So how come, even though it seems that I am well practised at exams, I still worry about them? I’ve passed all of the exams I’ve taken (not including driving tests – an epic story that is, but one for another time) but still I enter the exam room filled with what can only be described as pure fear.

It’s like Duncan has said before, how is it fair to test us on a years worth of learning in a two hour exam? Can that really be a clear representation of what it is we have learned over the year?

“There are three things that are certain in life: death, taxes and exams.”

I’m not a very organised person. I leave what revision I can just about force myself to do until the very last minute. You would have thought that after having sat as many exams as I have, I would have learned that preparation is the key, and you would have thought that I might have realised that exams are unavoidable.

To quote Hollyoaks (don’t hate me) headmaster Guvinder: “There are three things certain in life: death, taxes and exams.” I’m fairly sure that isn’t the way the original quote went, but run with me on this one. We all know we have to do exams. We all know that they are quite possibly the most ridiculous way of testing the knowledge of a student. We all know that we should be revising for them, as I should be now. So why aren’t we?

It is really quite possible that I’m a minority. Maybe I’m lazy, but as far as I’m concerned staring at a piece of paper, and hoping that the information in front of me will go in by osmosis is not a useful way of spending my time. Especially when it is as gloriously sunny as it is today. I’d far rather save the revision osmosis for tomorrow when it will probably be raining, or the day after that when that really good programme on TV isn’t on, or the day after that…when it’s actually the exam.

All in all, I, like the majority of other students worldwide, bloody hate exams. I’d love to meet a person who left an exam and said “golly, wasn’t that a smashing exam? I loved that question on defamation! I really felt like my answer was thorough, well considered and clear! Crikey! I can’t wait until the next exam.”

I say I’d love to meet that person. That is probably a lie. If I ever did meet that person, I’m not sure I could be responsible for my actions. I think I’d need holding back.

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2. Why do exams suck? You have 90 minutes. Your time starts now!
3. The Trouble With Teens

Exams bug me for a few reasons, and the main one is pretty selfish: I’m crap at them. I never do as well as I should, partly because I never prepare for them properly, but mainly because they’re designed to show you at your worst.

Rather than allowing you to take time to ponder and develop an argument, you have to simply vomit something out as quickly as you can. Despite the fact that you type every other single piece of work for university, you’re expected to write them by hand. And what do they prove? That within a short period of time, you can regurgitate some memorised facts and arguments – Well Done.

Exams bug me for a few reasons, and the main one is pretty selfish: I’m crap at them.

Exams do not encourage individual, original thought. They do not encourage learning for the sake of it. All they do is encourage you to rape your subject, reduce it to a few memorable, pithy arguments and facts and then reproduce them in a semi-legible form, surrounded by 400 people doing the same.

Admittedly, this criticism applies largely to essay based subjects – particularly the poncier ones, like history, philosophy, English and politics (hobby degrees, I like to call them) – and not so much to science degrees, or engineering. There’s a certain element of hoop jumping in the latter subjects – i.e. wrong answers actually exist; you can’t just make up some bollocks and scrape a third like in Arts subjects – which make exams seem a reasonable means of assessment, but for essay subjects, this doesn’t hold.

It’s peculiar that in an age where nearly every fact or detail is accessible in seconds via the Internet, syllabuses still obsess over the regurgitation of a tiny number of memorised pieces of information in frankly odd circumstances. Exams are bad for the pupil, as they encourage a crammed, shallow education. Exams are bad for teachers and professors, who have to wade through hundreds of often illegible scripts. So what are they good for? Absolutely nothing.*

*Say it again…

Related posts:

1. Why shouldn’t medics and engineers pay higher fees?
2. On revision and procrastination (P.S. I wrote this piece to avoid more revision…)
3. Are universities open to all?