Thread: Tests - Accurate or Not?

Depends on the test, mostly I think yes. I think the results are or may be skewed due to people's natural tendancy to feel pressured and/or stressed while taking them.

well they do put alot of strees on u and then u can get destracted in the middle of the test. but for me there easy, well now anywas sence im in my last yr of meddle school. but i bet that they are alot harder in high school

Originally Posted by chiefblackhammer

Depends on the test, mostly I think yes. I think the results are or may be skewed due to people's natural tendancy to feel pressured and/or stressed while taking them.

My own opinion, and not just because I'm not so good at them, is that tests are not a good way to determine how well you know material. I think they rely too heavily on memorization, which automatically shuts out a lot of people. I also believe that they do not acurately reflect all of a person's abilities. A person can be very good at the material, and understand it well, but that doesn't mean they are just as good at regurgitating the information.

Depends what kind of test, but, in general, I'd say a test is an accurate measure of knowledge.

Originally Posted by LittleHobbit13

My own opinion, and not just because I'm not so good at them, is that tests are not a good way to determine how well you know material. I think they rely too heavily on memorization, which automatically shuts out a lot of people. I also believe that they do not acurately reflect all of a person's abilities. A person can be very good at the material, and understand it well, but that doesn't mean they are just as good at regurgitating the information.

There is a difference between knowing the material and understanding the material, you can understand concepts and even do work based off of them but that does not mean you truly know and have learned the material.

The difference comes from your long-term memory, things you have learned you can regurgitate with little effort. Do you have to think about many of the things you do everyday? No because you learned them and can easily explain them, the problem you identified was not that test do not accurately judge ones knowledge but rather show that people aren't truly learning the material and are rather memorizing (storing to short term memory) just long enough to be tested on it.

i dunno... everyone learns different, don't they? it would be unfair to take away tests completely becuz what about the people who are good at taking tests?

... of course, i believe that everything should ba accumlitive... that every grade should count... nothing should be dramatically counted higher than the others, so one bad test doesn't kill your grade...

^_^ i like projects personally, so i like it when everything comes full circle by having a project to tie it all together! but then again, i REALLY get into making things, so i'll learn a bunch of stuff i didn't mean to for the sole purpose of making the poster kick ass!!!

but that's just me...

Originally Posted by chiefblackhammer

No because you learned them and can easily explain them, the problem you identified was not that test do not accurately judge ones knowledge but rather show that people aren't truly learning the material and are rather memorizing (storing to short term memory) just long enough to be tested on it.

But again, that goes back to memory. What if someone just naturally doesn't have a good memory? The tests basically come down to who can regurgitate the information the fastest, too. There are plenty of students, who, given more time, could probably do better on tests. Is it a fair judge of how well they know the material if in actuality they just don't work fast? Think about it, yes, people who can draw the information from their LT memory probably know the information pretty well, but at the same time, what about the people who are good at storing things in ST memory? Does that mean they know the material?

Originally Posted by Abu Dhabi

^_^ i like projects personally, so i like it when everything comes full circle by having a project to tie it all together! but then again, i REALLY get into making things, so i'll learn a bunch of stuff i didn't mean to for the sole purpose of making the poster kick ass!!!

but that's just me...

I agree about not getting rid of tests. For some people they are a good way of showing they know the material. But if you can say that, can't you just as easily say that there are other people for who tests are not the best method, whether they know the material or not?

And I like projects, too. My friends and I have decided that whether we're good at doing them or not, the Comp.Sci. project we get are the best way to test if you know the material. They're literally testing on whether you can apply it or not. And that's what's taught in class. That is another reason I find tests unfair. Many teachers do not teach application in class, only method, but then test on the application.