Re: [LAU] Exam Cheating investigation

On Saturday 18 January 2014 12:58:06 Neil C Smith did opine:

> On 18 January 2014 13:28, Florian Paul Schmidt <mista.tapas@gmx.net>
wrote:
> > It's even in the name: SMART phones. If they are allowed you basically
> > test the intelligence of the phone and not of the student ;D
>
> Hahaha .. smart phones are not intelligent! Reminds of a quote from
> Steve Grand (Creation) -
>
> "Here’s a thought experiment; take one super, hyper intelligent, chess
> computer like Deep Blue, say, and take one domestic rabbit - this is
> what happens when you ask a rabbit to play chess. They’re not very
> good at it. The Queen’s opening gambit gets them every time. So on
> that basis, chess computers are far more intelligent than rabbits but
> if you swap the experiment around and try throwing them both into a
> bucket of water, it strikes me that the one who's really the most
> intelligent is the one who figures out how not to drown. Now I’ve
> tried this experiment loads of times now and chess computers just
> don’t get it - it’s cost me a fortune. "
>
> It's no different to the fact that in my high school maths exams we
> were allowed to use calculators. Intelligence is not knowledge, it is
> the *application* of knowledge. If the exam requires no intelligence,
> it's not a very good exam!
>
> 2c
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Neil

And exams so written, were in fact not written by truly intelligent people,
who know the difference. I don't think its unreasonable to expect the test
composer to have an IQ 50 points higher than the student either. If he
runs into a student whose IQ beats his/hers, he/she _will_ know it very
quickly. If he/she gets pushed to compose problems which push the gifted
student even further, then they are both enriched mentally by that effort.

I'm sorry if that reflects poorly on the composer of that particular exam,
but what you want, is not to test the memory of the test taker, but to test
their powers of deduction. It can be a fine line. Calculators, since they
are so refined for a $20 bill these days, I would allow, but would take
extreme pains to present the problem in a manner that is not directly
translatable to the order of button pushes needed to solve the problem.
That's just handing them the answer. Shame on the test composer.

I learned to do square roots on paper, probably something over 70 years
ago, but today I'd have to use a calculator AND the answer would have to
make sense (based on a basic idea of what it should be, gained from that
experience) before I'd write it down verbatim today. Same with trig or
either form of log (log10, logE)functions.

Cheers, Gene

-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
Required reading: 
<http://culturalslagheap.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/elemental/>
<lux> if macOS is for the computer illiterate, then windoze is for the
      computer masochists
A pen in the hand of this president is far more
dangerous than 200 million guns in the hands of
         law-abiding citizens.
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