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Seen vs unseen exams

Which do you prefer?In my opinion seen exams are good for being able to study the topic in more depth and plan an answer. However I think the grading criteria is higher because you have time to prepare so in that light unseen exams have the advantage.

Reply 1

llys

17

Unseen exams all the way.

Reply 2

bertstare

6

Would there literally be any point whatsoever in a seen exam

Reply 3

pinkbullets

12

Original post by bertstare

Would there literally be any point whatsoever in a seen exam

They take the fact that you've had time to prepare into account. They're expected to be a similar calibre to an essay as opposed to an unseen exam answer where you can get away with loads.

OP - I prefer seen because revising the syllabus just to answer questions on 2 sections of it always makes me want to scream in frustration.

Reply 4

Ndella

18

As much as I would love a seen exam, that just defeats the purpose of an exam, when they are intended to see whether you can apply your knowledge in quick circumstances, showing intelligence to an extent. Seen exams don't do that since you have been practicing the exact same question for months, that just shows one aspect of a whole novel for example.

Reply 5

jadoreétudier

2

seen exams sound completely bizarre and I think I would find them very stressful
also, it would make cheating easier
I don't really see the point in them. Rather than have a seen exam, have projects/dissertations/essays. But memorising an essay you've already prepared doesn't really measure how intelligent you are, so you may as well just submit an essay you've written without having to memorise it.
Maybe if you were only given the question the day before.
Still seems a bit weird

Reply 6

MarketingGirl

OP

2

Studies have shown that when examining marks for seen and unseen exams there isn't much difference in percantages between the two.

Reply 7

MarketingGirl

OP

2

Original post by Ndella

As much as I would love a seen exam, that just defeats the purpose of an exam, when they are intended to see whether you can apply your knowledge in quick circumstances, showing intelligence to an extent. Seen exams don't do that since you have been practicing the exact same question for months, that just shows one aspect of a whole novel for example.

With a seen exam you get the questions a week or 2 max before the exam not months, but I do get your point.

Reply 8

Mackay

17

Unseen, personally. I had seen exams this year and found it difficult to prepare.

Reply 9

tgwktm

19

Original post by MarketingGirl

Which do you prefer?In my opinion seen exams are good for being able to study the topic in more depth and plan an answer. However I think the grading criteria is higher because you have time to prepare so in that light unseen exams have the advantage.

depends on the extent to which a text is unseen in an exam. i do english lang/lit and it is technically an unseen exam but we still get given an extract in the same, the unseen element is that we don't know what extract of the play we're studying will come up, so we need to learn the whole play. however my friend who does enlgish lit has unseen exams where she has to compare these 2 novels and there is not extract or anything given to her so she needs to remember quotes from her books to put in the answer which i think is silly cause that is turning the exam into a memory test.
seen exams are easier in my opinion but unseen can be also depending on what type of unseen they mean

Reply 10

llys

17

Original post by bertstare

Would there literally be any point whatsoever in a seen exam

There is in some (very few) cases, such as for example piano exams. They obviously have a large "seen" component. You can even pick your own pieces. I struggle to think of any other example though. Weird that it makes a lot of sense to test musical virtuosity in this way, but virtually nothing else.

Reply 11

Melon girl

12

I'm confused, can someone give me examples of subjects that have seen exams and unseen exams so I understand aha?

Reply 12

GoldGhost

14

Unseen. Could you imagine that advantage that some people would have e.g with tutors, teachers etc... The amount of cheating would be ridiculous, you could literally pay someone to help go through the test with you and the grade boundaries would be extremely high.

Reply 13

NothingToSeeHere

6

Even with things like ISA's, I still struggled to get the high marks. Seen papers just increase the grade boundaries massively so I prefer unseen.

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Reply 14

purple-girl

17

Original post by Melon girl

I'm confused, can someone give me examples of subjects that have seen exams and unseen exams so I understand aha?

I'm a Biology Masters student...in my undergrad we got unseen questions and basically had to learn the whole syllabus (or at least 75% as it was possible to avoid a topic) but this year I had seen questions in one of my exams and I hear they do the same for undergrads here. It makes it easier as you can go into more detail for your answers, include stats etc, but it's stricter as they expect references, whereas with unseen exams we had to learn the entire syllabus AND more when only specific bits came up. The major disadvantage of seen exams is that you end up ignoring entire sections of the syllabus which may be useful/necessary in future years...

Reply 15

Melon girl

12

Original post by purple-girl

I'm a Biology Masters student...in my undergrad we got unseen questions and basically had to learn the whole syllabus (or at least 75% as it was possible to avoid a topic) but this year I had seen questions in one of my exams and I hear they do the same for undergrads here. It makes it easier as you can go into more detail for your answers, include stats etc, but it's stricter as they expect references, whereas with unseen exams we had to learn the entire syllabus AND more when only specific bits came up. The major disadvantage of seen exams is that you end up ignoring entire sections of the syllabus which may be useful/necessary in future years...

But at least you know it for that year? And get a good mark? So it's better?

Reply 16

llys

17

There is a nice mix of the two: oral exams where you can prepare an unseen problem 20 minutes in advance. This gives you enough time to structure your ideas, but doesn't enable you to copy an answer from someone else and memorise it.

Reply 17

username877577

19

Seems like an "okay" idea if they have a seen essay alongside other non seen questions

Reply 18

purple-girl

17

Original post by Melon girl

But at least you know it for that year? And get a good mark? So it's better?

Yeah, I agree, I found the seen exam this year to be a lot easier than the unseen exams in my undergrad. To be honest I was just thinking of the hypothetical situation where info you ignored ended up being useful for an assignment or exam Q in a future year. But then I suppose you just learn the stuff at the relevant time, it just makes it harder.

Reply 19

Yamila95

1

How do you prepare your unseen exam? This year will be my first unseen exam into my undergraduate and I am not really sure how to prepare it.

Seen vs unseen exams

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