Exams

[The Dragon Master]

Now I don't mind exams really, other people have told me I have a happy-go-lucky sorta personality when it comes to stressful stuff, since my friend was bricking it and I was sat there quite happily and didn't feel nervous (this was yesterday).



However, today was quite different, and before the exams my me and my friend felt that the way exams are now are unfair, really. Exams now feel like that they test how well you can remember stuff rather than how well you understand it. There's no point being able to remember it when you can't understand it. My friend is from Denmark and said that when she was in collage, they could take notes into the exam and be able to look stuff up, but they didn't have enough time to look everything up (if you know what I mean), whether in the UK you have to remember everything off by heart and interpret it, to write an answer which shows that you can do both.



Now University is supposed to simulate the real world as much as possible, but in the real world (especially Forensics) you don't have tests in which you have to memorize and then interpret, as it's important that you get it right. If you work in a lab, you don't have to memorize the mechanism for a reaction, you'll have books to help you when you need to look stuff up.



It just annoys me that exams seem to be about memorizing rather than how the person taking the exam, interprets what they have been taught and puts it onto paper.



Another thing as well, they need some sort of quality checker for exams... Yesterday we were interrupted half way through the exam to tell us that there were 5 questions missing. How can they miss 5 questions? The lecturer's go over the exam paper to make sure it's right... And then we got the 5 questions 10 mins before the end of the exam...



That's my little rant over

I feel better now XD

 

[Cranos]

Here everything is based on exams. You don't get a lot of class or papers to write (especially not the first year), you just have to know the course material completely. However here universities only offer academic bachelors (and also masters of course), which aren't supposed to simulate real life after you have a degree. They also make you learn more and more every year as some sort of selection process, so only the best can pass.

 

[The Dragon Master]

Here everything is based on exams. You don't get a lot of class or papers to write (especially not the first year), you just have to know the course material completely. However here universities only offer academic bachelors (and also masters of course), which aren't supposed to simulate real life after you have a degree. They also make you learn more and more every year as some sort of selection process, so only the best can pass.

I got quite a lot of coursework in my first semester XD



The degree I'm doing says that they are trying to get us ready for real world Forensics. That's why we spend so much time in the labs and the Crime Scene house.

 

[Jazzy]

Now University is supposed to simulate the real world as much as possible, but in the real world (especially Forensics) you don't have tests in which you have to memorize and then interpret, as it's important that you get it right. If you work in a lab, you don't have to memorize the mechanism for a reaction, you'll have books to help you when you need to look stuff up.

As a Paramedic, it was essential that we memorized proper techniques and nothing was left up to self interputaion of those techniques. In the real world, in my profession, we don't have a book that we bring along to look stuff up. Time wasted doing that could cause a person/persons demise. In the RL, I am tested every day and rely on knowledge that I have memorized to do my job properly. We have to attend refresher courses which require quite a bit of studying. If we fail a refresher course, we get no second chance. Just like the person/persons I'm trained to save gets no second chance if I haven't memorized proper techniques.

 

[The Dragon Master]

@Jazzy: I was a bit pissed and confused when I posted this, there's always going to be exceptions to what I said. I know that in some jobs that it's essential to memorize techniques. But also in some jobs it's essential that you can understand and interpret outcomes.



It just seems to me that exams are all about testing how well you remember material, rather than how you understand it, and since in the exam mark scheme it says that to get any decent marks you have to show an understanding and interpretation of what you were taught. But if you can't remember it, but know that you could describe and interpret it can be quite frustrating

 

[Jazzy]

But if you can't remember it, but know that you could describe and interpret it can be quite frustrating

How can you describe and interput something you can't remember? It's like having a dream that's very vivid in your mind when it's happening but when you wake up, you can't remember the dream.

 

[The Dragon Master]

How can you describe and interput something you can't remember? It's like having a dream that's very vivid in your mind when it's happening but when you wake up, you can't remember the dream.

There was this question on the exam, which I know I could have written pages upon pages about, and gone in depth and could have written a really good answer. But when I was in the exam hall and read the question, everything went blank which frustrated me as I knew I could have done it. I'd done sample answers and revised it, but it wasn't coming to me.

 

[Cranos]

I got quite a lot of coursework in my first semester XD



The degree I'm doing says that they are trying to get us ready for real world Forensics. That's why we spend so much time in the labs and the Crime Scene house.

Yeah, I think we have a similar major here. It's a professional bachelor which you can follow in a college (used for the lack of a better translation. It's not exactly lower than a university here, just different). They're more practical based and and have more work during the semester.



I had the same sentiment you have now in high school though. The amount of useless bullshit they feed you there is incredible.

 

[Durandal]

I can understand this sentiment and emphasize with it, too. It's pretty bad over here in the U.S., where plenty of us folks have to indenture ourselves to debt just to get a functioning education, only to find that half of what you pay for is pretty much useless. To get a 'good' job, too, basically the whole process is nothing much more than a hazing, in a way. It's basically an endurance test to see who can deal with all the B.S. and will take a accept a certain about of systemic abuse without rebelling or caving in. The failures they don't want, because they won't be productive. The people who see it for what it is, and don't like it they don't want, because A.) They have probable exceptional leadership skills and strong analytical skills to such an extent that the big guys that are going to hire you could lose their job to you. Usually Group A goes on to be entrepreneurs and go on to be 'The Man*', rather than try and stick it to 'The Man*'. B.) These places like submissive, but productive work people who hold their job as a holy blessing - loyalty is the key, and skill in a particular field (the easier part to deal with) a secondary. Most training (I'm saying most here, Jazzy, not all) and education for jobs (obviously I'm not talking about Nuclear Physicists, Doctors, etc. here...) could be done 'on the job', or in a much more compressed method than what many educational institutions have now. Business has developed around a hyper-specialised populace like that. Even those people who will protest and talk about well-roundedness can only really point out that their 'well-roundedness' still is in a pretty narrow spectrum. If the market wanted jacks-of-all-trades (again, there are exceptions, I'm talking about mainstream here) - they'd be hiring Liberal Arts majors left and right...but yeah, that's not happening.



...exams are the cornerstone of this regime, in a single moment, particularly in the format you describe, Dragon - they run you through an unnecessary gantlet of quantity because the people that can endure that abuse, and will accept is exactly the quality they want. The race to the finish-line type people. Is it a positive thing for true innovation and building a positive and constructive future? Perhaps in some respects - however I think overall, it is a poor way to optimise the workforce of tomorrow.