Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd
Yes and no. There are real skills (I've proposed using Games (Standardized Tests) before) involved in taking tests. And one of them is recognizing what in the material you are supposed to be learning is testable enough there might be a question on it, and which is hard enough to measure that there won't be. The test master can skip learning the stuff in that second category and expect to pass, the guy who's really good at the skill may consider it the most important part.
|
Data point: That's the standard way to pass doctoral preliminary examinations in physics – people can and everyone eventually does "game" such tests. The fact that they're comprehensive is exploitable . . . you will almost certainly be capable enough at just a few subfields that you can focus on those to the complete exclusion of others, tackle each section of the exam with a little room to spare, and do well enough to get whatever grade is a pass that year. People who are good at this game teach the skill to others, and there are even texts on this subject from reputable university presses (in the U.S.A., mostly, so this isn't just some Canadian thing). This is
probably morally defensible, because nobody actually expects a PhD-level physicist to be a generalist, but it does put the lie to such exams as a demonstration of one's general grasp of physics.
I passed my exam on the first attempt, with an unadjusted grade of 84%, by playing the game. People I knew who actually tried to study everything failed and had to resubmit, as did those who focused on just their own field. Most of the former group eventually specialized a little more and passed, while most of the latter group broadened their focus some and also passed. As for me, playing that game is certainly one of the factors that contributed to me graduating with a good knowledge of mathematical physics, particle physics, and quantum physics, at best an undergraduate-level grasp of classical mechanics, electrodynamics, nuclear physics, relativity, and solid-state physics, and no understanding at all of acoustics, astrophysics, fluid dynamics, geophysics, or optics save for where that overlapped the stuff I was good at.