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

Intelligence is the ability to discern truth from lies and manipulation.

Exams in the format which we are accustomed to are nothing more than read and regurgitate.

Are exams a good measure of Intelligence?

Are they claimed or intended to be that? I've never met anyone setting an exam who would have suggested that his purpose in doing so was to 'measure intelligence'.

Good performance in examinations confirms a person as possessed of (academic) intelligence, since this is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it. But anyone supposing that poor performance in exam conditions of itself confirms a person as unintelligent is surely quite wrong in it.

Well, I think exams are pointless if they just require a strong memory

Exactly, this is what I mean: if poor performance in exam conditions of itself does not confirm a person as unintelligent (which I think it does, I feel exam performance are being used wrongly to determine people's intelligence) and so, this suggests that exams are not measuring academic intelligence and thus, what is its purpose?

Exams are a good measure of academic intelligence in a specific subject. If one doesn't do well in his or her GCSE or A-Level, say, biology, for no apparent reason - i.e. she put in the effort, tried her best, no social issues etc. - than by all means, she is not academically good in biology. I'm afraid that further study isn't much different. However, this doesn't mean she isn't good in other subjects/fields.

I think so too. But I don't think (as you seem to) that exams need only require that.

Again, I don't wholly agree.

If I've got a test for a virus which never gives a false positive, that is not a pointless test

Ooh, that is a good way to explain it! Although, I did mean academic intelligence, regarding that particular subject, not general intelligence. But, again: I think many people don't do well for no apparent reason and it is purely down to lack of a strong memory or exam technique. This suggests that the education system favours those who have the aforementioned and thus, not really a good measure of academic intelligence

I'm sorry, I understand what you mean, for example: a TB skin test, but please explain it regarding this topic (I'm a bit slow).

Here's the thing:

memory is the basis for academic intelligence. Exams are only really present to test the basics. Where you do original, creative work, say like a doctorate, you don't have exams anymore really. The exams are memory based, which tests the perfectly suitable level of academic intelligence being tested: the really basic stuff which just is memorisation. Put it this way: you once had to memorise that apple is spelt a.p.p.l.e. There is no way else to learn that, nor to prove that you know that besides just memorizing that rule. That's what a lot of exams in the education system does. If for some reason you know beyond the expected level (a progeny), like say you knew the etymology of apple, then the exams would be easy enough for you anyways, since you would not have known the latin (or something) origins of the word apple without having known that the word apple is spelt in a certain way and that it means a certain thing.

I am the admissions department at Bigtown University. We need 3000 students in our entry cohort and want that they should all be academically intelligent. We trust to the idea that securing >ABB at A level is guarantee of this and are able to secure our 3000 strong intake through using this filter.

Now possibly there are thousands of students who don't get AAB but are as academically intelligent, the false negatives. But this doesn't matter for specifically our purposes, just as long as there are no false positives rolling up in Freshers' week.

But there are false positives, no? If people memorise things and are excellent at exams, but do not retain any information regarding the subject afterwards, are they not false positives?

This example illustrates the disadavantages:

If people who are academically intelligent fail exams, because they have a bad memory and/or are bad at exam technique, they miss out on university places?

If they have a bad memory and thence, for example, don't understand A level economics, they will find degree level economics extremely tiresome. It follows that they shouldn't be doing the course.

But there are false positives, no? If people memorise things and are excellent at exams, but do not retain any information regarding the subject afterwards, are they not false positives?

As a matter of contingent circumstance there might be false positives in some instances. If there are, that is a badly-set exam and what we are looking at here is a problem with exam-setters and not with exams qua exams.

I've sat exams that no-one could have passed if not academically intelligent, exams that will have generated no false positives.

So, you're saying in order to be academically intelligent, you need to have a good memory and exams test the memory. What I'm saying is that while this is an appropriate method and a valid claim, exams should test the understanding, instead of the memory.

But, the thing with testing memory as a basis of academic intelligence, is that while the person may have memorised something for the exam, they'd forget it soon after, so when they do forget it, are they still academically intelligent?

For example: I memorised my whole Spanish GCSE oral fluently and I got an A* for the oral, but now: I don't remember a thing and that A* suggests I am academically intelligent regarding Spanish or I can speak Spanish?

Hmm, to be honest, no one memorised the spelling of apple, but learnt how to read?

I can understand that there is no other way to learn or prove it. But, I'm saying that exams don't measure academic intelligence and this is not right, not we SHOULD change exams (as I realise there is no other effective way).

Yes, but false positives are still being generated?

And yes, we should scrutinise the exam setters, you're right