Are Examinations a Fair Way of Testing Our Knowledge?

Guidelines are neither clear nor measurable. Students are duped into believing their innate abilities and potential are being tested whilst they are largely being tested on test-taking ability, confidence and pushiness.

What this system encourages is practicing past papers in the hopes of mastering tests and not the subject. Tests do not encourage the pursuit of knowledge so much as the pursuit of great grades. Education should free the mind not restrict it to guidelines that are NOT transparent (As the pandemic of misunderstood Andagogy(opposite of pedagogy) keeps teachers from spoon-feeding or spelling things out).

Intellectual exploration is impeded with constant pulls towards
mastering guess work and memorising ‘standard’ methods of answering ‘repeated types’ of questions that were originally set to test a student’s response to unfamiliar problems.

Subjective/qualitative papers with essay questions are not as easy to measure as mathematics or other quantitative papers. There are times when different examiners grade the same paper by the same student/pupil very differently.

Marks on tests are frequently altered on students’ coercion or a teacher/examiner’s admittance of human error on his/her part. Pushier/convincing students can push examiners/tutors into raising their grades and exercise this talent frequently.

Tests simply require students to cram when studying, and after the test is taken, the information studied is almost immediately forgotten, so the purpose of the test in the first place is gone.

The problem with examination for the purpose of proving oursleves or comparing our resulits to others is that exams are not required for such things. take for example someone who is planning to become a doctor or a surgeon. it may be helpfull to exam them and test them to see if they can memorise a medical text book from cover to cover but does this prepare them for the more pratical aspects of being a doctor such as conversing with paitents to name but one. even the aspects which are tested in an exam format (body parts/systems, diseases and injuries) could be made into a more pratical test which invloes more than just writing and memory skills. By making exams the main way of catagorising us we decide that in the real world memory and test taking are more important than the pratical aspects of each profession.

Even though exams are closely monitored and there are severe penalties if they are found cheating, students can still sneak information into exams. Exam papers can even be stolen or forged on their way to and from examination centers. Computers that contain the grades before they are formally released can be hacked into or go wrong on their own. It is more difficult to monitor students who don’t take their exams in the main examination room or at the same date and time as the regular exams, because of disability adjustments or resits, and we can’t do away with these. If exams are supposed to be a way to prevent cheating, they aren’t infallible by any means.

I never said the method had to be perfect, I said a system that is being replaced because it is vulnerable to cheating shouldn’t be replaced by another system that is vulnerable to cheating. You wouldn’t replace a faulty computer with another faulty computer.

Examinations are, at times, good and necessary ways of testing a student’s ability to commit information to memory, to work under pressure and to find out what they know.

However, examinations must not become regular.

Regular examinations result in students working toward exams and exams only. They do not work in order to learn. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is rid of in a system where examinations reign supreme. It becomes knowledge for the sake of passing the class, receiving an “A” etc.

Whilst coursework may easily be cheated on, it is ridiculous to suggest that the only other way of testing a student’s abilities and knowledge is through examination.

Class discussions and debates are, with active class participation, one of the most effective ways of learning and retaining information. Through being forced to better one’s own views and opinions, theories and answers, the student gains a deeper insight into their own arguments, becomes better at discussing their views, and the class benefits from listening to these views and thinking about how the views of their peers compare to those of their own. Through this they can alter their own opinions or form new ones. Class participation is a necessary requirement seeing as how even if one person refuses to engage in the discussion, their own ideas are never put to the test of both the peers and their teacher, and so receive no benefit for their own beliefs, and the class also receives no benefit from that particular student. And this is just one student! Full class participation is an absolute requirement.

How do we accurately test students? We test them through what they are best at and what they are happiest with through immediate student and teacher feedback during and after classes. Weekly or monthly the parents/guardians of those students will receive report cards, showing which subjects their son/daughter is best at, and which they need the most help with. It will also be noted which classes are that child’s favourite. Parents and students must also be able to suggest ways in which their classes could be made better, so long as the suggestions are realistic, reasonable and that they contribute to the learning environment in such a way that the students learn more and at no cost to student/teacher and student/student relationships. For example, bullying must not become more common as a result of changes to the class.

Examinations should appear annually, but no more than that. If there are discrepancies between one’s examination and one’s school work, then this must be investigated, as it would be within the current system now. However, discrepencies are far less likely within this proposed framework, as all the progress and learning goes on during school hours and under the supervision and encouragement of the teacher. (This does not mean to say that kids should not be assigned homework, but the homework itself would be judged on how well the student can prove that they did it i.e., through class discussions the next day).

The fact remains the truth because EXAMINATION IS NOT THE TRUE TEST OF KNOWLEDGE . Its every where , Instances where after exams student forget most if not all they’ve learnt during the session all because they were reading only to pass the exams and nothing more . this is becoming more and more common among those who just want to find an easy way out to study where student cram solutions to past questions just to pass the exam…..And the exams has not help in anyway either since its has always been repetition of past questions or modification of past question. I really don’t know what to call this but in most cases the teacher will always want you to give them what they give , what am saying is that they want you to write it the way they taught you in the class, you know, I really don’t know what this thing called examination is ? . I will give you an instance , back then when I was in school ,….we had the subject in physics which was very wide and we did a lot of examples and class work , due to the complexity of the course we had to read both text books and all necessary materials we could lay our hands on ….during the exams the questions where just examples we did in the class , and you wont believe it many student failed . What am I saying ….this thing called examination which test how best you can cram and how lucky you could be ? ….what I mean by that is , there are instances where you will go to an exams and your area of concentration will not even be part of the exams ,…not that you don’t know it or you’ve not read but the aspect of the course where you are good is not on the exams …..so you see there are a lot to this examination of a thing….i think there should be a better way of testing students knowledge about what they’ve learned and how deep they understand it …..and not just making them cram past questions and answers..

I have never been comfortable with a very good grade (an A) or a very bad grade (an F) I may have received as a result of taking a test. Grades on either extreme often leave me wondering if I’ve learned anything at all. One thing I have learned recently, as a result of failing miserably on a test, is that the test itself can be flawed. A little research reveals that the skills required to develop a fair, meaningful and comprehensive test, regardless of the subject matter, are considerable. Imagine for example, a mid-term exam, in this case applied mathematics, with an extremely narrow subject bandwidth, as compared with the overall course material, and limited to essentially three questions, two of which are worth 40 points each with the third worth 20 points. None were multiple choice or matching type questions. Miss just one of the 40 point questions and you get an F! To receive an A required a correct answer on 100% of the material! What does a test like this say, to me or the instructor, about what I’ve really learned in this class? Not much!

Likes try to take a case in point, of mathematics class which one student takes online versus another who takes in class. Now the student in class may actually be a harder worker, smarter, an overall better student but he is challenged to the fact, that he must take the same exam as the online student, who is able to use his notes, book, online resources. So does the exam treat the student’s fairly? Lets look at another fact of exams, in a generalization most classes consists of 3-4 exams, each exam covering 2-3 chapters, then a compressive final covering all chapters and of course homework. Most classes go by weighted scores, such that your exams consists of 50% of grade, your final 30% of grade, and your homework 20%. Student’s put emphasis on these weighted scores, by creating priorities such that, homework is considered the bottom of the food chain. Why work on homework, when the tests are more important? When the scary realization is that homework is the tool, that provides the best way to create lasting knowledge. How do you get better at a math theory? You constantly use that math theory on dozens of problems over and over again, such as you would find on homework. However on the flip-side on a test, you memorize a theory, use it once, and forget about it. So exams fails to create lasting knowledge, which is the whole point of classes. My final point, doesn’t necessarily point the flaw in examination but the flaw in the examineer. We’ve all had times, where a teacher would vaguely touch on subject, yet the subject becomes a big part of the test. Some teachers fail to recognize the flaws in their teaching method, as most teaching methods consists of trying to create ever lasting knowledge which takes a long time, and repetition. When tests mock the fact of this by exploiting student’s who are good at the skill of learn and forget, studying whats going to be on the test, rather than knowledge provided by the teacher, which sometimes isn’t even on the exam. To finish, I’d like to suggest alternatives tests that would better replace traditional exams. The best I feel would be oral exams, a one on one talk with the examiner as he goes through different questions, would eliminate exams problems that have weird worded question or ask vague questions, and then the examiner could full evaluate the person knowledge and ability use set knowledge in “test” sort of situation. Take home tests, are another, but cheating is an increased chance, so an implement of different tests would have to be used. The student benefits from this, for being forced to research again the knowledge that he or she has probably lost over the course. Which I think should be the true reason for a final test, a refresher on what you’ve learned. Also the final suggestion would be to lose the weighted score of tests, maybe making homework 50% of grade, 3-4 tests 7-10%, and the final test 20%, that way it gets rid of the one thought knowledge test. Because even a student who is copying answers, as long as he copies the method, he is learning something, such the same as a kid who copies theories from a book. Writing or retyping is effective way to create knowledge.

Candidates can score high on an examination by revising hard beforehand, only to forget it immediately afterwards.

Surprise examinations are perhaps more effective in showing the candidate’s knowledge.

In the world of work, in the world of relationships, in the world of family life, relaxation, further academic study, in all these worlds, one requires the ability not just to learn facts and hold understanding of certain intellectual systems in your head, but to make decisions, come up with ideas about how you want to proceed in using any of these things. You need a much more interactive relationship with the world than a simple ‘it exists and I know certain things about it’.

Perhaps this aspect of growing up is best provided elsewhere, such as the playground, where certain survival instincts and behavioural tactics are learned or beaten into you, but it seems incredible to me that the educational system couldn’t go some way towards alleviating the disparity between how we are examined in the exam hall and how we come to use what we have learned in wider life.

Exams test memory more than analysis, creativity, or real understanding. If you have a good memory you can get away with doing very little work throughout the course and still get very good grades.

Coursework is a much more genuine assessment of a candidate because it takes into account research, understanding of the issues and ability to express oneself, not just ability to answer a question in a very limited period of time.

The pressure attached to A’levels and GCSEs is huge and causes many problems. Some students have breakdowns and, in extreme cases, attempt suicide because they cannot handle the pressure, especially with university places relying on grades.

As well as causing personal problems, pressure can lead many bright students to under-perform. Exams test your ability to keep your cool more than they test your intelligence.

Examination results depend on the opinion of the individual examiner. The same paper marked by two different examiners could get completely different results. This is exacerbated by the short time that examiners spend marking a paper.