A.P. Exams in the Coronavirus Era: Online, and Just 15 To 45 Minutes Long (wsj.com) 53
Beginning Monday, 3.4 million high school students will sit down at desks -- and in cars, on bedroom floors and anywhere they can find some quiet -- and take Advanced Placement exams with the hopes of proving mastery of a range of academic subjects. From a report: The tests will look much different than in years past, as the coronavirus pandemic has closed high schools and sent the College Board, which runs the Advanced Placement program, scrambling to create a new format. The tests, in subjects including U.S. history, physics and macroeconomics, historically took three hours to complete. This year, the tests will cover less material and last no more than 45 minutes. To minimize the opportunity for cheating, students globally will take them at the same time, meaning overnight exams for those in Asia. "We definitely did not want to do it this way," said Trevor Packer, senior vice president of the A.P. program and instruction at the College Board. "But when we started to see that schools were closing and many would not open this academic year, we had two options: we would either cancel the exams or find a way to meet students where they are, which is in their home. We heard an overwhelming desire to proceed. We thought we had to go ahead."
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"It's a pity that you don't wish to demonstrate the most basic accomplishment that 90% of professionals somehow seem to manage, even though it is a "waste of human time"."
Yea... it is a real pity that I did not fall for the SCAM just like 90% of the professionals you said "somehow seem to manage". I guess that makes the dumb one for not wasting money huh?
Re: And just like that (Score:3)
Education is never a waste of money.
As you so carefully demonstrate through the opposite ;)
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Yes, there is that word that "ignorant" people overuse.
Look, you got suckered and part of that is that you now have a built-in defense mechanism against any attacks on your precious SCAM.
Let's just put it this way... you spent a lot of money to talk down on people that didn't waste money like you have.
I have seen a lot of wasted money AND effort in education. But you are the one paying that bill while I am not... I guess I will just have to suck it up huh?
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Dunning-Kruger strikes again.
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It did indeed...
Now how about all those losers that did get scammed and their arguments? Are you saying they are all full of bullshit? Because saying I am full of bullshit also says they are too.
So how about it? Is everyone calling their student loans a scam full of bullshit?
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Do I use what I learned in college in my career? A little, I guess.
In the long run, was it worth the time and money? Yes. Oh yes.
Is the whole system bullshit? The answer to that question doesn't matter.
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So you are saying the College is more useful for something other than it was intended to be...
Yea, that does not sound scammy at all!
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So you are saying the College is more useful for something other than it was intended to be...
Yea, that does not sound scammy at all!
I'm saying that college was useful for vastly increasing my employability and earning potential. Sounds like you're doing well without a degree, and that's great! But you'd be doing better if you had a degree.
I've worked for companies that only hire people with degrees. Which I think is foolish, but whatever. But it's a job I had that you couldn't, no matter how much more qualified you might be for it.
Scammy? Sure it is. But I didn't make the rules.
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What you say has some merit in terms of degrees and formal qualifications, and especially the admissions process, but higher education is more than putting in tens of thousands of dollars and waiting for a few years and then pulling out your credentials. It's not so much that you're "dumb" for not "wasting" money, it's that you unfortunately missed on opportunity that a lot of people in the field get (though I have no doubt you can find individuals who did have the opportunity and didn't appreciate it for
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your argument has some merit, but they are still learning, just at a place that pays them instead of a place they pay for. Our problem is the over valuing of the educational institution vs the act of learning itself. I spend a lot of time learning on the job in IT, because there is no college capable of doing this instead. I deal with an onslaught of questions and problems every day. I spend more time trying to manage burnout that actual work now because I can't get other professionals to learn the thin
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Pretty sure he was saying people don't continue to learn, at their job or outside of it.
Which you then agree with, and then agree with further by demonstrating there are professionals that aren't learning the things you show them.
So way to not disagree, but write it like a disagreement. Sure your colleagues aren't learning because they don't want to deal with that style of communication ?
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There is a reason I said his argument has merit. I only "partially" disagree. I do not have to disagree entirely do I? I put down my thoughts on where I agree and did not agree. What was wrong with that?
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I am not a manager, I have been asked many times and have refused because I am more than aware of the peter principle and feel that managing people is not for me.
I occasionally grab certs because well... you just go and take the test and it pads the resume and people think you know what you are doing whether you do or not.
Yes, Professional level training by folks that do know what they are doing is very valuable but our system is not conducive to this. There are two problems... keeping that "God Level" pro
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Re:And just like that (Score:5, Insightful)
But hey... I am a high school drop-out with zero college...
No one would ever have guessed.
Please proceed to tell everyone how this thing you have no experience with is a scam.
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You don't have to take my word for it...
Why don't you just ask all of the other folks bitching about the costs of their "expensive" educations.
I came from a world where a person that avoids getting taken advantage of is smarter than a person that got taken advantage of... no wonder you morons are not getting it. You value being scammed while you trash on people that successfully avoid it and then try to warn others.
Remember when there was no internet and people like you had an excuse for being stupid and i
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Let's see, the $5,500 per year I spent on university in early 1980s scales to $14,500 per year today, but I'm making $160,000 per year.
Yeah what a scam. Bet you wish you could be scammed like that.
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oh, one more data point, I graduated and with my Bachelors took a $31,000 per year job, that scales to $73K today...
someone scam me again like that, and make it double! 8D
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That negates nothing I have said.
What if you could get 135k without spending any money? What would you say then?
Education itself is not the SCAM, our "current" educational institutions are. There is too much value placed on higher education and way too much cramming. I do not need to take humanities, or math, or language, or science to work on computers or do most jobs.
"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-study-shows-careers-and-college-majors-often-dont-match/"
How about that? If you get career and it does
Re: And just like that (Score:3)
You sound bitter.
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There is some complexity to that.
Do you get bitter when you watch a bunch of people fucking up in life after you tell them what is wrong as they then blame everything else but themselves while looking at those of us whom were successful and acting like they are "owed" a piece of that pie?
If that is what you mean then yea... you can definitely say I am bitter. I am successful and I buck the fucking system because I smell rat, and rats like you are busy putting on more deodorant every day and it's hard to ge
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Sure, there are many ways to make as much as me or more with no training. Some people are real estate agents, some start businesses.... so what, I don't want to peddle anything.
After uni I made money doing things I liked, and those things required a lot of specialized training. No one gets into those fields without that mountain of training, not for over 100+ years.
You are seething about other people who didn't do things the way you approve of who aren't walking the path of your puny tunnel vision.
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Once again... you are missing the point.
I did not say that education itself is a SCAM, just our current institutionalization and concept of "Higher Education". There are plenty of other nations that have figured this out.
If you think that people should not be having to pay for education upfront and gamble if they can get a job with their newly attained skills while they are already saddled with a debt they most likely cannot bankrupt out of then you too agree this is a scam!
So tell me... is this a SCAM or
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As if it's not pretty well known how much various skills are in demand? Someone spends $130K to be educated in making clay sculptures doesn't know that their chances of employment (or setting up an art store with their crap) is going to be near zero? I wouldn't call the art training a scam in itself, maybe they can make art and marry a science / engineering geek like me and be happy.
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You are missing the point.
If most people can get jobs that do not match their majors... then what is the value? Other than for the social aspects there is very little. And to do it like this for the social aspects would indeed make it a scam.
" I wouldn't call the art training a scam in itself,"
Once again... I am not saying that. I am saying that people are making them into a scam and because it is so well entrenched that it takes a lot of work to undo it all.
Thankfully there are folks like Salman Kahn an
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with free-response sections in the humanities
Just the humanities? How about free-response sections everywhere? What is this new-fangled "multiple choice" thing? Isn't the infinite choice of answers you can write into a box a multiple choice?
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It seemed to work pretty well. There was also a long form section with choose 4 of 6 problems to complete.
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Cheaters (Score:2, Insightful)
Hiow many kids with the access to resources, helicopter parents, etc. will cheat. Are these people idiots to be so naively trusting? It will reward bad behavior and demoralize and punish many hardworking students -- long term that will be bad for technology and the economy. And it'll be nearly impossible to prove. They should have postponed the exams or figured out a way to proctor the exams. It's not like there aren't a bunch of empty school buildings .. they could maintain social distancing and hold the e
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Hiow many kids with the access to resources, helicopter parents, etc. will cheat. Are these people idiots to be so naively trusting? It will reward bad behavior and demoralize and punish many hardworking students -- long term that will be bad for technology and the economy. And it'll be nearly impossible to prove. They should have postponed the exams or figured out a way to proctor the exams. It's not like there aren't a bunch of empty school buildings .. they could maintain social distancing and hold the exams with say 5 or 6 students per classroom. If there is a shortage of proctors, cameras could be in the exam rooms.
I would say require the tests to be taken on a device with a camera, and that camera should be recording the entire time the test is active.
More fair - just have the colleges test the kids (Score:2)
Have them take the final exam of whatever class they're trying to get credit for, and if they pass it, give them credit.
Seems simpler, more fair, and more reliable than counting on some third party company's tests.
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"I would say require the tests to be taken on a device with a camera"
The College Board can't watch the video feeds from thousands of students. Even after the fact, reviewing thousands of videos would be an enormous task.
I've seen test-taking camera apps that claim to track eye movement. It's still a huge burden to review the footage of students flagged as potential cheaters... in an average sized class. At the scale of the AP exams, there is no way those apps would work since they require manual review
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How would those measures work when the questions would be heard by and answered by some else? Also you naively assume that the cheater would be a complete dunce --a false assumption in most cases no doubt. Some extra help can turn a B student to an A student. An advisor could flash a card saying "use quicksort" .. hints like that .. again .. its not going to help an F student be an A student but it may help a B or C student become get an A.
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Nine colleges no longer accept AP as credit. Many others have restricted to a certain number of credit hours, without regard to which classes are accepted. This mostly seems to be about bleeding more tuition money out of the students, as a good AP score still allows students to skip classes without getting credit hours towards graduation requirements.
Started college in '05 with enough credits that I would have been considered a sophomore if I didn't have to take some intro class that my school required all freshman take. But it was nice to have the last 3 years as minimal course loads with no early morning/later afternoon classes. Hell, my senior year I didn't start classes before 9/10am and was done by 1pm every day.
Now if DSST could figure out a way to do this. (Score:2)
Entrance exams are nice.
What would be nicer is if credit-by-exam tests, such as DSST, could figure out a way to operate remotely.
Unfortunately, those are only held at (now-closed) educational institutions, where the student can be observed (by an actual academic professional) to be not cheating.
(I'm two of these tests away from completing a degree, and more than a bit annoyed by not being able to take the final exams for the last two distribution requirements and finish earning the diploma.)
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What other option do they have? (Score:2)
Seriously.
It can't be delayed because it would be cruel to students that are at the cusp of getting a better grade. A delay would have them forget something, lowering their grade.
It has to be at home, since some areas are still under serious quarantine.
It has to be on computer so that there's a semblance of monitoring time, if nothing else.
It can't use video or audio to monitor due to both privacy concerns as well as some computers just don't have the capability.
It has to be all at the same time, to minimi