I’m not sure you can do the cold calling thing at a public school. Everybody at HBS signed up for that, public school kids did not.

Every school (and many university professors) does "cold calls" in Italy, as far as I know; scheduled oral examinations are the exception, not the rule, before university. Not knowing the answer at a random university lecture doesn't generally impact your grades, however, because in most cases those are 100% based on a final (often oral) exam.

I wouldn't argue that it is a system without issues but it's still better than rote essay writing.