Ermz

Monday, October 30, 2006

The Purpose of EXAMS

The purpose of exams

The main purpose of exams is for lecturers to check that you have understood the work. A more conventional answers would be: to measure knowledge of the content of, or the achievement of, the learning outcomes that are equivalent to those of a specific course (Intended Learning Outcomes). Hmm...what can I say Curriculum foundation helped me recall the definition or it could just be freash in my memory because I just finished writing the exam today.

Or you may agree with me when I say-- the purpose of Exams is to freak all students out and create massive chaos across the planet, especially since exams affect all divisions of Creation. Lets look at this way, the furry little animals know when its exam time. Just watch them scurry around as people pull in and out of the parking lot. They are much more cautious when they run across the street. Roomies always know when its exam time - even when they aren't on the same schedule -- they tend to put coffee on (even if you don't like it :)

Preparing for exams involves a high release of energy (something I tend NOT to have during exams) and an unusual degree of focus (hence the blog writing), which produces a very intense kind of learning (sure, I now know that Math is my next exam). That focus and intensity are not easy to reproduce under any other conditions. Ofcourse! becuase it isn't happening NOW!

Some advantages of examinations:

There are some positive benefits in exams! Yes, I said it.

You cannot be expected to give very long or detailed answers in exams: you need to use less information than in a comparable piece of coursework. As a result, less in-depth research and reading may be needed than if you were set additional coursework. You don’t have to write out references or bibliographies in full at the end. I told ya there were some benefits. I don't know about you but not writing a bibliography saves me tons of time.

Examiners are generally more sympathetic about scrawled handwriting (my arm and hand went limp) , minor grammatical errors (definately didn't proof-read) , spellings and forgotten details (because it definately happened).

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