Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge?

[Tim Ottinger <tottinge@oma.com>]

> Actually, I have more serious problems with the AP tests; they are given
> prior to the completion of the school year, and the instructors know
> what will be on it. The net result is that course content is distorted
> as teachers teach to the test instead of covering all of the appropriate
> materila.

I always have mixed feelings on this. I designed commercial programmer 
aptitude screening tests for a prior employer, and they were very 
effective in screening out "low-mileage experts" and giving a good view 
of a person's skills. But then copies of the test would sometimes be 
given by an employee to a friend or family member. 

Now, on one hand, that's cheating and is like working to raise your
metrics instead of to do good work. That's bad.

One the other thing, if they had to learn and apply just the stuff
on that test, then they probably knew enough to be pretty good 
employees. It had theory applied via debugging questions. It wasn't
a lame "what is an object", but rather more vile and crafty.

If the test has the right questions, and you learn everything that's
needed to pass the test, then is that a good thing or a bad thing? 
The concern is if you didn't learn everything you need to know, but
just memorized a set of answers. It also places the onus on the 
designers of the test to be very comprehensive. A class that tailors to
a 
shallow or narrowly-defined test could be a disaster, but one that
caters
to a really good test might be fine.

Mixed feelings, as I said.
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