I took three history classes while I was in college. It's been a while, but I recall most of them having a paper or two and those papers counting for a pretty big chunk of you grade. The author of the article is a history teacher, so essays make some amount of sense.

My engineering classes were basically as you described.

What were the other 8 percent?

My math undergrad classes were largely like that, too, and that was before there were smartphone solver apps, let alone "AI". A typical grade breakdown was 10% assignments, 30% midterm, 60% final in first and second year. Then in third and fourth year, it was entirely midterm + final.

They gave a few marks for assignments in lower years since high schoolers often come to them thinking the only things that are important are grades, so won't practice unless it's for marks. If you haven't figured out that practice is important by third year...

And agreed re: changing the focus of our assessment, just like memorizing facts for history "trivia-style" assessment should no longer be used by anyone in a post-search Web 2.0 world. (Although it was never good assessment, regardless.)

also bad at synthesizing new ideas.. however, it is likely that future models will be better at those things.

then whole situation sucks and I'm glad I'm out of uni.

I'm open to alternatives that can't be chatgtped. tech bros destroyed them all

Meant how the university of Cambridge does their tests. rather than year long exams and assignments being a fraction of your grade. the only grade that matters is that of the final yearly exam. I think it is the only one in the UK that does that. not sure how it works in the rest of the world, but I think that is rare. but likely the only AI proof system.

IE, you can literally goof off the whole year, not even be in town, and if you show up for the exam and ace it you get a good grade.