Aptitude

I blushed a little. To me, being idealistic is a compliment.

"But you are right in certain way." L said, "Even if we confine ourselves to clinical subjects, there is a difference in aptitude between different people. For example, some may be brilliant surgeons and others psychiatrists. The two should never be the same kind of people. The problem is, in general, we could only know what a student is good at, or whether they are suitable for a particular specialty, after they have attached to that subject and gone through the examination."

"True. In that case, what do you suggest?"

"No, nothing, or just a wild idea. For example, if we are running a clerkship of, say, psychiatry, for ten weeks, how about holding a small test after 2 weeks of the rotation - you can call it regular assessment or aptitude test as you like. A small group of high flyer - 10 or 20% of the class, depending on the specialty - will receive intensive teaching during the remaining 8 weeks, followed by a more vigorous examination afterwards. For the remaining 80 or 90% of the ordinary students, they would receive mostly lectures and seminar-based teaching, as well as a more simple assessment after the module. My only problem is, how should the class as a whole be graded if the examination is different?"

"Oh, that's merely a simple arithmetic problem." I smiled.