<p>Shades...I'm officially welcoming you to the Acronym club...S_C...I like it.</p>
<p>Student14x the other flaw in your argument is that you assume that top schools mean tougher professors and by extension tougher tests which leads to tougher courses. Certainly this is a flawed assumption. </p>
<p>It assumes that each school has standard curricula in their large courses. I can guarantee you that is not the case. While there are certain topics and means to cover them (ie at my UG Physics 141 was algebra based and Physics 241 was calculus based), professors are given extraordinary leeway in how they actually teach and test the material. Unless a test is put together at the DEPARTMENT level (so that every student takes the same test, regardless of who their professor for the course is) there is no basis that a test at UCB (since that seems to be the example) is more or less difficult than one at Harvard or at CU-Boulder or Rice or UT-Austin or Wyoming or wherever. Certainly the competition within the class is likely stronger and thus makes it harder to earn an A (assuming the prof is limiting the number of students receiving each grade which is not always the case), but that's different then the actual difficult of the test itself. </p>
<p>It also assumes that difficulty is ratcheted up ONLY by increasing the critical thinking component of the exam - also faulty. There are many ways in which to make an exam more difficult. Simply decreasing the amount of time available for an exam can make it more difficult without changing an iota of the content. Again differences between professors matter a lot, but it's simply inaccurate to assume that the tests at top schools are more difficult because they require more critical thinking ability...</p>
<p>I'm sure BDM and S_C can agree that many of their medical school exams have been very difficult not because they require intense critical thinking, but because the difference between correct and incorrect turns on minute details that if you haven't memorized or remembered, will cause you to get the wrong answer. I mean really, there's little critical thinking involved in me telling you the side effects of a medication for diabetes, or the mechanism of action for Chantix.</p>