A student's lament

So, exam season is here. And as we study, get stressed, rip our hair out and try to study again, I wonder.. is it all worth it?

Exams make no sense. Lets face it.

If the purpose of an exam is to judge the student's knowledge of the material, then its pretty incorrect - not to mention very unrealistic in certain/most cases. I will be referring quite a bit to ICT - since its the course I am in at the moment.

Firstly, how well a person does in exams depends on tons of factors - some of them very time dependent. To list a few:


1. Amount of Exams in period
2. Amount of Material to Study
3. Studying Ability
4. Exam distribution - Having 2 exams per day vs having them spread out in a week
5. Personal Problems
6. Actual Familiarity with the topic
7. Quality of notes
8. Quality of lecturer
9. Exam time constraints 
10. The ability of the student to convert what he knows to text
11. The random choice of topics questioned.

Now, you ideally want to test 6. Because that's what the exam is supposed to be doing. So why leave those others in there?


I personally had assignments up to friday, and an exam on Monday. Some had an exam on Saturday. Do you think that their performance will accurately represent their familiarity with the topic? Nope.


Also, its unrealistic. At no professional portion of my life do I expect to sit down in a room in silence, and write about the 7 layers of networking without being able to consult any notes. Discussing them with an equal - I can understand perhaps. Or explaining to a job-superior the finer points. But not in a snap, without any notes or whatever.


Secondly, because of the high stress, large volumes of concentrated studying, chances are you'll forget them soon after. Good going. I barely consciously remember anything from 2nd year which I haven't used. What I remember is the stuff I found useful, and the stuff I actually worked on. I still remember suffix tries perfectly, and can write one without needing to look at the notes - only because I had a project on that, and because I needed to use it.


Also, who is the genius who decided to collect all exams into one period? That sure helps get a perfect view of things. If I have two exams one day after another, I will do less well in both. Why not stagger them? Why not have smaller tests throughout the year? That way we can study properly.


Also, why is memory and recall so important? Why do you have to ask me stuff which is on my notes? Can't you read the notes? Do you think professionals keep EVERYTHING in their head? If I don't know how to open a database connection I will Google it. It'll take me all of 15 seconds to find it. I don't need to remember the syntax.


So my ideal examination? None of those. Instead you partition into 4 people groups at random- tell them that they have a week to write an algorithm to solve a particular problem , using the knowledge they have so far. That will give THE best impression of knowledge, and will ensure that the students will actually remember it a week later.


The Llama