Peter Samuelson wrote: > > [followups to d-newmaint please] > > [Matthew Palmer] > > Making NM more of a mentoring+monitoring thing, instead of The Essay > > Test From Hell, would be a Great Thing. It appears that other AMs > > aren't entirely against the idea, either. > > People keep complaining about the Essay Test from Hell, but I guess I > still don't quite see the problem. Who is it that doesn't like it? Is > it AMs that feel it's too much work on top of their other duties to get > to know an applicant's skill level? Is it the competent applicants who > feel it's beneath them? Or is it incompetent applicants who feel > intimidated by all the hard concepts to look up? As an applicant I felt it was tedious and mostly a waste of time for buerocratic reasons. I think I have forgotten everything I needed to look up back then, simply because I have no use for it. > I was rather looking forward to the ETfH part, once I qualify for NM in > the first place, which is obviously still well in the future. Those > templates (at least as of a long time ago when I perused them) cover > such a wide range of material that demonstrating one's knowledge of > everything by one's direct actions would take *forever*. The point is, only few people need to know that wide range in full breadth for their work. > Sure, it's > possible to cheat by cutting/pasting answers from someone else (or from > google), but really it's possible to cheat on *any* NM material that > isn't conducted via live chat.[1] > > I guess I'm not actually opposed to the idea of making people *do* all > the things they are currently only *asked* about - I am just curious > about who is clamoring for this, and why. At least it would have been more productive than an exam which goes to the waste bin afterwards. Thiemo
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