I've now had a couple of interviews where we are graded on our ability to "work as a team" in problem-based learning situations.

Is it just me, or is this a genuinely terrible way of evaluating one's capabilities as a future student/classmate? Doing this over Zoom makes these discussions exceptionally awkward and pointlessly so considering these sessions are almost always held in-person w/ a recurring group of students in medical school. The flow of dialogue is so unnatural because at first everyone hesitates to unmute to avoid talking over someone else, so there's this long pause, and then suddenly like 3 people unmute at the same time.

Like unless you are genuinely a clown and start like insulting/shooting other people down during these discussions (hilariously there is always someone who does this every time I've done this format) I can't imagine they can meaningfully assess you, right? Sure I guess the evaluators can say "this guy mentioned X person's idea by name!" and "this dude let Y student into the discussion after she had trouble unmuting" but it's also so not genuine. Just turns into playing a game rather than actually engaging in the discussion, and I'm not sure how some adcoms don't realize that.