What do you hate most about exams?

Poll

what do you hate most about exams

Very few people actually like exams. But what do you hate about them most? And how do you think that issue could be improved?

I hate how a who years worth of learning comes down to just a few questions. It's not so bad with sciencey subjects as they tend to ask a lot of short questions that cover a lot. But many essay subjects end up with you only answering a couple of questions! This wouldn't be so bad if they were a bit vague as you could include more varied information which shows your understanding of the whole course rather than one topic. Or have more questions.

I'm not saying giving a choice of questions is necessarily bad. But it means you can pick the one you can answer best. Which means that your grade would be better than it would be if you got tested on everything, wouldn't it? Unless you thought the question was easy but you misunderstood it or something. But as the sciences do test on most things (usually) and you have to answer every question, this means that you get a more average score for the whole year IMO. Although the OCR AS bio people were saying a lot of their January paper was based on the same topic.

Reply 1

YB101

17

How you spend so much time revising a whole specification making sure you now everything you need to know

and in the end you get asked 1% of what you've learnt and the rest of the paper is pretty much a guessing game

Reply 2

PurpleJazz

6

I'd say it's mostly the pressure to do well, although I would've also voted for the inaccuracy of the marking. I'm one of those unfortunate people that don't deal with exam stress particularly well - I excel at classroom assessments and at coursework, but struggle to use my full mental capacity under the pressure of timed conditions in the exam room. Some people seem to cope with stress so much better, and therefore often get superior grades despite being obviously less intelligent.

As for marking inaccuracy, I have genuinely seen people go from E to an A - this happened to my brother for his WJEC PY1 exam paper, where the examiner was highly incompetent, missing out at least 3 pages worth of questions.

I also would've voted under the "Other" category, since I'd like to state how frustrating it is when you miss your required grades by just a few marks - is it fair that someone got into their desired university and you don't simply because you missed an A by only two UMS points?

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 3

Platostolemysocks

9

I think for me its mainly the time limits. My hand starts to ache about half an hour in, and that makes my handwriting terribly slow, and I struggle to finish.

Also the marking inaccuracy is terrible with A levels.

Reply 4

alj123

I would say that I hate how it is the luck of the question that comes up.
You are obviously going to have weak and strong points of the syllabus, so if all of your weak points get tested, that gives you an unfair disadvantage over someone who has that topic as their strong point, and your strong point as their weak point.
If that makes sense?^

Reply 5

Aeonstorm

9

While I am extremely nervous during the lead-up to an exam, I do generally enjoy the actual exam, assuming that I have done sufficient preparation. The pressure of the exam actually does help me concentrate and I actually think extremely clearly, particularly in maths.

I voted for the build-up to getting your results, which is slightly worse than, but quite similar to the feeling you get when you talk to your friends and they all wrote about these awesome ideas which you didn't think of. Or when you talk about a maths question and they all got an answer different from yours.

The inconsistency of marking is also annoying for creative writing pieces in English.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 6

Clare~Bear

OP

15

Original post by Platostolemysocks

I think for me its mainly the time limits. My hand starts to ache about half an hour in, and that makes my handwriting terribly slow, and I struggle to finish.

Also the marking inaccuracy is terrible with A levels.

I take ibuprofen an hour or so before exams with essay questions :h:

Original post by alj123

I would say that I hate how it is the luck of the question that comes up.
You are obviously going to have weak and strong points of the syllabus, so if all of your weak points get tested, that gives you an unfair disadvantage over someone who has that topic as their strong point, and your strong point as their weak point.
If that makes sense?^

That's exactly what I meant in my OP with essay exams/ short answer exams. Essay exams tests you on less, but give you a choice so you can pick the bit you did best on in lessons. But short answer exams test you on more, but don't give you an option.

Reply 7

WillowSummers

10

I hate just sitting around for half an hour or so after finishing. I take all essay subjects, and I write really fast, so I always finish way too early.

Otherwise, they're not too bad.

Reply 8

lukas1051

18

I think you should make it a multi choice poll, there are quite a few things I hate. I think the stress/pressure is the worst.

Reply 9

Clare~Bear

OP

15

Original post by lukas1051

I think you should make it a multi choice poll, there are quite a few things I hate. I think the stress/pressure is the worst.

Thats why i've made you pick the thing you hate the most. I hate most things on that poll and I'm sure most people do. Whenever I've had multi-choice polls in the past, I just get people trolling by clicking all of them :frown:

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 10

Aeonstorm

9

Original post by WillowSummers

I hate just sitting around for half an hour or so after finishing. I take all essay subjects, and I write really fast, so I always finish way too early.

Otherwise, they're not too bad.

How long do you have in a typical essay exam? And how many words do you usually write? At my school, the allocated time usually stipulates the amount of words we need to write for a competitive essay (in general; some people do well writing less, but the very top students all write this much) - so a 40 minute English exam is 1100-1200 words, an hour economics essay is at least 1500 words, a 2 hour 15 minute history exam with 3 essays is well over 3000 words etc. (obviously, the wpm diminishes over time)

Reply 11

alj123

I voted for the build-up to getting your results, which is slightly worse than, but quite similar to the feeling you get when you talk to your friends and they all wrote about these awesome ideas which you didn't think of. Or when you talk about a maths question and they all got an answer different from yours.

I completely agree-I wish they could be marked quicker as I feel physically sick before I get Maths results. Also I agree; when people discuss answers is the worst. But the funny thing is, no one knows who is right though :wink:

Reply 12

alj123

Original post by Aeonstorm

How long do you have in a typical essay exam? And how many words do you usually write? At my school, the allocated time usually stipulates the amount of words we need to write for a competitive essay (in general; some people do well writing less, but the very top students all write this much) - so a 40 minute English exam is 1100-1200 words, an hour economics essay is at least 1500 words, a 2 hour 15 minute history exam with 3 essays is well over 3000 words etc. (obviously, the wpm diminishes over time)

We don't go by words, we say you should be writing at least a side of writing per 15 minutes

Reply 13

swiftylol

18

I hate the time constraints and the fact that we use grades rather than percentages.

Reply 14

Clare~Bear

OP

15

Original post by alj123

I completely agree-I wish they could be marked quicker as I feel physically sick before I get Maths results. Also I agree; when people discuss answers is the worst. But the funny thing is, no one knows who is right though :wink:

The look on some teachers faces when you tell them a question and what you wrote for it :doh:

Ok, they might not know the mark scheme, but they know roughly whats going to be on it.

Reply 15

WillowSummers

10

Original post by Aeonstorm

How long do you have in a typical essay exam? And how many words do you usually write? At my school, the allocated time usually stipulates the amount of words we need to write for a competitive essay (in general; some people do well writing less, but the very top students all write this much) - so a 40 minute English exam is 1100-1200 words, an hour economics essay is at least 1500 words, a 2 hour 15 minute history exam with 3 essays is well over 3000 words etc. (obviously, the wpm diminishes over time)

French and Spanish I have 2.5 hours to do 2 essays and a translation, the essays are 240-270 words each. English, generally 1 hour per essay, I usually write about 1 3/4-2 pages (but my handwriting is really small, I average 20 words a line, so it's more than it seems.) I honestly can't remember about Anthropology.

Also, I tend to only spend about 5 minutes planning - every time I plan (hahaha) to take longer, but I never can. That's probably part of the problem!