Ethical caution

[barcotta]

I've seen some posts on the forum lately that I think come close to straying over an ethical line. All of you who have taken DSST, CLEP or ECEs know that part of the process is agreeing not to divulge specific information about the exam. So, for instance "know the major battles of the Civil War, and the generals that fought them" or "the IC flash cards cover the content very well" seems OK to me, but "there was a question about who was the Confederate general at the battle of Chickamauga" I would think is over the line. I don't want to point any fingers, and I don't want to preach or be self-righteous, but what does everybody else think? I've really come to admire and respect this forum, and I'd hate for it to develop a negative reputation.

-Gary-

What do I think? I agree--although I'm less worried about reputation and more worried about more serious potential repercussions. I've also noticed a little more moderator modification of posts recently and I think that they should excercise their edit power whenever borderline feedback is provided so that we remain CLEARLY in-bounds when it comes to providing exam feedback.

I have made a conscious attempt when providing feedback to make sure I kept my contributions general--so as not to violate any rules. I basically tried to model them after the style provided by the CLEP guides, DSST fact sheets, etc.

I would recommend the following as a guide:

If YOU created the test and established a rule prohibiting test-takers from divulging the questions on the test, would YOU consider what you've provided as feedback a violation? If you tell people that they need to know a specific general from a specific battle--what HAVEN'T you divulged? The fact that the question might not be on every test is completely irrelevant with respect to the rule.

As to the question asked by Shadowless, let me provide this heavily-edited response:

Your implication is not only inaccurate based on the gcalvin post (Gary clearly stated that he's commenting on developments he's noticed lately--he's LONG since passed all his tests), it is also immature, disrespectful, small-minded and otherwise everything that gcalvin and the instantcert forum is not.