Over at Uncertain Principles there’s a link to topic that seems to have alighted on several vertices of the blogohedron. Deep, or at least deep-sounding, essay questions appear on the French baccalaureate exam (which is apparently their version of the US SAT/ACT) and the debate is whether this implies that our standards are lower because we do not ask such questions. Answers Matter More than Questions

And, not too surprisingly, Chad sticks the landing:

What matters is not whether you ask ostentatiously intellectual questions of your students, but whether the answers they give are any good. It’s very nice to ask students to write essays on the topic “Does language betray thought?,” but it’s really easy to imagine getting a whole slew of responses that strain to reach the level of dorm-room bull sessions.

The form of the questions may indicate, as most are supposing, that the French are really doing a better job of teaching their students to think deeply about things. Or, it may mean that they’re teaching their students to traffic in pompous bullshit. There’s no way to know from just the questions– you also need to know what constitutes an acceptable answer.

Precisely. And I can’t help but note that of the three linked blogs (Yglesias, Mother Jones, Tapped) there is only sentence that goes beyond a yes/no answer to the questions (can’t say whether this omission is an expression of irony, though). The important thing isn’t whether you can say yes or no, it’s making a convincing case for why you think that’s the correct answer. Or, as we in the science and engineering fields say, show your work.