On the one hand, they aren't as stressful or time pressed as an in class final. On the other hand the expectations seem extraordinarily high making it difficult to feel like you've ever written enough on open ended essay questions.

[ ] For
[ ] Against

12/7/2010 11:24:04 PM

id rather just take a regular exam

12/8/2010 11:05:16 AM

[x] For

yes the expectations seem "extraodinary high" but its not like you can't get a good score if you wanted, what i'm saying is your in control of your grade if its take home exam

12/8/2010 4:38:28 PM

+ 1 for take home exams with a time/word limit.

12/8/2010 4:43:08 PM

People cheat on take home finals. If I was a professor, I would never do a take home test of any kind.

12/8/2010 8:18:29 PM

No. Actually, make that a hell no.

Why? Because apparently medical geneticists like to make the hardest and trickiest questions possible for take home exams.

But what REALLY sucks is when you have take home exams all semester then find out your final is comprehensive and multiple choice.

12/8/2010 11:37:40 PM

Against

They are usually harder than a regular final. Plus, like d357r0y3r said, people work together on those things so the majority of the class will get the same answer. Throws off grade distribution which can be good or bad depending on how good those answers were that the class turned in. It's much more representative of one's knowledge and understanding in the class when taking a regular final, but the only good and solid reason I can see for having a take home final is taking off some of the pressure of the exam.

12/9/2010 5:17:49 AM

yeah they always want the most obscure answers. Granted it'd probably help if I actually looked at the stuff throughout the semester but when I hear "take-home" I just piddle around until test time and it ends up being a lot harder than it should've.

12/9/2010 9:24:27 AM

Quote :

" yes the expectations seem "extraodinary high" but its not like you can't get a good score if you wanted, what i'm saying is your in control of your grade if its take home exam"

I am pretty sure that you're gonna fail either way.
All joking aside, if you were attentive to the requirements of the class either option is fine.
I do feel like take home exams do tend to foster an environment where cheating is very easy.

12/9/2010 9:45:31 AM

for.

they usually have harder questions, but being able to think about something on my own time w/ endless resources is always preferable to a timed exam.

12/10/2010 9:31:30 AM

^ Most of my take-home exams didn't have endless resources.. and were timed. We couldn't use the internet because we had to enter this thing called Lockdown Browser where it's nothing but the test screen. We could use our notes, but that was it. Even if you had awesome notes, there was no way you could make above an 85... He said if anyone had made a score like that, he would have thought the test to be a "baby one" and would have made our final ten times harder.

12/10/2010 9:47:05 AM

^ Well you could use the internet just not on the same computer. Anti-cheating protocols on take home tests are ridiculous.

12/10/2010 10:57:49 AM

Why would I do that in such a small program? That would be such a stupid move. Obviously he made the test hard enough where even with our notes we couldn't do super well (a lot of the questions were clinically-based ones, and since we have little to no experience in clinic yet, he knew he wouldn't get most of them 100% right). If I made a really awesome grade, and everyone else made below an 85, obviously something would be up. And they flat out told us if they find out we cheat in any way, shape or form, we're kicked out. I'm not about to risk that.

Now in my counseling class, I highly doubt everyone took the test home and didn't use their notes at all (yes, that's right, we had a take home test where you could use literally nothing).

Also, the internet doesn't always help. Most clinically-based stuff we could use are in journal articles that we have to pay for (but not all, thank goodness).

[Edited on December 10, 2010 at 12:03 PM. Reason : .]

12/10/2010 12:02:20 PM

So why not just simply say don't use the internet. Anti-cheating provisions on take home tests are stupid. You can get other people to take the tests for you all kinds of bullshit.

12/10/2010 4:06:21 PM

Depends on the class. For my Health Econ class, the take-home exam isn't that hard. I've had others in the past that weren't so easy.

12/11/2010 7:40:44 PM

When I went to Governor's School, one of the mathematics instructors said that for the take-home final he gave in one of his graduate classes at whatever university he taught at that he always put one never-before-solved problem on there. He went on to say that once in a while a test would come back with a solution for that never-before-solved problem. I'm still torn about rather I think that's a neat idea or a shitty thing to do to your students.

12/13/2010 3:07:12 PM

against

It is not fair and people will always cheat

[Edited on January 9, 2011 at 3:37 PM. Reason : fg]

1/9/2011 3:37:04 PM

Quote :

"what i'm saying is your in control of your grade if its take home exam"

HUH?

your also in control of your grade if its in-class exam.


[Edited on January 9, 2011 at 5:20 PM. Reason : your]

1/9/2011 5:20:29 PM

no because some exams you won't know what to expect, if its out of class you have as much time as you want, can get others help, etc.

1/9/2011 8:23:11 PM

Quote :

"if its out of class you have as much time as you want"

false. the time is limited, not infinite.

Quote :

"can get others help"

yeah, that's cheating. if that's what you want, go for it.



you are still in just as much control with an in-class test as you are with a take-home test. a take-home test is usually much harder/longer, so you have more time. you have less time on an in-class test, but in-class tests are usually of a standard format with more or less straight-forward questions.

1/11/2011 4:39:09 PM

i mean you get more time to work and are not under a lot of pressure like a testing environment in the classroom. i don't cheat but you can get others help as you put it in your own words, thats a reason why teacher's do take home exams to encourage working with others, usually take home tests involve essays so obviously not everyone can copy off each other, why else use a take home exam if the teacher didn't expect you to get outside help i mean its almost inevitable. actually i think the whole point of take homes is to help the students to get better final grades. i have to disagree and says its better, for example i had one for ps class this semester, at the last moment it was changed from in class exam to take home essay. yeah guess what score i got. 100 now idoubt i would have gotten a 100 if it was in class exam. i would had no idea what to expect since it was supposed to have questions covered the entire semester and there is no way i can bother studying all that again. now on the take home it was just one essay question so a lot better
my point is i don't see whats wrong with it i had a take home final one semester, and even the teacher specifically stated students could work together and long as they put their own words, etc, although i did it by myself

[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 6:56 PM. Reason : ]

1/11/2011 6:47:22 PM

Quote :

"thats a reason why teacher's do take home exams to encourage working with others, usually take home tests involve essays so obviously not everyone can copy off each other, why else use a take home exam if the teacher didn't expect you to get outside help"

1/11/2011 6:53:59 PM