Herman Rubin wrote:
In article . com,
Fred Goodwin, CMA wrote:
Herman Rubin wrote:


What we really need for university admission, and even
for high school graduation, is a comprehensive examination
of sufficient length, with no multiple choice questions,
and examining understanding.

What is sufficient length? A 3-hour exam in each of English,
Foreign Language, Math, History, Government, Biology, Chemistry,
Physics, Art, Music, Phys Ed etc. etc?
You would also need exams for many *different* foreign languages...
Most states have a Phys Ed requirement for graduation.

Where are Universities going to get the money to pay for people
(or even find enough people) to grade these exams? Ditto for
high schools?

What consitutes a "comprehensive" exam? Not all students study
all material to the same depth. Would you expect that someone planning
to be a music major study math, chemistry and physics to the same
extent as a potential physics major? Or vice versa? You would have
to have *many* different exams depending on the type of program
followed
in high school. This would be prohibitive to administer.

The alternative "one size fits all" comprehensive exam would either
set
the bar too low, or not properly separate the students applying to
Princeton
from the students applying to Podunk University. Or do you propose a
separate exam for each college? Now we are REALLY talking about
"expensive"!!