Exams

[pandaboy]

Is exam a good way to measure a person's capabilities? Currently, I'm in the middle of my final exam season.... and just happened to wonder..... I've been doing considerably well for the past few years in my studies, and doing good in my current pre-U studies. But....if i screwed up this final exam of mine...my life will be ruined. All my past efforts will be futile. I just happened to wonder about this, bcause i felt i did really bad in this exam of mine. Hmph...what do u guys think?

[chenchow]

Pandaboy, I hope that you are fine! Am sure you can do well!

Personally, after being in this US system, where final exam only counts like 15-30%, I think that final exams are just part of the whole picture. Essentially those projects are the ones that haunt me, seeing all those countless nights in the labs.

I would think that exam, depending on how it is, to see whether it is able to measure a person's capability. In one way, exam allows the instructors to see whether the students grasp the knowledge. However, my personal view point is that exams should be open books, after all, we get to refer to books, internet whenever we are tested in our working life. In fact, today, if I am given a closed book exam and it tests on memory, I would definitely fail.

I am also of the opinion that exams should test on understanding, rather than memory or recall power.

s exam a good way to measure a person's capabilities? Currently, I'm in the middle of my final exam season.... and just happened to wonder..... I've been doing considerably well for the past few years in my studies, and doing good in my current pre-U studies. But....if i screwed up this final exam of mine...my life will be ruined. All my past efforts will be futile. I just happened to wonder about this, bcause i felt i did really bad in this exam of mine. Hmph...what do u guys think?

[wwhong]

yeah exam is not really a good tools for performance measurement but unfortunately, there's the most feasible way to assess a student's capability now. sad but true....anyhow, this is not an ideal world....

why dun we think of some ways or something other than exam that will enable the teachers to evaluate a student's capability? maybe that's a stupid question but who nkows with all the smart brains in recom we might come out something? maybe...

[The_Observer]

I know how you feel pandaboy. I once had a pre-u exam final paper of mine thats worth 65%!

Exams are still the way to go for I think there's no other way to judge a person's intellectual capacity and I mean the capacity to THINK not STORE (to those people with severe chronic hypermuggeraemia).

I would have loved an exam that I don't need to mug for and totally based on understanding but...the world isn't perfect...

Anyway, good luck!

Always remember, "fortune favours the brave"! and I forgot who said that....

[DFish]

There are a total of seven intelligences based on Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University. Linguistic, mathematical/logical, musical, visual/spatial, physical, interpersonal and intrapersonal. Every person have different intelligence.

However,almost all school exam nowadays tested on linguistic and logical part. So, only those who incline in both intelligences often become most successful in their studies. IMHO, each student (since young) should be given chance to develop their most powerful intelligence and maybe there can be different courses or subjects for different kind of people. And eventually different set of test.

[ElansarGelmir]

Hmmm... I have this exam blunders. I may do well in my exercises and quizzes, but when it comes to exams (especially maths), I make careless mistakes that pull my grades down drastically.

[chenchow]

"I would have loved an exam that I don't need to mug for and totally based on understanding but...the world isn't perfect... "

I think you will have the chance right? I have been taking such exams for the past 2 to 3 years...

I agree with DFish about different kinds of intelligence and currently the society seems to be emphasizing on two of those linguistic and logical, however, I think it is essential for everyone to develop in all aspects, especially interpersonal, intrapersonal, physical, visual/spatial and musical...

That's pretty parallel with our Falsafah Pendidikan Negara, in emphasizing on jasmani, emosi, rohani, intelek. However, guess the implementation and also the society's perception is putting the last one way on top.

[The_Observer]

Errr....I am doing an MBBS/BA....

I don't think I will ever have an exam which does not have any mugging in it.... T_T

Except for my BA of course, of which I have a lot of research and readings for...<sighs>...

And I do agree with DFish. But until we truely know the secrets of the human brain, what else can we do?

[phantom]

my current world history's instructor doesn't believe in exams. he quoted einstein and said,"why bother memorizing things when you can look them inside the books".

i can't agree more.so instead of memorizing facts for exams,we are asked to read readings about certain world history topics and we need to write 2 research papers .

though,i love exams but i prefer working with research papers .becoz it shows how far and how hardworking will someone go in finding facts,arranging them and writing them in one piece.

plus,by doing research papers,one have to read plenty of books that will really help that someone to pick up broaden prespectives on subject matter,rather than agreeing and accepting e'thing said by the old textbooks and later spewing them out in exams.

[chenchow]

I agree with Phantom and especially with Einstein's saying, which is even more true in this cyberworld.

In fact, they could have an exam in history, which you can use the understanding that you have learned to write about your opinion on some issues happened currently for instance. It could be an open book exam and you can quote stuff that you have learned.

I think I share this before, but I find this class very useful. It is a Business Law class. Before taking the class, I thought that I would need to have a strong memory power. In the end, I found out that I don't even need to use even a little bit of memory. Exams were cases, where I need to act as prosecutors or defences and basically, I need to write about my stand and justify it. Basically just like in real world. The same goes with papers that I need to write for that course.

[USSDefiantNX74205]

I for one hate memory based exams. Dunno why, but I have this feeling I might do better without them. Research would be a much better way to judge a person's skill and intelligence IMO. A really good student would be able to look for the facts that matter where it can be found and write a comprehensive report on it after that. Our public exams are the total opposite of that. It doesn't test a student's intelligence, but instead it tests a studen'ts ability to memorize. And I also agree that in real life, we all have books to fall back on so memorizing facts isn't the way to go.

[tzuohann]

Man, I wish there was a more efficient way to guage(SP?) the abilities of students, but even if there is, can we do it? $$$, how? equal? and, remember, many of our schools are short of teachers, labs, space. How are we going to do it? Any suggestions on models? or a tweak in the one existing how? For one, I think 1 hour PJ should be banned. Cummon man, make PJ 3 hours at least, and twice a week. And those who want to study during PJ can study. Kidding. But for real. I personally think we can improve a lot, but the Malaysian system is ok as for now. And regarding memorization, individually, if we are aware of the potholes in the part of pure memorization, we can deal with that ourselves, and gov has a lotta ppl to deal with, so, maybe, its a realistic way to run things for now, but yeah, improvements are neccessary. MODELS PLEASE! And how we can do it.

Tzuo Hann@<hidden>

[DFish]

Should UPSR be abolished then? Kids under 12 are pressured with exam exam and exam. And u see all those chinese school and oso other's school students have to bring such a large bag to school, textbooks, reference books, tons of exercises and worst of all dictionaries (some were forced to bring them everyday) all in one. School bags heavier than the kid himself, and eventually cause backpain and other "bone diseases".

The kids lost their chances to really know what education means, they just know they have to score 100 in exams every day since day one they enter formal education institution. A kid's life is never so fun again, they dont know what playing means. PJ and music lesson in school were taken by Chinese teachers, science teachers or maths teacher who are rushing the syllabus.

School should evaluate the intelligence of these kids and help them to develop it. Let them enter different field of study. For example, those good in music should be train to be great musician, those hyperactive in class should not be scolded, but train to be a good sportman/sportwoman. But in the reality now, if the school does like this, i can imagine how the angry parents will complain the school for neglecting the "education" of their child.. ai...

[The_Observer]

I guess it is led along by the typical Chinese way thinking inherent from our ancestry. A lot of this sort of "score high high for exams so can get good job" stems a lot from those Han Dynasty government examinations we learn in our Sejarah.

No doubt that good academics does lead to a good job BUT it is not the only way. Ask those tycoons we have back home, especially those who built themselves up from scratch.

In fact, from like what I see from Anglo-Saxon culture, they do not place such kind of burden upon their kids. They are very flexible. If they see that their kid can study, they provide for it. If they see the kid can't study but can do something else, they still provide for that!! Perhaps the current trend might prove otherwise but it is still inherent in their culture.
On the contrary, in an Eastern culture, a non-academic inclined child would continue to be hounded by parents pushing and pushing their kid harder and harder.

One more thing, the danger of such mentality would result in a dysfunctional social hierachy. If everybody wants to be doctors, lawyers or engineers....who would take up the other jobs? We can't leave them in the hands of foreigners, can we?

If only people can see their real place in society....dam...I have been reading too much of Plato's "The Republic".

Exams were meant to filter the 'good' from the 'bad'. Thing is, everybody wants to be 'good' even if most of them are 'bad'. Human tendency, I know. But isn't envy and greed part of the 7 deadly sins?

[chenchow]

I agree that a balanced education is the way to go. And perhaps anyone could have a practical way of dealing with it, especially with the current society setting, where grades are placed pretty high on importance.

I am just going to offer one of the way my school did this. Not sure whether it is a good policy or not, but I guess it helped to stimulate students' interest in representing schools, districts, states, and country in sports. What my school has done is to give out of the overall average grade of 100, those students that represent school/district in sports are given 2 points in the overall average grade, those who represent Penang state are given 4 points in the overall average grade, and those who represent Malaysia in international competitions are given in the overall average grade. Right now, my school is only doing it for sports. However, there have been pressures from students to include other competitions like debates, olympiads etc.

What do you guys think of this? Perhaps this will not be a solution to materialistic society, but at least give some reasons for those students who are grade-conscious to spare more of their time in representing schools for outside competitions.

My school also offers replacement exams for students who are representing the school/district/state/country in outside competitions around the time of exam, including those competitions that are just after exam weeks. Students have the choice to choose whether to take the school exams during the normal time or the replacement time period.

Another thing that my school did to ensure that students try their best throughout the year is to have the following grade calculation: 30% for midterm, 40% for final, 20% for monthly test (so, basically this is the average of numerous exams over the whole year and the exams are not common, i.e. the exam questions will be more difficult for students in academically better class), 10% for projects and class works(Basically for every class, students will be asked to do some projects, for instance, historical project, may include visit a historical site, finding information about the place, interview relevant people, go and make a field trip and take photo, and do an analysis. For Math and Sciences, for instance, students will be asked to design something, something like the RECSAM, where students will make a hypothesis and try to carry out experiments/projects etc to test the hypothesis.) Any comment on this method? In a way, it is still pretty exam-dependent, since the midterm and finals take 70% and the monthly tests are also exams. So, there goes 90% of the grade.

[ydho_6]

hehehe... agree with the Observer..

can see the observer is a thinker, and a reader. a person who knows what he's talking about. salute.

exam is not the only yardstick for assessing our standard. but sadly that is the system i m currently under. my whole first year performance in university is only based on ONE FINAL EXAM. n i m facing it now... blardeeeee lse.....

how i hope for an alternative assessment....

miss those time in ATU 7 in uitm where not the final exam that counts. :wink:

[jiinjoo]

Field trips like these are great: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/12/5/education/9534539&sec=education
if they are not just a see see look look wah wah then go home kind of field trip.

Hope some people can come up with ways to access whether the students have made full use of the field trip?

[bunny]

I think memorizing is important as well. I'm not saying this because I think that mugging is the way to go, but I think it is sometimes very useful to have certain knowledge in your mind at any given time without having to look through a book or google as we do it nowadays. Say for example, you don't want a doctor to have to look through a book to decide what is the next step to take if you have a heart seizure during an operation. Sometimes things have to be done fast and almost instinctively.So sometimes, rote learning, or doing things over and over again can prepare us to do something in a very short amount of time.

Why do you think a physics major needs to learn electromagnetism at least 4 times (one in sec school, one in pre u, twice in uni (intro and intermediate)) in their life before they graduate? it's by doing over and over again that u get accostomed to solving this kind of problems fast and hopefully instinctively.

An engineer would be useless if for every problem he needs to refer to a book. Engineers need to be sure of what you are doing, and unless u can be sure that ur analysis is 100% correct everytime u analyze something for the first time, it is better to actually have done it before multiple times so much so that u can be very sure that that's the way it is done. I use to take a final exam (engineering course) whereby you can only answer if u are 100% sure of the answer and even if u are 90% sure, u will not answer because any wrong ans results in negative marking.

on the downside, if we emphasizes too much on rote learning, you lose all sense of creativity because when u look at a problem, the first thing you do is do what u have been trained to do like a well trained robot.

Sorry if this sounds like rambling to you because I am not very good at arranging and presenting my thoughts in a clear manner.

[digimushu]

An engineer would be useless if for every problem he needs to refer to a book. Engineers need to be sure of what you are doing, and unless u can be sure that ur analysis is 100% correct everytime u analyze something for the first time, it is better to actually have done it before multiple times so much so that u can be very sure that that's the way it is done. I use to take a final exam (engineering course) whereby you can only answer if u are 100% sure of the answer and even if u are 90% sure, u will not answer because any wrong ans results in negative marking.



I dont know about that, as an engineer, I feel that I have spent a lot of time referring back to my books. You will be surprised..how many times engineers rely on their gut feeling on whether something will work or not. of course, you can always rederive the equations, but then compared with refering back to a book, i think that saves a lot of time. besides..thats what the index is for.
:)

[pandaboy]

I argued with my tutor about this matter just this morning, how coincidently. I said, this exam is not a good measure, because one can just skip lectures, memorise (eg for my course, memorise the chemical structures, enzymes, intermediates and etc), and he'll score high marks. He said no..its not, because exam is a measure of whether one has work hard or not. I said no, cause sometimes, there are people who work very hard but still cant get good marks because of their low memory. And he doesnt accept it. Sigh.. Man, I think a good way of testing the students (for my case, say Citric Acid Cycle) is to provide students with the chemical structures, the reactions and enzymes and then ask the students to explain how everything happens, and how the reaction proceeds. This is a better way, isnt it?

Sigh... :(

[theT]

i wish effort is count as part of grading in college.

[pandaboy]

i wish effort is count as part of grading in college.

Yeah, in that case, all the foreigners (or rather local cos we are in overseas..lol) will fail... cos they party all night man!
They play hard, and yet still get good grades...really impressive...

[ElansarGelmir]

i wish effort is count as part of grading in college.

Well, in my uni, yes, it is counted towards our grades... Just keep asking professors questions until he/she knows ur name... Hehe... nice trick.

[pandaboy]

i wish effort is count as part of grading in college.

Well, in my uni, yes, it is counted towards our grades... Just keep asking professors questions until he/she knows ur name... Hehe... nice trick.


Wow...good one! then he'll give more marks to you?

But the thing is...in my uni, our answer sheets for exam are marks anonymously, they can only see our candidate number. Being fair is what they said.

[Jia_Hong]

I think that's not the worse case yet - worse case is when everything is based on whether it's in the syllabus or not - and spotting questions and whateva exam shortcuts there is.

However, I think when one reaches higher level of education, it is more of critical thinking - and arguing based on considering all the facts - and try to come up with certain conclusions.

Anyways, the toughest exams are not those paper exams - it's real life at it is. There is no finish line, because that's the only way to get quality.

If you say in the 'scientific field' - I would salute those guys in the space industry. For example, the people that built the Mars Pathfinder 7-8 years ago, they did it within a small budget and asked to take risk (to innovate and so on), but should not and cannot fail.

check out: high velocity leadership by Brian Muirhead!

[chenchow]

I agree with Jia_Hong. There has been strong tendency among Malaysians, and Asians and perhaps other citizens of the world, to often question whether a certain thing is within the syllabus or not. How many times do we study the section for the sake of understanding, when our Professors are telling us that those are not within the syllabus. Do we care? Do many students bother to learn more about it? How many people do learn beyond what is required to know?

I agree also with Jia_Hong that the real exams would be on real life and besides there is no finishing line, our reputation and experience builds up. So, I would say that if we make a huge mistake, it would need a lot of remedy to catch up~!

[DecentMerson]

i wish effort is count as part of grading in college.

Yeah, in that case, all the foreigners (or rather local cos we are in overseas..lol) will fail... cos they party all night man!
They play hard, and yet still get good grades...really impressive...

but.. i dun think it is practical.... u can't fail others just becoz they are smart...

u can't force others to study if they already know what they need to know at their fingertips...

locals may be partying all night.... but i dun think they will tell u if they are studying all morning...

they play hard.... and study smart... if u have been studying really hard and you didn't get the grade u wish for... most probably is that ur way of studying is not suitable for the current course u are taking...

maybe u are still using the "don't-understand-nvm mentality, as long as i do more exercise and memorize the steps..., i will do find..." NO WAY... understanding is more important than memorizing... if u understand ur math well, u can derive all the identities easily... (maybe not easily.... but still u can derive it...)

so, have fun and good luck.....