BA in 4 Weeks. NOT recognized in Italy !

I think I take Bill D's philosophy on the subject, it can be a good measure to put one life's experience, prove you know it, test out and get deserved credit. What I don't like (and there's several of these thread's here) where some give's blow by blow of their testing "odyssey" and they write like "Bought the Cliffnotes, studied one hour, passed the test, it was easy, one test down 10 to go...". This I find quite troubling and is on the level of diploma mill Bullsheet. The hardest part of the process shouldn't be finding the testing center.

 

I Don't Respect Credit by Testing

Sorry, its just mine (and perhaps the Italian government's) hangup. Now, if a test could publish (and maintain) statistics that the average student takes an average of 40-60 hours studying to pass the exam, then I would allow for the few who can do it in less. The problem is, the testing organizations don't make this information readily available. Until they do I will always look at credit by standardized testing as a substandard achievement.

 

Re: I Don't Respect Credit by Testing

I would believe that students who take and pass the relevant course at a residential school have studied at least that much. These tests are normed against those students. In fact, if you take the whole sub-group who scored C's in the class (out of the whole sample used to norm these tests,) exactly half of those students, by definition, did not pass the 'credit by examination.'

Link

My approach is pretty simple. I think that, when compared against oneself, more time, practice, et cetera makes for a better prepared and more knowledgable student. That doesn't mean a person hasn't met the accepted standard of competency (as defined by the average student in that area of study) if they pass a standardized test. It doesn't mean that a student, by passing a standardized exam at an appropriate level, knows less than a student passing at the same level who took the class. It does mean that the student, passing the exam, probably knows less than he/she would if he/she took a class in the subject (presuming more time and practice were involved.)

Tony

Sorry for the double negatives.