Dick Carroll wrote:



You view the situation as an EE who didn't need to study to work out
any of the technical problems on the Extra exam, few that there were.
Most applicants have the singleminded goal of passing the exam, and
learning beyond that goal is not only unnecessary, it gets in the way
of the goal at hand. So they naturally just don't do it. The curent
method of testing clearly facilitates that position.

I'm a EE, and like any reasonably successful college student, I still
made use of the
avaliable resources (the question pool) to prepare for the (at the time
I took them)
elements 4A and 4B. Found a few holes in my knowledge, and filled them
in for
at least long enough to score well on the tests (missed 1 on 4A, 2 on 4B
IIRC).
Got the CSCEs, and then the extra on Restructuring Day.

Most students only study what is expected to be on the exams. Thus, I could
solve calculus exam problems (take the intergral of (csc x^5)/(tan x^2
-1) dx)
but I still never got a good understanding of how to use calculus to
solve a real
world problem. Recently went looking for a "calculus for dummies" type
book, but all they had was how to do exam problems. Been there, done that.