"After researching the topic a little more,
I’ve come to rethink my stance on exams."
I chose to write about this topic because I thought I had
a pretty strong stance to share. Even though I prefer
taking exams to writing assignments (we’ll come back to
this), my opinion was that exams aren’t an appropriate
assessment tool in today’s world. I saw them as a waste
of time and effort that don’t accurately reflect real-world
situations and circumstances and that place unnecessary
stress on many students.
But after researching the topic a little more (I mean, I
needed someone to back me up), I’ve come to rethink
my stance on exams. To help me explain the reason why,
I’ve created a pros and cons table about exams from a
student’s perspective.
PROS
1 Good, bad or horrible, the exam will be over
within the set period of time.
2
You can probably relate to all these points and
unsurprisingly, there are more cons than pros, but now,
let me take you on another pros/cons journey… this time,
from a lecturer’s perspective.
PROS
1 It’s harder for students to plagiarise work in
an exam setting than it is in other forms
of assessment.*
2 Addresses specific course objectives clearly.
3 Can include a variety of question types to appeal to
multiple learning styles.
4 Improves students’ learning and comprehension by
requiring them to revise material.
5 Students have equal amounts of time to complete
the exam.
Multiple choice questions means the answer has to
be there somewhere.
3 Opportunity to impress yourself with the amount of
information your mind can grasp!
CONS
1 Spend hours and hours studying huge volumes of
content to only be tested on a small selection of
material.
2 The exam room setting can be super anxiety-
inducing. It’s all so formal!
3 There’s so much that can go wrong. No carparks.
Traffic. A dud pen. Sudden onset of the sniffles.
4 Exams always include one topic you swear was
never discussed in the course!
5 Closed-book exams are unrealistic (you’ll have
help in the real world answering questions), i.e.
no access to resources.
CONS
1 Lots of assessment pieces to mark
2 Handwriting can be hard to read.
3 Most students only use shallow learning
techniques to ‘cram for exams, rather than build
their comprehension.*
So, if you still think exams are irrelevant, consider why you
think this. Is it that you always feel underprepared walking
into the room? Is it that the actual exam experience is
daunting or uncomfortable for you? Try acknowledging the
reasons why you think exams aren’t an appropriate way to
assess your understanding of course materials, then have
a go at these tactics that teach you how to better prepare
for them, because, like it or not, exams are something
we all have to do. So, to conclude, yes, exams are an
appropriate assessment tool.
But let’s be honest, if there’s one thing students
hate more than assignments and exams,
it’s oral presentations.
The views put forward in this
student submission are those of
the student and are not an official
statement of the University of
Southern Queensland.
*Sources:
http://hijacked.com.au/the-pros-and-cons-of-exam-based-testing
WORDS: JESSICA THORNTON
IMAGES: SHUTTERSTOCK