Anonymous test taking (kind of)

[knightmoves]

At the NC State Tournament, there was a trial event (Applied Anatomy & Physiology) where the supervisor gave each team random five-digit identifiers rather than their assigned team numbers. That way, the graders didn’t know who they were marking, but the supervisor knew what the final placements were. The event only had 20 or so teams if I remember correctly so I’m not sure how that would be implemented on a larger scale, but it could be plausible if the supervisor is meticulous in their record keeping.

Every competition we go to, our team's graders report multiple teams failing to write their team number on their answers, or writing the wrong team number, or not knowing whether they are the V or JV team, or some other form of test-taking incompetence. Imagine how many different ways they could get random team numbers wrong.

[knightmoves]

I feel like people are really overestimating the amount of bias that goes on. It's really hard to be biased.

Depends on the event. You can't reasonably mark multiple choice in a biased way, but something like Experimental Design has a lot of judgement as to whether to award full marks for this point on the rubric or not, so it's easy to put a thumb on the scales.

In several cases, teachers and/or parents will recognize the handwriting of their team members, which will bypass an attempt to anonymize the test. (Of course, it would be amusing if mystery parent X was spectacularly biased in favor of someone with similar handwriting to their child!)

[JoeyC]

I feel like people are really overestimating the amount of bias that goes on. It's really hard to be biased.

game on Unome