We should get rid of most exams
If you haven't heard about it, Finland has shot up the education tables. Funny thing is, they do a considerable less amount of work than us but they're higher up. They only have one compulsive exam, and that's for when they're 16.
I think the problem with GCSEs (I'm studying them now) is that it feels like I'm being taught how to pass an exam. I don't like that idea. I didn't go to school to get good grades necessarily, but to receive a good education. I heard A Levels are like this, from multiple members of staff. This is one factor for why I personally am doing IB instead of A Levels.
Of course, that creates the problem of how some universities select people, but doesn't this sound like a good idea? I think most exams are just pointless. I read somewhere that: "Even if you learn the entire textbook, you won't get a good grade unless you write it the way the exam board wants it".
What are your thoughts?
I think the problem with GCSEs (I'm studying them now) is that it feels like I'm being taught how to pass an exam. I don't like that idea. I didn't go to school to get good grades necessarily, but to receive a good education. I heard A Levels are like this, from multiple members of staff. This is one factor for why I personally am doing IB instead of A Levels.
Of course, that creates the problem of how some universities select people, but doesn't this sound like a good idea? I think most exams are just pointless. I read somewhere that: "Even if you learn the entire textbook, you won't get a good grade unless you write it the way the exam board wants it".
What are your thoughts?
Scroll to see replies
I'd agree completely. Tbh I'd be tempted to do away with exams all together and just assess people on a continuously updated portfolio of work - exams to me seem to reveal more as to how good students are at regurgitating buzzwords rather than how well they've understood the material.
Original post by Alofleicester
I'd agree completely. Tbh I'd be tempted to do away with exams all together and just assess people on a continuously updated portfolio of work - exams to me seem to reveal more as to how good students are at regurgitating buzzwords rather than how well they've understood the material.
There is also the issue that having an exam focus in education means that education system becomes focused on teaching to pass the exams and a wider coverage of a subject is missed out on.
Of course an exam focus also results in just memorising everything into short term memory. I cannot even remember the general areas covered in my A levels yet alone recall most of what I learned for my GCSEs. However, I can tell you in detail what my BA and MSc covered down to my individual essay topics, as everything was essay/project based with only a couple of exams in the first year.
(edited 11 years ago)
THERE SHOULD BE NO EXAMS.
They are a waste of time and no one learns anything as everyone is too much in a rush to get everything answered in the time given and are just writing constantly. English being a perfect example, having come out of a few exams I have hardly remembered what I wrote or what even the questions were say 15 minutes later.
Everything should be coursework and continuous assessment based.
In school you should have assignments and lab work to do which you get signed off for.
In college you should have to write reports and do assignments. You should also do a case study which you get graded on for university.
In university you should do a 3 year long dissertation - first year planning, research, second year implementation, third year testing and recommendations etc. as well as a portfolio to show employers.
They are a waste of time and no one learns anything as everyone is too much in a rush to get everything answered in the time given and are just writing constantly. English being a perfect example, having come out of a few exams I have hardly remembered what I wrote or what even the questions were say 15 minutes later.
Everything should be coursework and continuous assessment based.
In school you should have assignments and lab work to do which you get signed off for.
In college you should have to write reports and do assignments. You should also do a case study which you get graded on for university.
In university you should do a 3 year long dissertation - first year planning, research, second year implementation, third year testing and recommendations etc. as well as a portfolio to show employers.
If you look at some mark schemes (I'm looking at you AQA) then they are so exact on wording and do not allow for other reasons that are true. For example, on a recent biology homework my teacher wrote next to an answer 'This is true, but not on the mark scheme 
' so I did not get the mark, grr.
I think one of the problems, as already said, is that our education seems to be about passing exams. You can see this when people with straight A*s and what not go to interview at Oxbridge and get rejected because they've just learnt mark schemes, but have no real capacity for their subject.
I think a better system would be to have exams at the end of the two years of A-levels but in more like BMAT style (though not like this year's which was written by Satan from the looks of it). This will weed out those who are coached to excess and those who do not know their subject, but have learnt the textbook responses.
' so I did not get the mark, grr. I think one of the problems, as already said, is that our education seems to be about passing exams. You can see this when people with straight A*s and what not go to interview at Oxbridge and get rejected because they've just learnt mark schemes, but have no real capacity for their subject.
I think a better system would be to have exams at the end of the two years of A-levels but in more like BMAT style (though not like this year's which was written by Satan from the looks of it). This will weed out those who are coached to excess and those who do not know their subject, but have learnt the textbook responses.
Original post by Bude8
If you haven't heard about it, Finland has shot up the education tables. Funny thing is, they do a considerable less amount of work than us but they're higher up. They only have one compulsive exam, and that's for when they're 16.
I think the problem with GCSEs (I'm studying them now) is that it feels like I'm being taught how to pass an exam. I don't like that idea. I didn't go to school to get good grades necessarily, but to receive a good education. I heard A Levels are like this, from multiple members of staff. This is one factor for why I personally am doing IB instead of A Levels.
Of course, that creates the problem of how some universities select people, but doesn't this sound like a good idea? I think most exams are just pointless. I read somewhere that: "Even if you learn the entire textbook, you won't get a good grade unless you write it the way the exam board wants it".
What are your thoughts?
I think the problem with GCSEs (I'm studying them now) is that it feels like I'm being taught how to pass an exam. I don't like that idea. I didn't go to school to get good grades necessarily, but to receive a good education. I heard A Levels are like this, from multiple members of staff. This is one factor for why I personally am doing IB instead of A Levels.
Of course, that creates the problem of how some universities select people, but doesn't this sound like a good idea? I think most exams are just pointless. I read somewhere that: "Even if you learn the entire textbook, you won't get a good grade unless you write it the way the exam board wants it".
What are your thoughts?
My thought is that I like it how your only doing GCSE's and not even sat one proper exam, yet think you have the experience to have a say on them and dissmiss them.
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Original post by Muppet Science
If you look at some mark schemes (I'm looking at you AQA) then they are so exact on wording and do not allow for other reasons that are true. For example, on a recent biology homework my teacher wrote next to an answer 'This is true, but not on the mark scheme ' so I did not get the mark, grr.
I think one of the problems, as already said, is that our education seems to be about passing exams. You can see this when people with straight A*s and what not go to interview at Oxbridge and get rejected because they've just learnt mark schemes, but have no real capacity for their subject.
I think a better system would be to have exams at the end of the two years of A-levels but in more like BMAT style (though not like this year's which was written by Satan from the looks of it). This will weed out those who are coached to excess and those who do not know their subject, but have learnt the textbook responses.
' so I did not get the mark, grr. I think one of the problems, as already said, is that our education seems to be about passing exams. You can see this when people with straight A*s and what not go to interview at Oxbridge and get rejected because they've just learnt mark schemes, but have no real capacity for their subject.
I think a better system would be to have exams at the end of the two years of A-levels but in more like BMAT style (though not like this year's which was written by Satan from the looks of it). This will weed out those who are coached to excess and those who do not know their subject, but have learnt the textbook responses.
Yes you can do well by memorising key word lists in exams. It is why those A levels in a week books are so good. You don't need wide understanding of the subject you just need to be able to tell what key words a question is looking for.
Instead I would push course work as a far better method of testing than exams, as course work allows for a wider depth and understanding of an topic while at the same time it helps develop a range of useful skills. On top of that course work is a long term process rather than memorising for an exam and forgetting afterwards I could recall every essay I wrote at university and could not even tell you the core content of my A levels any more.
Exams also show how someone can handle under pressure which is important
Original post by Alofleicester
I'd agree completely. Tbh I'd be tempted to do away with exams all together and just assess people on a continuously updated portfolio of work - exams to me seem to reveal more as to how good students are at regurgitating buzzwords rather than how well they've understood the material.
portfolio of work
Original post by Gouki
This thread is full of people that got U's
Not at all.
Original post by Gouki
portfolio of work
Really? So you think an hour and a half or there or thereabouts is more indicative of a persons grasp of the subject than the work they've produced throughout the course of studying the subject?
Original post by Alofleicester
Not at all.
Really? So you think an hour and a half or there or thereabouts is more indicative of a persons grasp of the subject than the work they've produced throughout the course of studying the subject?
Really? So you think an hour and a half or there or thereabouts is more indicative of a persons grasp of the subject than the work they've produced throughout the course of studying the subject?
yes, our school forced us to do a non-gcse subject that involved a portfolio. It was basically a piss about - whereas you actually have to learn for an exam
Personally I think that continual assessment is an awful idea! I think there should be one 2 hour exam on each subject you study at the end of each academic year, If somebody has to learn mark schemes in order to get good grades well then so be it! They are smart for having the initiative to sit down and learn the content they are meant to know for the exam they just have different methods of learning/remembering it.
Exams test our knowledge, if someone gets a good grade, they are evidently knowledgeable in the majority of the area they were being examined on. You can't deny it. Exams are designed to test YOUR knowledge which therefore means pushy parents/teachers cannot do the exam for you, it is completely down to you do write down what YOU know whereas with coursework/continual assessment the work would be unlikely to be 100% your own which would lead to an unfair and corrupt education system.
Both "Coursework" and "Continual assessment" are a hopeless ways off assessing individuals which are encouraged by deluded teachers and MPs who are trying to make pathetic attempts to change a perfectly good and viable way to asses people.
Exams test our knowledge, if someone gets a good grade, they are evidently knowledgeable in the majority of the area they were being examined on. You can't deny it. Exams are designed to test YOUR knowledge which therefore means pushy parents/teachers cannot do the exam for you, it is completely down to you do write down what YOU know whereas with coursework/continual assessment the work would be unlikely to be 100% your own which would lead to an unfair and corrupt education system.
Both "Coursework" and "Continual assessment" are a hopeless ways off assessing individuals which are encouraged by deluded teachers and MPs who are trying to make pathetic attempts to change a perfectly good and viable way to asses people.
Original post by Gouki
This thread is full of people that got U's
LOOL
thats me
but seriously BAN EXAMS SAVE PAPER!
Getting rid of exams is delusional pie-in-the-sky thinking.
In what universe are we going to be able to implement a non-exam based method of assessment?
Without taking into account any of the practical aspects - you must surely be looking at doubling the education budget straight off the bat.
Continuous assessment means what? A series of tests? Continual reviews of a portfolio? Are they not encouraging all the worst aspects of current educational philosophy? Short term retention, keyword spotting? Everything would become about the here and now, dujour. All efforts would become concentrated on whatever is being studied right this second, and then vanquished forever. It would be like modular GCSEs/A-levels/degrees on steroids.
In what universe are we going to be able to implement a non-exam based method of assessment?
Without taking into account any of the practical aspects - you must surely be looking at doubling the education budget straight off the bat.
Continuous assessment means what? A series of tests? Continual reviews of a portfolio? Are they not encouraging all the worst aspects of current educational philosophy? Short term retention, keyword spotting? Everything would become about the here and now, dujour. All efforts would become concentrated on whatever is being studied right this second, and then vanquished forever. It would be like modular GCSEs/A-levels/degrees on steroids.
Original post by Bude8
If you haven't heard about it, Finland has shot up the education tables. Funny thing is, they do a considerable less amount of work than us but they're higher up. They only have one compulsive exam, and that's for when they're 16.
I think the problem with GCSEs (I'm studying them now) is that it feels like I'm being taught how to pass an exam. I don't like that idea. I didn't go to school to get good grades necessarily, but to receive a good education. I heard A Levels are like this, from multiple members of staff. This is one factor for why I personally am doing IB instead of A Levels.
Of course, that creates the problem of how some universities select people, but doesn't this sound like a good idea? I think most exams are just pointless. I read somewhere that: "Even if you learn the entire textbook, you won't get a good grade unless you write it the way the exam board wants it".
What are your thoughts?
I think the problem with GCSEs (I'm studying them now) is that it feels like I'm being taught how to pass an exam. I don't like that idea. I didn't go to school to get good grades necessarily, but to receive a good education. I heard A Levels are like this, from multiple members of staff. This is one factor for why I personally am doing IB instead of A Levels.
Of course, that creates the problem of how some universities select people, but doesn't this sound like a good idea? I think most exams are just pointless. I read somewhere that: "Even if you learn the entire textbook, you won't get a good grade unless you write it the way the exam board wants it".
What are your thoughts?
Having been through the entire system, I can't say I see anything fundamentally wrong with exams, per-se. There are plenty of other countries that perform better on that index with loads of exams, and plenty who perform worse with fewer or no exams. I really don't think there's a link there.
I think what's different about our system is how the focus on exams is slanted. I think you'd see a big improvement if you got rid of league tables. Exams should be a measure of how individuals perform, but instead they're used to measure how schools perform (and indeed, your GCSE performance is much more closely linked to your school's average than any consideration of natural ability!)
The whole idea of "teaching to the exam" comes about because schools face a pressure to increase their exam performance. If results only reflected on the individuals and not the school, they wouldn't face as much pressure to improve their results all the time - if a pupil does poorly, it would be because they didn't understand the subject.
Of course, Finland also has a much more consistent quality in its standards of education nationally - there are far fewer "under-performing schools" so what school you go to has less of an impact on your education. And when a school does appear to be having difficulties, they're given effective support (rather than the sort of pariah-status we give them)
At A-levels it is very possible to "teach to the exam" - but equally it's very possible to teach a syllabus for what it is - an academic course. I've seen both methods at work (the latter, unsurprisingly, is used most at academically selective and high-performing schools) We need to see more of the latter and less of the former.
Some of what will help will that will be;
Original post by Alofleicester
I'd agree completely. Tbh I'd be tempted to do away with exams all together and just assess people on a continuously updated portfolio of work - exams to me seem to reveal more as to how good students are at regurgitating buzzwords rather than how well they've understood the material.
Entirely down to how you design an exam.
It's possible to design an exam to be insightful and rigorous with the most simplistic of exam techniques, or trivial and uninformative with the most challenging question types.
As a case in point, multiple choice questions have an odd reputation for being "easy" and not testing ability. But this needn't be the case - look up Oxbridge scholarship exams from the 1990s - entirely multiple-choice exams pitched at A* physics students, and fiendishly difficult and challenging. Several orders harder than A-levels.
There's two factors that determine the difficulty of multiple choice; 1. How much work must you do, with the information given, before you can arrive at an answer. 2. Are the incorrect answers plausible (or results you could get from common mistakes) or obviously false.
A multiple choice question that requires quite a bit of in-depth working and has potential pitfalls, and where none of the answers stand out as either obviously wrong or obviously right, can be really challenging.
Then there's how well you fit questions to the syllabus, to a rigid format. Compare, for example AQA A-level maths and the BMO. They are, fundamentally, testing the same course content (BMO is aimed at A-level students and doesn't require any knowledge beyond that syllabus)
They are also fundamentally the same type of question - "spot the trick" type, where using a known technique will make an otherwise daunting or impossible problem readily solvable.
The difference is that AQA follows a very rigid pattern and makes it entirely obvious what technique to use. The question is posed in a pre-set format so that you can use the known technique (they even often tell you which) without any prior manipulation. Little more than a memory test.
BMO, on the other hand, sets the questions up abstractly and first requires you to formulate the relevant equations, then guess what trick to use, manipulate the equations into the right form and then apply it. There's no clues given as to what technique to use, instead you need to use your intuition (or try them all and know when to give up on one method) to spot how to approach it and not fall into any pitfalls or dead-end paths.
about 30% of candidates get A* in AQA maths, only the top 1% of the country even attempt the BMO and most of them struggle to get anywhere on it.
At the end of the day, the best unis in the world (Oxbridge, Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc.) all use a primarily exam-based assessment structure. No one claims their teaching or assessment methods are unsuitable!
So, nothing fundamentally wrong with exams, only how we currently use them.
(edited 11 years ago)
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