Are exams a good measure of (academic) Intelligence or memory?

I'm saying that exams test the academic ability of those it was designed to test: secondary school and early tertiary. You'll find that exams do not exist for PhD students (in the sense of exams that you're thinking of, I believe. Perhaps it'd help if you could tell me what level of education you are at? I ask only to help highlight how different things are further up the academic chain if you are not aware, not to belittle you or anything of that sort ) There is no understanding to be had at GCSE or A-Level, and any that appears to requrie understanding is purely superficial. With the exception of creative subjects (art and whatnot, since I have never done any secondary exams on those), all the subjects that you learn at secondary level doesn't require you to demonstrate that you understand the intrinsic nature of things, but rather that "X does Y". Even in languages. You learn the grammatical structure, and slot things in, which again, is essentially memorisation, and a tiny bit of application in swapping words out, which the exams do ask.

You were until you forgot it. If Stephen Hawking suffered a major stroke or had Alzheimer's, then by all means, he's not intelligent anymore

I didn't say that.



Or that.


If you're thinking of GCSE and A-level, they better filter-out than in, is in large part what they're designed to do. But that shouldn't be true of examinations at the university level: no-one should there be setting an exam that admits of candidates prospering without a show of analysis and understanding.

As a matter of contingent circumstance there might be false positives in some instances..

It depends on your answers, and unfortunately they are subjected to the intelligence of your marker.
They may not comprehend the possibility of the point you are making that has not crossed their mind before because it isn't in the answer sheet, and could choose to dismiss it as irrelevant. IMO, exams do prove how well you are able to follow the conventional structure to meet the expectations of academic intelligence but not overall intelligence.

Sorry, but you suggested that there might be false positives

Exams don't messure intelligence, they simply show that someone has the knowledge and capibiry to embark in further education or do particular job. So, I think exams are, for the most part, achieving their purpose.

A-Level maths is an intelligence subject?

I've done an Economics degree, and literally everything after the first year was theory. Econometrics and Macro theory was insane!



Point is, it depends on the subject and level. Everything is memory upto GCSE, then it picks up.


It funny though, Economics taught us about 'Signalling'. Basically, thats what education is. A signal to employees that we are of a certain intelligence. So maybe there is something in that?

I didn't suggest that as a problem with exams but with bad exams. If you're now asking whether bad exams are a good measure of academic intelligence, then I fully agree that they are not.

But for the most part, exams are hugely based on memorisation and I believe A Level is hugely memory as well?

Hmm, I agree, but the problem I have is that its only a signal that we were of a certain intelligence when we sat that test or we have memorised the information for that test etc

I'm finding you posts somewhat ridiculous now. You dismiss memory as if it is some insignificant skill that doesn't represent somones intelligence in any way shape or form.

Let's say people with bad memories are suddenly allowed to do certain jobs, even if they preform badly in exams. You go into hospital one day, due to a strange illness and your doctor just so happens to be one if those people. Unfortuntly, he can't remember anything about the lecture in which your illness was discused and you pass away.

Although a good memory in itself does not guarantee that you can do a given job. An exam accrediting you and demonstrating you have the necessary skills does, and in irder to preform well in these exams, you need to have a good memory.

Haha, why thank you, I am ridiculous!

I'm not dismissing memory as if it is some insignificant skill, but I believe memory is not the ONLY thing that is representing someone's intelligent

Yes, I accept your point about the bad memory and jobs, but I'm saying it seems unfair and so exams should strive to test memory AND understanding and any other factors that are representative of academic intelligence.

This is what I mean: JUST a good memory does not guarantee you can do a given job, so perhaps the exam should test your skills.

Obviously no exam is going to be a 'pure test of intelligence', since no-one knows what 'intelligence' really means. How can we say? Intelligence is a label we have given for a very broad phenomena which psychologists have barely begun to understand.

But then again, exams do test certain skills, and the value of them depends of people's ability to interpret which skills different exams are testing. To do well at University finals, for example, you need to have a very good work ethic, be committed, remember a lot of stuff, have a high level of abstract thinking and flexibility, be able to create convincing and thorough arguments, and be really organised. Exams, in my opinion, do test a variable amount of specific skills (call it intelligence if you will), though they also test the ability of people to apply them in a concrete scenario.

Just take them as they are. They are important, perhaps more than they should be, but universities and employers need things to differentiate people. They don't mean everything.

Ok, that makes sense, so exams are adapted for each academic level?

No worries, I'm in year 13 (A2).

But, surely understanding something earlier on will prove to be much beneficial when doing a degree?

Should the education system be changed to factor in learning the intrinsic nature of things, what do you think?

So, intelligence isn't constant? hmm, interesting! If its not constant, how can exams prove to be a good measure of intelligence, because I may have been intelligent at the time of the exam, but a day later, not intelligent anymore?

How do your propose the exams do this?

A level exams are not exclusively memory anyway, really only a small proportion of the questions are recall, the rest require you to use your knowledge to make logical chains of reasoning and come to valid conclusions.

Here's the thing. It's very, very difficult to teach something to the extent where you'll understand something fully. For example, let's take maths. Tell me - why is pi that value? How do we calculate its exact value? These questions will be too difficult to teach someone who hasn't even mastered the ideas of calculus (talking GCSE level here). And yet, we need to get across the concept of circles and area of circles. So what do you do? You teach them the equation of calculating the area of a circle. Can we not teach the equation until they've done calculus and whatnot to understand pi fully, then teach them how to find the area of a circle? But that'd be akin to saying: let's not make anything out of metal until we fully know how metal works, inside out. Hence you get taught how to find the area of a circle and you're tested on whether you've memorised and understood enough of that equation to find areas of different sized circles, with the safe knowledge that now you know that equation, and that can be used to further teach stuff on top of it.

Of course intelligence isn't constant. Your ability to learn, perhaps, but not the actual knowledge.

Put it this way: Usain Bolt possesses great athletic abilities. Will he 40, 50 years down the line? Would he still be able to run at such ridicuous speeds? Does it mean he's not fast anymore? Yes. It does. Does it mean he didn't use to be fast? No, of course not.

My opinion on exams:

I don't know. I think that human psychology or science needs to really unpack the definition or components of intelligence before we can change our education system or examinations procedure.

Not really, most of the A Level exams (bio, chem, rs) I am doing have very specific mark schemes and thus, this leads to many students memorising the mark scheme. And we rarely need to "to use our knowledge to make logical chains of reasoning and come to valid conclusions"

This so stupid. If the job requires people to climb trees and the test shows who can climb trees, it's fit for purpose.