Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Open book tests...

Interesting points everyone. Thanks.

I think my main issue with this is that it's 5th grade. Granted, it's been awhile since I was in elementary school, but I honestly can't remember ever taking open book tests then.

I've seen many of the tests and had to sign them (although, this didn't come up until yesterday). The majority of the questions are multiple choice and then there are usually 1-2 explanation type answers, ie. How does waste leave the body?. I understand referencing the book for written explanations where detail is needed or supporting info should be included. I also understand notes of formulas, etc. in math.

I'm probably just overly sensitive to the state of the education system here and each new thing is just another thing added, kwim? Generally, I think that there's such a low expectation of kids and I just know that more of them could meet and exceed higher expectations if only they were there. Obviously, I only have experience with mine and I know all kids are different, but if we don't think they can do it, how will they? (Please note that I intend no disrespect to teachers/educators, I think the problems are much bigger and go deeper than the teachers in the classrooms.)


Weeellll, he's kinda lazy like that . Seriously, he's not about to do any more work than the bare minimum unless he's required. By required, I mean a directive from the teacher or he'd probably have to fail a test before he'd think that he needed the notes. It's very frustrating for us because we feel that he's missing out on learning some very important skills/habits that he will need at some point.

Oh, I didn't read it like that. I was thinking along the lines that he doesn't take notes because he doesn't need to. Does he do well with the bare minimum? The reason I ask is my DS sounded very similar at that age, and in our case well beyond it. He would do what was required and no more. Minimal effort applied to all tasks .
It hasn't affected his ability to prepare or study for exams in high school or university. I was concerned when he attended a residential school at the university and over 4 days (all day 9 -5) wrote 1/2 a page of notes in an exercise book. I asked him about it and he said he knew the work so why write it down. Thank god his end of semester results proved him right

LOL, I love it! I can picture DS doing/saying something like this. Sooo, there's hope after all?

You betcha!

The type of open book tests described at the start of this thread seem to be a bit much to me. They seem particularly silly if a student is just copying an answer to a straightforward question ("Hydrogen has one proton. page 52.")

When I was in college, open-book tests were usually take-home exams that consisted of one or more very difficult questions. In the humanities, the questions always were always directly related to whatever we were studying. Answering the question(s) required us to consult multiple sources of information, hence the term "open book." They were actually more akin to short research projects than to exams.

In math or science, open book tests were ways to measure how well you could apply concepts. You had to really know your stuff to answer the questions, and the open-book part was the instructor's way of saying "In the real world, people look up formulae to avoid making mistakes. But you have to know what a formula means before you can apply it."

Pardon me for getting onto my soapbox here, but to me, this is just more evidence of our education system continuing its downhill slide in its apparent quest for new and dumber ways to dilute an already-watered down curriculum. If things continue this way, they'll find themselves diluting water. I wonder how that will work out. Perhaps we'll turn oceans into fresh water and kill all the marine life in the process. // </metaphor>

It all reminds me of something I used to read in Princeton Review test prep books. One their main points was basically: "The SAT doesn't test how smart you are or how much you've learned about English and Math. It just tests how much you know about how to take the SAT."

Our NCLB-driven multiple-choice-test-obsessed education system is now forcing schools to teach students how to take <insert test name e.g. California STAR test>. Creating educated, informed citizens is a secondary pursuit at best.

Okay, I'll stop ranting. I have to get it out sometimes.

Val

I never understood the concept of open-book tests. That's not a test of knowing the material, it's a test of reading and using an index. I remember getting 98.6% on an open-book test in Biology back in high school, and one of my classmates asking "How is that possible?" My response: "We had the answers right in front of us! How did I even get one wrong??" (The funny thing is, I actually forced myself to do the majority of the test without opening the book, because 15-year-old me was even more morally opposed to open-book tests than the current 23-year-old me is.)

I agree with Val. If the open-book test allows a student access to formulas and such, I'm all for it. IRL, people don't blindly memorize everything. They memorize what they need to use regularly, and they do so because it is useful to them. Everything else they record in books and notes.

Knowing how to solve problems is a very different animal from memorization. Done correctly, an open-book test can be a very successful discriminator (in the best sense of the word) for separating those who really grasp the material from those who do not.

My high school honors teacher only had open book tests. At the very beginning of the year he explained that books were there so we didn't have to memorize formulas and could use our time for actually learning how to think and do the work. The books never had anything more useful in them than the formulas for the tests he gave us. I think this is the perfect use of open book tests. He also happened to be the coolest teacher "EVAR"! He threw some (well, a large chunk of) sodium in a pond at another school and the cops were called and he talked them into pretending to cuff him and take him away just to freak out his class. LOL!

LOL! That's just exactly what I would have said! In fact, that's what I generally said about missing anything on anything..."what do you mean I got a 98? What did I miss?"

I don't like the idea of open book tests for anything short of high school, and preferably not till college. Grade school is the time when you're SUPPOSED to be memorizing things that form the basis of learning things that come later. There is such a backlash against "rote learning" these days that they manage to get kids through school without learning anything. Sure, it's a good goal of education to learn how to learn and how to look things up and where to find information--but part of the goal of education also needs to be to actually learn things as well.

When you reach the point in your education where you are there because you want to be there and you are paying to be taught something, then there's no reason you shouldn't have open book tests--after all, if you choose not to know the stuff cold, that's your own problem. And if you don't know the basics by then, it won't do any good to have the book open anyway.

I agree.