Because of the high number students enrolled in the classes, almost all oral exams also featured a written component, very similar to a regular exam. Because of the unstructured nature of oral exams, you would have an arbitrary amount of time to solve it. After that the professor would make you elaborate some of your anwsers, or not, depending how he felt like. The students who performed best were indeed very extroverted and able to convince the professor that they actually meant something other than what they wrote.
The professors also used these exams to give you an arbitrary grade for the subject, depending exclusively on your oral exam "performance". I remember having a high 90% grade in the written part of my Advanced Electronics class. The professor didn't feel I was confident enough in my answers during the oral exam, so he passed me with 1/30 points even though I answered most of the answers correct, thus bringing my grade down to barely a C.
Oral exams sound great in theory but in practice they always felt somewhere between unfair and traumatizing. I much prefer the objectivity of written exams.
I don't agree with this at all. Even with a friendly examiner, they have far more presence than in a written exam. You are presenting and being actively judged, unlike in a written exam. Also, you'll spend more time on the parts you know worse precisely because you'll be slower, make more mistakes...
> they try to cram as much as possible into into the time available or were too easy (so at the top end grading becomes very nitpicky) or too hard (which can be demoralizing if no one even manages to complete all questions). Oral exams have much more flexibility to adapt to the individual here.
Badly adapted exams are a feature of the teacher, not the type of exam. If anything, oral exams are worse for more complex content, as they tend to be shorter in time.
I am very much not an extroverted person and in University written exams were almost always more stressful than oral ones as they try to cram as much as possible into into the time available or were too easy (so at the top end grading becomes very nitpicky) or too hard (which can be demoralizing if no one even manages to complete all questions). Oral exams have much more flexibility to adapt to the individual here.