I agree that cramming right before the test increases the score without increasing long-term knowledge.
But this...
a list of fifteen topics that he gave us. [...] comfortably covered every one of the eight questions we were asked.
...seems to be exactly the kind of a problem that I described. The problem is that the exam authors always choose 8 out of the same 15 topics—as the teacher has noticed.
And presumably those 15 topics are just a small part of the entire curriculum… otherwise I don’t see what would be the problem with the teaching telling students to learn, well, everything. (We don’t call it cheating when the grammar teachers make students practice 26 letters before doing 1st grade exams.)
And, as I wrote, the problem could be easily fixed by choosing those 8 questions out of all possible topics, rather than the 15 selected ones. Or, even if you think that those are the 15 most important topics in the curriculum, make another list of less important topics, and then every year choose e.g. 5 of the “important” and 3 of the “unimportant” questions.
I learned that the only way to get a respectable percentage of decent or even passing grades was to announce tests well in advance, tell in some detail what material they would cover, and hold plenty of advance practice in the kind of questions that would be asked, which is called review. I later learned that teachers do this everywhere.
Ah, so the problem is that the teachers are the ones who prepare the tests. In which case, indeed, there is a massive conflict of interest here—the teachers de facto indirectly grade themselves, and they can give themselves better grades by inventing worse tests. Of course! But then the actual problem is this conflict of interest, not testing per se. So the solution is not less testing, but independent testing.
The problem is not “teaching to the test”, but “the teacher evaluates his or her own work”.
And the independent testing is exactly a way to fight this… which is why I find it ironic that “teachers cheat when they test their own work” is in practice usually used as an argument against independent testing.
I agree that cramming right before the test increases the score without increasing long-term knowledge.
But this...
...seems to be exactly the kind of a problem that I described. The problem is that the exam authors always choose 8 out of the same 15 topics—as the teacher has noticed.
And presumably those 15 topics are just a small part of the entire curriculum… otherwise I don’t see what would be the problem with the teaching telling students to learn, well, everything. (We don’t call it cheating when the grammar teachers make students practice 26 letters before doing 1st grade exams.)
And, as I wrote, the problem could be easily fixed by choosing those 8 questions out of all possible topics, rather than the 15 selected ones. Or, even if you think that those are the 15 most important topics in the curriculum, make another list of less important topics, and then every year choose e.g. 5 of the “important” and 3 of the “unimportant” questions.
Ah, so the problem is that the teachers are the ones who prepare the tests. In which case, indeed, there is a massive conflict of interest here—the teachers de facto indirectly grade themselves, and they can give themselves better grades by inventing worse tests. Of course! But then the actual problem is this conflict of interest, not testing per se. So the solution is not less testing, but independent testing.
The problem is not “teaching to the test”, but “the teacher evaluates his or her own work”.
And the independent testing is exactly a way to fight this… which is why I find it ironic that “teachers cheat when they test their own work” is in practice usually used as an argument against independent testing.