[petterroea]

I agree with you in spirit, but the last meta pre-LLM was that exams were bad at measuring student skill and that students felt more fairly treated when their grade was the result of multiple assignments and projects. I think it's a shame we have move away from that

[volemo]

> exams were bad at measuring student skill

They are. I have a friend who was significantly more smart and thorough in our studies but often get bad scores on exams not being able to concentrate under the pressure.

[zeroCalories]

I also struggled with exams, but that's because my understanding was often shallow, due to a lack of effort to study and understand the material. I'm very suspicious of people that say they're smart, but can't perform on exams. That said, there's plenty of ways to structure things to avoid this. Have weekly, easy, pass / fail exams that ensure you've read the material at a basic level, or understood some basic concepts. Lab work. Presentations with live grilling from the professor to ensure you understand the topic.

[volemo]

I don’t think my friend would claim to be smart (and not I’m not talking about myself in third person to sound more convincingly, I have a real las in mind). I say they are. I saw them in a day to day work and they are both more knowledgeable and more productive than I am. It’s being put on the spot, with high stakes and limited time, they had a difficulty with.

> there's plenty of ways to structure things to avoid this

Sure, I was arguing specifically against GGP’s solution, i.e. betting everything on the finals.

[petterroea]

Exams also rarely measured skill in the course. Often just a subset. We would often spend the last month of each semester cramming exams instead of studying the curse material because it wasn't that useful.

I rarely felt I got a lot out of courses, but I often felt I would if I got to study it properly

[adityamwagh]

Isn’t that actually a valid way to test? IMHO Performing under pressure is a capability signal in itself.

[volemo]

Well, that is a way to test students’ ability to perform under pressure, but I’m adamant it’s not a fair assessment of their skill in the subject at hand, nor how much they’d worked and improved during the course. On several occasions I have gotten higher marks than my friend because of their anxiety issues, despite me being a worse student and arguably a worse researcher (what we studied for).

[jejeje2]

If you can’t concentrate under pressure then you will not go very far in employment….

[volemo]

Huh? Not every job requires this trait, and even though some do, it’s not something nonlinear optics professor ought to evaluate.

Sure, it’s a nice quality to have and I find it useful at times: when it’s “suddenly” the last day to write a proposal, or when someone has to present at a conference. (However, these tasks many other skills besides just the ability to stay calm.) But I can’t agree that it is indispensable for a researcher.