On Oct 19, 10:56?pm, Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote in news:1192669855.352467.256260
@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com:

Going back before my time, when the exams involved
writing essays,
drawing diagrams and showing how an answer was
derived, didn't the
examiner have some judgement as to whether
the applicant had properly
answered a question?

This kind of got me to thinking. Perhaps the judgement part
is one of the reasons that essays went away.

I agree. Your story about the driving test shows how arbitrary that
judgement could be. Things like handwriting legibility and how good
someone is at English composition could make the difference.

Another issue is the need for examiners who knew the material
well enough to grade the tests. Anybody with the right answer key
can grade a multiple-choice test but essays require a grader that
knows the stuff - and has the time.

Historically:

- Novice was always all multiple-choice.

- the pre-1953 Advanced had essays, diagrams, show-your-work problems
and multiple choice. When it was revived in 1967, it was all multiple
choice. (No Advanceds were issued from 1953 to 1967).

- Technician/General/Conditional and Extra had essays, diagrams, show-
your-work problems and multiple choice until about 1961, when the old
blue-book tests were replaced with all-multiple-choice tests.

There was not a single changeover date from blue-book to multiple
choice exams, because the examiners
were instructed to use up their existing stock of old exams before
starting to use the new ones. So depending on where you went for
the exam, you could get one or the other. I suspect that busy exam
points like NYC used up their stock of old exams very quickly, while
a less-busy place might have used them for quite a while after the
new ones came out.

- For the first two years of their existence (1951-1953), Novice and
Technician were tested at FCC offices unless the examinee could meet
the "Conditional criteria" of distance or physical disability.
After that time, those exams were issued by mail using a single
volunteer examiner, regardless of distance.

From what older amateurs have told me, the reason FCC made the
switch was that the exam points were being inundated with people,
particularly teenagers, coming to take the exams without adequate
preparation. The tests were free in those days, and a kid on summer
vacation could show up at the FCC office three times in a summer
with the 30 day wait. IMHO the FCC wanted to both reduce their
workload of failed exams and reduce the number who passed simply
because they'd gone back so many times that they'd seen all the exam
versions.

The by-mail exam process slowed things down a lot because there
was a 6-8 week processing delay at every step, plus all the work was
at FCC Hq.

All the amateur radio written exams I took were multiple choice.
None of them were difficult at all, IMHO. They did require knowing
some radio theory and regulations governing the ARS, though.

I am a big supporter of the tests the way they are now.

Two things I would change in the exam *process* (not *content*,
but *process*):

1) I would go back to the way things were in the late 1970s,
when FCC conducted the exams, both in their offices and by
request at hamfests, club meetings and almost anywhere that a
certain minimum number of examinees could be guaranteed.

2) I would make the exams themselves 'secret', that is, no more
open question pools.

Of course 2) would depend on 1). The chances of either actually
happening are probably 'slim to none'.

73 de Jim, N2EY