[lowboy]

> If they were actually trying to program something and had to look up basics like that every time they used them, they would be so slow as to be completely useless

Isn't that the point of timed tests? You can structure a test such that the person who needs to look up how to add two ints in Java will waste so much time that they wouldn't be able to finish the test. And if they can search for and apply this knowledge quickly enough, then maybe they've proven that they won't be slow if they have to do it in the real world.

My favourite exams were open book but still hard/long enough that if you didn't already know 95% of the material, you simply wouldn't have time to complete it.

[jbri]

On the other hand, if you allow outside communication (such as unrestricted access to the internet), you open the door for "I'll pay someone who already knows this stuff to phone in the answers for me" - which isn't generally an applicable skill in the real world.

As an aside, I hated open book exams - if you were talented and knew the material, you could typically blast through a closed-book examination in half the allotted time and get out of there, while the open-book exams were far longer and more tedious.

[tbirdz]

>"I'll pay someone who already knows this stuff to phone in the answers for me" - which isn't generally an applicable skill in the real world.

I would argue that this is also a valuable skill. Knowing who to hire, assessing the person's abilities, figuring out if they can actually get the job done in the time allotted. Sure it's not at the same level that a hiring manager at a tech company in the real world would have to make, but then again the normal CS test questions aren't at that level either.