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From: lkirk@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Laura Kirk)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Exam Files
Summary: different attitudes...
Message-ID: <135@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 3 Feb 89 19:51:50 GMT
References: <1461@trantor.harris-atd.com> <19554@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <27541@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <15993@joyce.istc.sri.com> <429@laic.UUCP> <19810@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <9388@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: lkirk@jarthur.UUCP (Laura Kirk)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA
Lines: 35

In article <9388@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> timlee@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Timothy J. Lee) writes:
>In article <19810@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes:
>>on if one is willing to put in enough time.  For exams, there is what the
>>Taiwan students call the "archaeology method," which is basically the one
>>used by American fraternity houses  --  extensive archives of past exams
>
>Not just fraternities...  many other student groups maintain exam files.
>Perhaps the visibility of some such files ensures that instructors
>don't give the same question (or variation with different numbers) twice.

The same thing goes on here at Mudd.  There is just a slightly different
attitude towards it here.  As a freshman, you go to an upperclassman the
night before the first big (fill in the blank here) exam, asking how to
study for it.  They will give you their copy, often, or refer you to someone
who did better than they did in a given class.  It is a challenge, trying to
find someone who took the class with the same professor, and did relatively
well, and then beat everyone else to their copy of the exam.

This is probably fairly standard.  The difference here is that if you plan
well enough ahead of time, you can often get a copy (sometimes with answers)
from the professor.  I have heard this method given out by professors as a
good way to study.  Students often take the old exams to profs and ask for
explanations of problems.

The problems are still often similar between years, usually enough that if
you understood the question you looked at, you had it made, but if you just
memorized the steps to get to an answer, you were in trouble.

			Laura

-- 
laura kirk                   %   Reality is a optical illusion   %
lkirk@hmcvax.bitnet         %    that happens all of the time   %
lkirk@muddcs.uucp          %                                   %
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