How Good Are Robo-Graders?

stoolpigeon writes "With a large study showing software grades essays as well as humans, but much faster, it might seem that soon humans will be completely out of the loop when it comes to evaluating standardized tests. But Les Perelman, a writing teacher at MIT, has shown the limits of algorithms used for grading with an essay that got a top score from an automated system but contained no relevant information and many inaccuracies. Mr. Perelman outlined his approach for the NY Times after he was given a month to analyze E-Rater, one of the software packages that grades essays."

Re:More importantly

[s0nicfreak]

Did you know that often schools only teach students what is required to pass the tests, and much of that is forgotten during school vacations, not to mention after several years of being out of school?

Just the day before yesterday I was behind someone in a checkout line that didn't have enough to pay their bill on their debit card. So the cashier and the lady were trying to work out how much would be remaining after the amount on the debit card was used. After several minutes of both of then failing to figure it out, and the customer just handing the cashier some money (though not enough to cover the whole bill) they called over a manager, who showed the cashier that if she charged the debit card first it would show her the remaining amount. So then they counted how much money the customer had handed the cashier... and both tried to work out how much more was needed. After a minute the manager figured out how to type the amount into the register and be told the remaining bill.

I'm not saying cashiers don't know basic math, but quite a few of them would not be able to do their job without a register or at least a calculator.