Professors Adopt Oral Exams To Verify Learning

College professors across the United States are increasingly using oral exams since the 2022 launch of ChatGPT to combat AI-assisted cheating. Instructors at Cornell, UPenn and NYU are pairing spoken defenses with written work and even deploying AI-driven voice agents from ElevenLabs to probe student understanding. Educators say the approach aims to assess genuine comprehension amid concerns over declining critical thinking skills.