The Exam Lottery
Is it some kind of new practice in Universities to have exams where the students are aware of the subject matter involved but not the specific content the exam examinates?
Do professors think they're doing a service by having students study more than is necessary just to hit them with a battery of specific, well-aimed questions?
My point: Shouldn't kids be able to know what they need to study to pass an exam?
My opinion: Can't you tell by the way I wrote the above question?
Professors who casually assign a chapter just to gouge a question from a single line of a single paragraph on a single page in that chapter are in fact doing a disservice
to the very students they intend to help, to TEACH.
Exams are, in effect, an evaluation of a student's ability to remember and assimilate what is IMPORTANT from a chapter, from a discussion, from a lecture. If you have kids writing down even your "Um"s and "Well"s you're setting them up for failure. This is why there's a discrepancy between "Time Studied" and "Grade Received." In our University (and, for that matter, complete Scholastic) system, a grade received by a student does not necessarily reflect the time the student spent studying, the effort the student spent studying, or the intellect of said student. Concepts and facts are memorized, tested, and forgotten. Those with the best grades are the ones with the best memories. Studying is an activity that is hit-or-miss at best: either you studied and memorized a fact you'll need, or you didn't. You don't get any time back for the things you studied and didn't need to.
Not telling students what is important to remember is in fact telling them that either nothing is important to remember or everything is. And since everyone knows that exams test SOMETHING, then they'd rather err in the corner of caution and attempt to remember every scrap of everything you've ever said, posted or assigned in the hopes that they retain that one percent that will actually be tested.
And I'm completely in awe of the Professors I have who promise that the next exam will be "much harder," or "more in-depth," or "graded with stricter expectations." Are you kidding me? Not only do I not know what to study in the first place, now I can't even expect regularity in the exam structure?
Are professors doing all they can to SCREW STUDENTS OVER just so that only the "very best" get 4.0s? Whatever happened to equal opportunity? If EVERYONE can't get a 4.0, why should ANYONE be able to? This isn't a small problem - not if a student enters every class knowing that the best percentage of the students will get the best grades, and the other majority won't - for whatever reason - it forces the average student (a group in which I'd consider myself) into the position that unless he does his absolute best, the best outcome is out of his reach. And so, he must study EVERYTHING the teacher says, posts or assigns so that he might remember that one key fact on the exam.
Now, you might say - Sure, well, just let him do his absolute best. Ok. So he does. In THAT class. What do you do about the other three, four, or five he's taking? Is one 4.0 and three 2.5s justified?
Are you getting any of this yet?
Do you understand why so many University students suffer from severe stress,
depression, and sleep disorders?
Professors - You're reading this. Listen:
If you're going to have a certain number of exams, each one weighing heavily on the outcome of a student's final grade in the course, make the exams reflect the effort the student put into the course. If he went to class, if he read, if he took notes - he should do well. Make the exams exemplary of themselves. Don't change the rules in the middle of the game.
University is about teaching, and learning. It's about equal opportunities. It's about fairness, and helping students grow into healthy members of society. Exams are about testing key concepts and things that are important to remember, not arbitrary facts that have no bearing on the course.
Remember - you're here to help the students learn.
Not to teach them that what they learned doesn't matter.
Do professors think they're doing a service by having students study more than is necessary just to hit them with a battery of specific, well-aimed questions?
My point: Shouldn't kids be able to know what they need to study to pass an exam?
My opinion: Can't you tell by the way I wrote the above question?
Professors who casually assign a chapter just to gouge a question from a single line of a single paragraph on a single page in that chapter are in fact doing a disservice
to the very students they intend to help, to TEACH.
Exams are, in effect, an evaluation of a student's ability to remember and assimilate what is IMPORTANT from a chapter, from a discussion, from a lecture. If you have kids writing down even your "Um"s and "Well"s you're setting them up for failure. This is why there's a discrepancy between "Time Studied" and "Grade Received." In our University (and, for that matter, complete Scholastic) system, a grade received by a student does not necessarily reflect the time the student spent studying, the effort the student spent studying, or the intellect of said student. Concepts and facts are memorized, tested, and forgotten. Those with the best grades are the ones with the best memories. Studying is an activity that is hit-or-miss at best: either you studied and memorized a fact you'll need, or you didn't. You don't get any time back for the things you studied and didn't need to.
Not telling students what is important to remember is in fact telling them that either nothing is important to remember or everything is. And since everyone knows that exams test SOMETHING, then they'd rather err in the corner of caution and attempt to remember every scrap of everything you've ever said, posted or assigned in the hopes that they retain that one percent that will actually be tested.
And I'm completely in awe of the Professors I have who promise that the next exam will be "much harder," or "more in-depth," or "graded with stricter expectations." Are you kidding me? Not only do I not know what to study in the first place, now I can't even expect regularity in the exam structure?
Are professors doing all they can to SCREW STUDENTS OVER just so that only the "very best" get 4.0s? Whatever happened to equal opportunity? If EVERYONE can't get a 4.0, why should ANYONE be able to? This isn't a small problem - not if a student enters every class knowing that the best percentage of the students will get the best grades, and the other majority won't - for whatever reason - it forces the average student (a group in which I'd consider myself) into the position that unless he does his absolute best, the best outcome is out of his reach. And so, he must study EVERYTHING the teacher says, posts or assigns so that he might remember that one key fact on the exam.
Now, you might say - Sure, well, just let him do his absolute best. Ok. So he does. In THAT class. What do you do about the other three, four, or five he's taking? Is one 4.0 and three 2.5s justified?
Are you getting any of this yet?
Do you understand why so many University students suffer from severe stress,
depression, and sleep disorders?
Professors - You're reading this. Listen:
If you're going to have a certain number of exams, each one weighing heavily on the outcome of a student's final grade in the course, make the exams reflect the effort the student put into the course. If he went to class, if he read, if he took notes - he should do well. Make the exams exemplary of themselves. Don't change the rules in the middle of the game.
University is about teaching, and learning. It's about equal opportunities. It's about fairness, and helping students grow into healthy members of society. Exams are about testing key concepts and things that are important to remember, not arbitrary facts that have no bearing on the course.
Remember - you're here to help the students learn.
Not to teach them that what they learned doesn't matter.
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