Years ago British telecom (post office) a similar quiz for trainees that was
using an AVO to identify the base on a transistor and define NPN/PNP. Stupid
quiz master (lecturer)failed to remove the part numbers properly from AC128
,2N3055, OC71 and BC109 so I identified all the legs gave an estimated Hfe
polarity and then stated because the OC71 had half its paint missing it
should be reclassified as an OCP71 and was difficult to measure correctly as
it kept conducting when you took your hand off of it..

I got a right earful for that one..

But passed the quiz 

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of
Chris Smolinski
Sent: 12 June 2007 22:06
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: RE: [OT] Units rant

>My best "in the lab" example of this is one of my final 4th year labs we
>had to put together a circuit, and a person came to me, very
>intelligent, not sure about 4.0 GPA, but probably one of the best
>students in the class, and asked me which end of a diode was the
>cathode...
>
>4 years of lectures, quizzes, exams and many labs, and something as
>simple as the little line on a diode was still something they didn't
>know.

At one company I worked for, we had a simple little test we would 
give to prospective employees, both engineers and techs. Well, before 
we got bought by Honeywell and their HR dept made us stop. I guess 
the tests were unfair to stupid people. But anyway, the tests had 
rather simple questions on them, such as basic opamp circuits, 
resistor dividers, etc. One set of questions had a sine wave fed into 
a simple diode circuit, and you had to draw the output waveform. 
Really basic stuff. But it was amazing how many recent college grads 
couldn't answer them correctly!  What was more amazing is that we 
found that the test was really a very good way to filter out the 
duds, and find the kids who actually *understood* what they were 
taught. It separated them out from those who were good as memorizing 
answers but didn't grasp what they were supposedly learning.

I wish I still had a copy of the test.

-- 

---
Chris Smolinski
Black Cat Systems
http://www.blackcatsystems.com
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