[eeeuo]

Yes, #1 "is different" than the OP. It would only be equivalent if women were allowed more time than men to complete the exam.*

#2 is a completely misleading headline. It ... never happened. An article in which the 2nd paragraph contradicts the headline isn't written in good faith.

[*] I would also argue that extending exams so that each student has a reasonable amount of time to finish is not a bad practice. A student that gives a correct answer in the extra 15 minutes is no less knowledgeable than a student that gives the correct answer in the original allocated time. We are selecting for breadth and depth of knowledge, not speed of recitation or ability to perform under pressure. In a CS exam, you either know the answer or you do not. Extra time is not going to allow you to falsify your level of knowledge. It will, however, give slower workers the ability to fully complete the exam.

Students that work quickly but are less knowledgeable than their peers are the only ones that would be penalized by this change. Those students have inflated scores relative to their knowledge, therefore this penalization should be encouraged. In an untimed test, the most knowledgeable student will always get the highest test score, therefore knowledgeable students should not be opposed to increasing test times, they should encourage them.

[skate22]

> "In a CS exam, you either know the answer or you do not."

This is simply not true. Consider an algorithm proof, with enough time you might be able to derive a proof that you should have known cold.

The real world does have deadlines & performance matters, and the women who spent the time studying should get the better grade

[eeeuo]

You believe that a student that derives a proof from scratch is less knowledgeable than a student that rote memorizes it out of a textbook?

My argument comes from the perspective of the real world. It is, in effect, the same type of argument that drives the "interview questions on a whiteboard" discussion -- which qualities are actually important in an employee? As someone involved with hiring for a company that consistently produces high quality, critical code used in important systems, my experience is that "working under pressure" is pretty far down the list of important qualities.

[lucideer]

> with enough time you might be able to derive a proof that you should have known cold.

Maybe it's just me, but I would wager that a student that can derive a proof is more likely to understand that proof than one who writes it from rote.

[xaedes]

I had an CS exam where I was familiar with all the topics asked and knew all the answers and even how to apply them, well despite some quirks surely ;P

But some questions in the exam required us to apply some algorithms by hand. I knew how they worked and I could also do them by hand. Did it on whiteboard with toy problems while studying for it. But what I didn't really expected was how fast the time run with manual execution on paper.. Even for modest data sizes.

I thought that the algos really could be improved to be much faster by hand, refactor to optimize for different operation costs when doing by hand given the available tools in the exam, reducing operation costs by speeding up hotspot manual steps by training right into muscle memory and better memory alignment on paper for faster data lookups in the first place.

I probably could have finished that exam in time, but with a baaad score. So I just quit and gave them a blank paper with my name to try again next time.

I knew what the real problem was: time, and I had a plan how to prepare for it. It worked =)

[c3534l]

#1 also didn't have any adverse effects on the grades of men. Although neither did it have any positive impact on the grades of women.

[test6554]

Extending the time for everyone is ok, but measuring test completion time might not be a bad idea.