08:40:23 +0000

Oral exams allow discrimination. Written exam don’t if they are anonymous.

By: michael

michael — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 05:46:35 +0000

Oral exams are better if you know the material, since it becomes quite clear early on that you do, and you get to move on. Written exams favor angle shooters.

Actually, my oral examination experiences have been uniformly and simultaneously nerve wracking yet positive, since no one was interested in silly oversight mistakes like sign errors, etc.

By: PeterMcB

PeterMcB — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 12:40:49 +0000

My colleagues from the countries of the former Soviet Union tell me that oral examinations in mathematical subjects are still the norm there for undergraduate students.

By: pgiacome

pgiacome — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 06:59:43 +0000

oral approach are the most sutisfactory

By: PeterMcB

PeterMcB — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 12:00:45 +0000

The University of Cambridge Mathematics Tripos was an oral exam until the mid 18th century, when it became a written exam. This change was apparently introduced despite much protest from the Cambridge faculty. One argument made was that written exams could not assess students fairly, because they asked everyone the same questions. Asking a uniform set of questions would be like forcing everyone to wear the same-size clothes, which would be unfair to larger and smaller people. Only by allowing questions to be student-specific could the assessment be fair.

By: surlygrad

surlygrad — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 20:01:55 +0000

as someone who’s about to take his orals in a week and half, i can only say that i wish they’d never been invented.

By: phils

phils — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 11:18:46 +0000

Oral exams are harder, and better gauge the candidate’s knowledge of math, because the examiners can make sure the person really understand and can prove the claims he makes.

I also don’t quite understand the discussion in the first few posts, because there is clearly no dichotomy between time pressure and oral exams. Examiners in an oral exam can take into account the time the candidate takes to solve the problems.

It is also possible to combine both forms of testing (that’s how math exams are done at my high school): the candidate is handed out the subject and allowed a certain amount of time to write down a preparation, and then has to present their answers orally at the blackboard, and examiners can ask additional questions (like asking the candidate to give a sketch of proof for a theorem they have used). I think this is the optimal solution.

By: pgiacome

pgiacome — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 07:34:14 +0000

The two approach have their own difficulties:
Oral examinations can better test if someone has a good knowledge of the subject, however from my point of view it is more difficult to reasoning with a cold mind.

Written test can permit a better atmosfere for the tested, but if the exercise is known it is more mechanical.