Not quite.
The debate over the value of measuring and testing intelligence has been fiercely debated in the press particularly around the time of GCSE and A-Level results, over the past few years. Arguments vary from suggesting that exams are becoming easier to they no longer serve any purpose.
The number of exams is not as important as what those exams are. Pure regurgitation of facts is not as useful as being forced to use your reasoning skills under pressure. In my work, remembering things is important, but many of those things can be looked up if I can’t recall immediately. The important thing is being able to use those facts well, quickly and under pressure. That is what exams should demonstrate. /lbw, Reading, England
BBC News Online, Talking Point, Are Exams a Waste of Time?
A similar debate has been on-going in a series of articles in Time Magazine in 2003 in the U.S about the SAT Reasoning Test,a standardized test for college admissions. A year later, in 2004, the journal reported about a new method of testing students. Robert Sternberg created a number of tasks that, in his mind, would challenge students beyond linear and analytical thinking. For example, students were presented with various scenarios which they had to solve such as arriving to a party where they do not know anyone to convince friends to help move furniture. These seemingly unorthodox activities are designed to measure the creative and practical skills that Sternberg says are crucial to success in college and in life but are ignored by the typical pencil-and-paper exam:
The traditional theory of IQ deals with a very important part of intelligence, namely, memory and analytical skills, and that’s what [our exams] measure. Those skills are important for success in school and in life. But what I discovered over the years… is that some students were very gifted in traditional memory and analytical skills, but never good at making ideas of their own. They were good if you told them the paper topic, if you told them what exactly would be on the test. There were other students who were creative, but not necessarily as analytical as the first group. They tended to be imaginative, to have new ideas, to discover things, to invent things, but they were not necessarily the ones who are going to the best in standardized tests or going to excel in a typical class.
(The Yale Herlad, DECEMBER 3, 2004 VOL. XXXVIII, NO. 13)
Students must prepare themselves for an emerging labour market which has evolved from a knowledge based sphere to a conceptual sphere. Linear thinking, analytical and calculating skills is being replaced with the ability to detect patterns and opportunities. If the former were the skills of the Information Age, then synthesis will become the core skill of the 21st Century, where students are required to grasp the bigger picture and to combine contrasting elements into a new impressive whole. Welcome to the Conceptual Age.
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