As students one of the most fearful and discouraging aspects of schooling is the examination period. Exams are meant to serve as a discipline to students. Even as a bright student no matter how rest assured you are, there is that special energy that comes alongside examination.
You must read and prepare against the odds, think in-depth, and read wide. So, I feel it's sometimes a good thing to test students' intelligence and performance. As much as they have been taught, they should also be able to reciprocate what they were taught.
But nowadays, examinations have been on another level, you can't really say if you are having exams or if it's just pure wickedness from teachers and lecturers. Most times you prepare for some exams and then get surprised by what you are being questioned in the paper. Yet you still have to answer the question.
I remember some time ago when I was in university. We mostly had CBT exams and then we had to sit by the computer to have our exams and not the normal written exams we do have. These exams come in different forms, there are mostly objectives in nature, questions with optional answers to pick the right and correct one from.
But the drawback of this kind of exam is that you have limited time for thinking. You might have 70 questions set for you with a timer of about 15 minutes. How can you read, understand, and digest a question in a matter of seconds? So you have to learn to be a fast reader. If not you end up not being able to answer all questions and there might even be some easier questions you will omit.
The point here is that the exams really brushed up the mindset of students to read and understand, but the question is can the students come out to defend what they are taught a few minutes after the examination?
We have the mentality that once a student passes an exam, they already know what it takes about the course or subjects. And when a student fails an examination, they tend to have no or little idea about what they are taught. And in the real sense that’s not the case.
Sometimes students who fail exams tend to understand more about the subject or course, but they might fail the exams due to a lack of expression or phobia of exams. I have heard cases where an intelligent student who passed all his exams in school and a poor student who managed to graduate sourced for a job. They were interviewed and the intelligent one was unable to present himself well compared to the poor one who had more exposure to real-life affairs.
In conclusion
Judging student's performance based on examinations is not really an effective way of measuring their abilities and standards. I feel institutions should have some other way of assessing students' abilities other than just giving them the avenues to read, cram, and pour in the exam hall. They can be judged orally, mentally, practically, and in many other ways.
With the world revolving around technology, there are ways that students can even sit for exams and have their phones and internet-connected but still not be able to get the right answer or pass if certain circumstances or conditions are not met to qualify for the pass mark.
I hope with time our educational system will get to experience more improvements leaving an impact on the lives of students academically.
This is my response to the HIVE LEARNERS weekly prompt in hive learners community for the Week 134 Edition 1 and the topic to be discussed is A SMART STUDENT
