Syntax seems like a stupid thing to test in university level courses. That's trade school stuff. And I don't mean that as a criticism of trade schools, they just have a different focus.

Syntax is not the focus of your testing, but it’s often a pre-requisite to be clearly and accurately speaking the same language. Think not of taking off points for missing a semicolon but instead understanding the difference between the syntax for a method call and a property access. The different syntax conveys different meaning and so we should expect some basic level of accuracy to the language in question. At least that’s how I see it.

Knowledge is built on foundations. Knowing syntax in one language is necessary to be able to do anything practical, which interacts with theory. You build valuable schema of the world by iterative theory and practice.