Do you think exams are a good way to determine your intelligence?

I have been recently thinking about exams and if they are really effective in assessing your intellect. For example, one of the issues is that if you are 1 mark away from an A* (or other types of topmost grades), it doesn't make you less clever. If you think exams are a ineffective, why and what would you do as a replacement?

Just curious, thanks.

They test your memory and not much else. For example in physics and maths all you have to do is regurgitate an equation, see what you have to play with, jiggle it around a bit, put it in a calculator and there's your mark.

What's intelligent about that? What's intelligent about having an equation etched so much into your brain that all you have to do is put numbers in the right place?

What I think tests you intelligence more is say when you take an exam you're given an explanation of something new (a new concept) and then told to use that information in the most logical way to solve or come up with a solution. Test how well a person can apply new ideas to different situations, that's what'll determine your ability to reason and think.

At the moment I can write a definition for a vector on an exam paper which has came straight out of my text book and get 1/2 marks for it ...a better way to test my intelligence is to get me to write down a definition of something and then get me to explain my definition and break down why my definition is right and why another definition is wrong.

No, I don't think performing well in an exam necessarily equates intelligence. Defining intelligence is such a wishy-washy process, some would argue that memory is a fundamental cornerstone of intelligence and others would argue that the ability to solve previously unseen problems is.

Moreover, when as a society label a person as intelligent we commonly mean they perform well academically. Under that premise I would be labelled somewhat academically intelligent. However, I am quite bad at reading and building relationships with people, so in that premise I would be labelled emotionally unintelligent. Does this make me intelligent or unintelligent, as I said previously it is a very wish-washy definition to carelessly throw around.

I agree, so the best form of assessment is surely spontaneous assessment then, isn't it? An exam you can't really prepare for is a better measure of intelligence. Coursework, imo, is worse, as you have time to prepare for it

No, what I am saying is there needs to be more room for people to play around with ideas. Let someone have chance to incorporate their imagination into it. Questions with multiple ways of solving them to see how someone's mind works.
I think coursework is great, I can only speak about science subjects but researching a topic and referencing it provides valuable life skills and often someone might learn better through reading and writing about a topic. Your ability to re-word ideas and for them still to make sense to a teacher marking it shows intelligence and understanding.

I think there's two strands, emotional and academic intelligence.
I know people who are brilliant at one but bad at the other, and some who are very bad/good at both, but we define academic intelligence as "being clever"

I don't disagree with you in respect the idea of the existence of multiple intelligences, but in foresight I suspect there may be many more types of intelligence. We have considered academic performance as the only indicator of a persons 'intelligence' in past, and all to often still do. Could it not be that we are still overlooking a multitude of intelligences because we are so intrinsically dead set on rigidly defining the concept as one thing?

I know that exams are there to test your ability to do something in a short space of time but I don't think this skill can be transferred to the world of work. Not properly anyway.

I think thats true for science, if you can explain it in a different way, you better show your understanding. My bitterness with coursework stems form the NOV eng Language GCSE (don't no if anybody else took this). Not me personally, but lots of pll who arent that bright got very good marks for coursework, and flopped the exam and got As, I feel like their coursework hyped them up

I can understand that, coursework is defiantly a risky assessment strategy because unless you're willing to test yourself and learn and revise at home, you can go the entire thing without learning anything and still get a good grade at the end of it all.

Personally I prefer a mix of course work and exams.

Maybe, for me, I see academic intelligence as exam performance, sharpness, intelligence not measured by exams (you know when ppl are smart, even if they dont perform well)

emotional awareness is a social thing-relationships, social perception (when ppl are lying,having you on, taking advantage of you etc.) maybe im narrow minded, but I can only see these two

The fact of the matter is, when presented with assessment that contribute to a gcse, ppl willl take any advantage they can get.

I feel sorry for them, as they all got inflated marks for controlled assessments CA's, and then were gutted when they got a grade below what they thought they should get, as the exam (I feel) was a better assessment of true english ability. But theyd been hyped up to think that they were very good, and thats a long way to fall

I understand what you are saying, in my maths class there are people who understand concepts with greater ease than me and I would consider them as cleverer than me despite them getting lower grades in exams.

I would consider creativity to be a manifestation of intelligence in some form. I would not only consider applying this label to van Goth, Monet or Rembrandt but to innovators and pioneers in their fields. For example, our understanding of physics today would probably be lacking if it were not for Isaac Newton's creativity and hard work.

It is a shame and I think teachers need to stop giving students extra help with coursework just to bump up their students grade. It in no way ensures that at the end of it all the students have a grade that accurately depicts their own ability.

Which takes us back to whether coursework is a good way to determine a persons intelligence and I'm going to agree that it isn't in this case but that it could be a more accurate interpretation of a persons abilities if teachers didn't give help as much as they do.