Not really. The goal of most exams is to have a predetermined number of people pass. For example, entrance exams. There is a, known beforehand, number of spots to hand out. The goal of the exam is to be exactly difficult enough to get all the spots filled but no more. This even applies to medical doctor residences.
Only artificial, meaningless exams like olympiads are really meant to asses how good someone is.
Of course the easy and common way to do it is to make the exam way too hard to realistically fill up the spots, and then cheat. In the best case, this is done by having a "translation table". Usually, we're talking a combination of nepotism/racism/... You can pass fairly. It's just that if you aren't part of the right group you need to score something like 20-40% better. And before you say this is unfair, I like the alternative even less: way too easy exams where making 1 spelling error in an IT exam will effectively disqualify you (like the EU commission exams). There are limited number of spots in that exam too, and you have zero chance to start a career in the commission if you have a "low" score. Unfortunately 90% is "low". Hell, that's very low. 98% is the real "pass grade", and 99% is not a luxury.
And if they don't do this themselves, like has happened with medical exams, the "people upstairs" will find ways to give responsibilities to people who don't pass, who may not have got the required training to be responsible about them.
There is a level of incompetence that will get you kicked out, but it's pretty extreme, and usually what I'd call "callousness" (what you might call a tendency to proceed after being warned) is a required part. Mere stupidity won't do it.
Most tests are artificial so I'll grant you that, but I don't think it's right to categorize the olympiads as an "exam", even less so a "meaningless" one.
Olympiads are contests, and it's not like contestants participate in them for the same reasons people take exams. It's more of an excuse for skilled students to challenge themselves (and each other) with the hardest problems that the brightest minds (at that age) could be expected to solve.
It's definitely not for everyone, but then, not everyone gets to participate. For those who have a chance to participate officially, I doubt anyone would think it is "meaningless" to do so. I'm not a "competitive" type of person, but I still consider it a valuable experience if only as a chance to test one's limit at a subject one is reasonably good at. I also like to think that the experience significantly influence one's future life choices too. (FWIW: after that I basically decided to avoid dealing with brain teasers and advanced algorithms wherever possible, and got a degree in law instead of CS. Not the typical outcome, but impactful nonetheless. I work as a software engineer now, because as we all know, 99% of software jobs don't need that stuff 99% of the time.)
If you thought olympiads were an "exam" to show off to others how good you are at the subject, then I'd agree it's not meaningful in that aspect. Though this is HN, it's still a very small minority who actually run around flaunting their olympiad medals or Putnams.
Disclaimer: I was a contestant in IOI many years ago. Was so average that I basically quit the game as described above. (In case anyone wonders, no I did not win the Putnam.)
Only artificial, meaningless exams like olympiads are really meant to asses how good someone is.
https://www.imo-official.org/
Of course the easy and common way to do it is to make the exam way too hard to realistically fill up the spots, and then cheat. In the best case, this is done by having a "translation table". Usually, we're talking a combination of nepotism/racism/... You can pass fairly. It's just that if you aren't part of the right group you need to score something like 20-40% better. And before you say this is unfair, I like the alternative even less: way too easy exams where making 1 spelling error in an IT exam will effectively disqualify you (like the EU commission exams). There are limited number of spots in that exam too, and you have zero chance to start a career in the commission if you have a "low" score. Unfortunately 90% is "low". Hell, that's very low. 98% is the real "pass grade", and 99% is not a luxury.
And if they don't do this themselves, like has happened with medical exams, the "people upstairs" will find ways to give responsibilities to people who don't pass, who may not have got the required training to be responsible about them.
There is a level of incompetence that will get you kicked out, but it's pretty extreme, and usually what I'd call "callousness" (what you might call a tendency to proceed after being warned) is a required part. Mere stupidity won't do it.