this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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For anyone who is also not from the US:
EDIT, as an extra to solve the mystery:
Importantly it is hand written, no computers.
Biggest issue is that kids’ handwriting often sucks. That’s not a new problem but it’s a problem with handwritten work.
Man, the US has a handwriting problem. It sucks sooo much. In other countries it seems to be only doctors, but in the US? Fucking everyone.
Give them typewriters
There is test-taking software that locks out all other functions during the essay-writing period. Obviously, damn near anything is hackable, but it's non-trivial, unlike asking ChatGPT to write your essay for you in the style of a B+ high student. There is some concern about students who learn differently or compose less efficiently, but as father to such a student, I'm still getting to the point where I'm not sure what's left to do other than sandbox "exploitable" graded work in a controlled environment.
I love this idea.
Speaking from a life of dyspraxia - no, not everyone with sucky handwriting is lazy, many of us would spend 95% of our capacity on making the writing legible and be challenged to learn the actual topic as a result.
I can get the essay done in time or it can be easy to read it cannot be both
This is why we have accommodations offices at colleges.
No problem giving an alternative for those who need it.
In the 1980s that wasn't really a thing. Besides, it taught me a valuable skill: I partnered with someone who was good at taking notes and I was good at paying attention without taking any notes - she, too, had a problem understanding what she was writing down while writing it down, but took beautiful copies of the lecture. So, afterwards we'd get together and I'd explain her notes to her - which helped me to cement the concepts in my head, at least long enough to get through the exam, and she got her notes explained.
keep at it. it is worth the pain.
Computers with some encyclopedia, but no GPTs are fine, no?
If a kid can write and train a mini-GPT trainable on that encyclopedia, then maybe they deserve the mark for desperation and ingenuity and being a fucking new Leonardo.
Open book and calculators would seem reasonable. No communication or searching devices.
No communication - of course, but about search - I don't think having a Wikipedia snapshot with search is bad.
GPTs are fine, if you learn to disrespect their output and fix it before presenting it as your own.
Actually, taught that way, GPT may be a tool for teaching critical thinking - if the professors aren't too lazy to mark down the garbage output.
Only if the first draft is the student’s own creation otherwise they will never learn how to analyze a work and construct the argument theu want to make beginning to end.
A lot of people "have trouble getting started" - in all kinds of endeavors. Once you get them rolling, they can see the pattern and do it for themselves next time. If the AI glop gets lucky and copied decent argument from beginning to end (something I've seen it fail spectacularly at many times), then that can help jumpstart people who are stuck, but only if they can recognize when it's just a bunch of glop.
Really, if would be better for them to read a bunch of samples for themselves (which is what the AI does) and hopefully they can get the pattern. What I think is a horrible approach is to sit in a lecture hall and listen to a little guy down front drone in a monotone about the theory of what you are supposed to do, then try to synthesize from the fragments of what you understood from that what is expected. Samples to work from are much more efficient.
Oh. Hate that. You have a list of subjects, prepare for them as good as you can, then get one you know and one you don't, start with one you don't know - not be in time or mood to finish one you know, get something shitty, the other way around - do the one you know and then be interrupted while you just probably remembered something about the one you don't, get something shitty.