My Exam Hell
Exams. We’ve all gone through them. Some may have reached the Junior Cert., some went as far as the Leaving. But lets face it, we’re mostly self-loathing bourgeois nancy boys and girls around here who have invested heavily in the “Human Capital” markets and went on to third level. I think it’s safe to say that nobody likes exams. They are hell. Some people can glide through them happy enough to pass. But most seem to achieve multiple nervous breakdowns in the space of 2-3 weeks while their faces succumb to a bout of stress-induced acne.
What is the purpose of exams? A definition of an exam might look something like this: a time limited exercise in which a person is asked questions about a particular subject in order to gauge their competence. For me though, they frequently become a speed-writing competition in which the person who has the best system of acronymisation does best. This is all the more true in the arts and law faculties where students are expected to write full-blown essays for answers whereas in the more technical subjects like maths and physics it is all graphs and formulae.
Exams don’t teach you anything, they merely assess your ability to remember things and write them down in a pressurised environment. But what is the purpose of education? For me it is as simple as the process of gaining knowledge and skills. But how many here have come out of exams to find a week later everything magically erased from their brain? Whether this is as a result of an intentional effort to erase the painful memories or of heavy drinking, the fact remains that you do not remember what you learned for your exams.
You do, however, remember what you did for your projects/assignments/essays. The research and problem solving experiences that these entail provide the best tools for applying the knowledge you are supposed to be acquiring. After all, this is what you are going to be doing in the real world; applying your knowledge to problems in which you are given time to consider them and approach them in the manner you think best (If you have a boss that comes to you and gives you a random problem to solve in an hour and a half then I pity you). It has got to the stage in my university where some lecturers are freely expressing their dislike for the examinations system. One such lecturer provided the full list of questions we were to receive, word for word. He did this not so the exam would be easy but so we could have time to research and prepare our answers. It is plainly obvious that the continuous assessment approach is a far superior method of assessing one’s ability.
El Commandant P.
tags:exams
Published by Colm.
What is the purpose of exams? A definition of an exam might look something like this: a time limited exercise in which a person is asked questions about a particular subject in order to gauge their competence. For me though, they frequently become a speed-writing competition in which the person who has the best system of acronymisation does best. This is all the more true in the arts and law faculties where students are expected to write full-blown essays for answers whereas in the more technical subjects like maths and physics it is all graphs and formulae.
Exams don’t teach you anything, they merely assess your ability to remember things and write them down in a pressurised environment. But what is the purpose of education? For me it is as simple as the process of gaining knowledge and skills. But how many here have come out of exams to find a week later everything magically erased from their brain? Whether this is as a result of an intentional effort to erase the painful memories or of heavy drinking, the fact remains that you do not remember what you learned for your exams.
You do, however, remember what you did for your projects/assignments/essays. The research and problem solving experiences that these entail provide the best tools for applying the knowledge you are supposed to be acquiring. After all, this is what you are going to be doing in the real world; applying your knowledge to problems in which you are given time to consider them and approach them in the manner you think best (If you have a boss that comes to you and gives you a random problem to solve in an hour and a half then I pity you). It has got to the stage in my university where some lecturers are freely expressing their dislike for the examinations system. One such lecturer provided the full list of questions we were to receive, word for word. He did this not so the exam would be easy but so we could have time to research and prepare our answers. It is plainly obvious that the continuous assessment approach is a far superior method of assessing one’s ability.
El Commandant P.
tags:exams
Published by Colm.
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