Re: Assessment; evaluation of GRE scores

[Jim Peters <Jim.Peters@HILLSDALE.EDU>]

Brian Whatcott writes:
A useful and productive exam preparation in any circumstance is practice
with *similar* questions to those given on an exam.
/snip/

I completely agree.  For example if you give your class old exams to study
in preparation for their coming exam, this may help them.  You may even want
to tell them that such and such a problem will be on the exam to be sure
they know it.  So I agree, but that is not what I am writing about.  It is
another matter if you give the same confidential test to two different class
sections and if a student in the second section stands outside the door and
asks students, who leave the first section of the test, what was on the
exam. This student gains privileged information and when he or she uses it
to improve their test score, this is cheating. This seems to be what is
happening per the web site and it is the basis of my objection.

> From: John S. Denker
/snip/
> It is bizarre that Michael Edmiston and his students can't benefit from
> looking at past exams.  In contrast, according to the URL cited above
>         ... in most Chinese physics departments there are books ... about
>         an 80-85% chance of having all the questions on the next exam to
>         be given.
/snip/

Where do they get these questions?  They are not published and distributed
by ETS.  They must be collected for previous test takers memory and
compiled.  Brian if I misled you as to my concern, I am sorry.  I would like
to know how my students and US students are doing, but it seems that unfair
test practices by some partially obscure this information.  If I am wrong
and something else is going on I would like to know.

Jim