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Exam
Students sitting a traditional exam in an exam hall
Jon Dron
still learning, never learning enough
Comments
This brings back memories! In my recollection the students were not all taking the same subject and were not allowed into the exam room until the appropriate scheduled time. The envigilators were very strict - any suspicion of trying to look for someone elses' answers or - heaven forbid - a cheet sheet, meant that the exam paper was taken and the perpetrator had to sit quietly for the remainder of the exam time. No one left early! High stress and very nervewracking with many of the envigilators being experts at derision and sarcasm.
Usually the exam papers or questions were never seen again and if these were year end exams the results came in the mail near the end of August, just in time to register for the next year's courses. No supplements and the exam was 100% of the mark achieved for that subject.
We have moved on but have we improved from an education standpoint? With the old system, at the time of the exam at least 50% of the subject was in mind. This may not be the case today.
- Ian Ashworth
This brings back memories when NO multiple choices: only face to face..
- Anonymous
Bad memories. Actually, to be quite honest, I always rather enjoyed exams in a contrary kind of way. But, with some rare exceptions, few if any things in an educational system are more antagonistic to learning, more unfair, more inauthentic, more inefficient, more ugly. They are a stark illustration of all that is wrong in education.
I've written of my feelings about such things many times, perhaps most succinctly if not most penetratingly in this 2009 post at https://landing.athabascau.ca/blog/view/3639/what-exams-have-taught-me
do not belive in bad memories -- believe in BAD implementation>>
- me