Fascination with Exams?
Discussion
Why does the entire education system in this country revolve around exams? To me they only prove two things, that you can do lots of revision and how good you are at remembering abitrary facts.
I'm revising like a lunatic for my second year law exams at the minute and it is just coming down to how many cases you can remember on the day. What does that prove?
When you're employed, if you don't know something you look it up or ask someone, you don't remember it all off the top of your head.
Coursework helps to an extent but being only 25% it still comes down to the exams at the end of the day. Surely exams are a pretty poo indicator of how well you actually perform?
I'm revising like a lunatic for my second year law exams at the minute and it is just coming down to how many cases you can remember on the day. What does that prove?
When you're employed, if you don't know something you look it up or ask someone, you don't remember it all off the top of your head.
Coursework helps to an extent but being only 25% it still comes down to the exams at the end of the day. Surely exams are a pretty poo indicator of how well you actually perform?
but with my course at the moment (1st year dentistry) we are being taught so much stuff that is completely irrelevant to dentistry.
a lot of the biochemistry and neuroanatomy that we have been taught would only be relevant if i decided to give up dentistry and go into research on a very specific subject.
if my exams were all on clinically relevant stuff then i wouldnt mind (even tho i think the current system of exams is not good enough), but setting it on irrelevant stuff just gets us annoyed.
chris
a lot of the biochemistry and neuroanatomy that we have been taught would only be relevant if i decided to give up dentistry and go into research on a very specific subject.
if my exams were all on clinically relevant stuff then i wouldnt mind (even tho i think the current system of exams is not good enough), but setting it on irrelevant stuff just gets us annoyed.
chris
Muncher said:
When you're employed, if you don't know something you look it up or ask someone, you don't remember it all off the top of your head.
my old finance lecturer used to let us take reference books into his exams because he reasoned that when you're employed you either look it up or ask somebody
yeah, background is important, but we could have been taught the relevant background in 1/3 of the number of lectures that we have.
in neuroanatomy for instance, the relevant background would involve understanding and knowing the pathways that involve taste, salivation and muscle control etc.
but we have to learn all about the basis of memory generation and amnesia aswell as all of the fine details of things like emotions.
its not really a big deal, its just i have to spend so much time attempting to learn the names and functions of hundreds of things that i wont ever need to relate to in my workign life!
in neuroanatomy for instance, the relevant background would involve understanding and knowing the pathways that involve taste, salivation and muscle control etc.
but we have to learn all about the basis of memory generation and amnesia aswell as all of the fine details of things like emotions.
its not really a big deal, its just i have to spend so much time attempting to learn the names and functions of hundreds of things that i wont ever need to relate to in my workign life!
For my second year law exams (finished the other day), although you had to learn a heap of stuff - the "same" core topics came up year after year after year. At university (unlike other exams), they are not out to "catch you out".
Best advise I ever got was to be a "strategic Student"...Thank God for past exam papers online...
Best advise I ever got was to be a "strategic Student"...Thank God for past exam papers online...
princeperch said:
For my second year law exams (finished the other day), although you had to learn a heap of stuff - the "same" core topics came up year after year after year. At university (unlike other exams), they are not out to "catch you out".
Best advise I ever got was to be a "strategic Student"...Thank God for past exam papers online...
Definately, I have a pretty good idea what the questions will be, it's just a case of memorising enough. I have 3 exams left to go, tort, company and equity.
equity was prob the most challenging. Without a doubt know the main maxims (I revised 3 and they all came up!) and the judicature acts like the back of your hand...easiest marks youll get and you should (unless UEA is totally different from my uni and all my mates uni's) get a question on them...
Muncher said:
Why does the entire education system in this country revolve around exams? To me they only prove two things, that you can do lots of revision and how good you are at remembering abitrary facts.
I'm revising like a lunatic for my second year law exams at the minute and it is just coming down to how many cases you can remember on the day. What does that prove?
When you're employed, if you don't know something you look it up or ask someone, you don't remember it all off the top of your head.
Coursework helps to an extent but being only 25% it still comes down to the exams at the end of the day. Surely exams are a pretty poo indicator of how well you actually perform?
exams can also test understanding as well as recall of the facts, both are important.
can you suggest a better way of measuring people's ability? I can't think of one at the moment...
Exams admittedly do suit certain types of people better, but its easy to learn how to deal with them and the most effective techniques to maximise your marks. I've never been a fan of revision but I rather learn by "picking stuff up" as I go along... this meant that perhaps I didn't do as well in exams as I should have, but it hasn't affected me and I still got to where I wanted to be so far (PhD student
).no mate im at Reading, not UEA, looked at your profile and saw your region was Ipswich. put two and two together and obviously got 5!
My exam was equity and trusts as well, but I knew the maxims and judicature questions were coming up so was prepared. Admin of trusts seems to be a popular question as well for more trust biased courses. Most of my friends had question on tracing as well, (university of london this year seems to be questioning heavily on this, this year).
Funny thing is if you asked me about the questions I answered I could tell you precious little about them. It was all short term memory storage!
Good luck with them. Let us know how you get on.
My exam was equity and trusts as well, but I knew the maxims and judicature questions were coming up so was prepared. Admin of trusts seems to be a popular question as well for more trust biased courses. Most of my friends had question on tracing as well, (university of london this year seems to be questioning heavily on this, this year).
Funny thing is if you asked me about the questions I answered I could tell you precious little about them. It was all short term memory storage!
Good luck with them. Let us know how you get on.
D_Mike said:
exams can also test understanding as well as recall of the facts, both are important.
can you suggest a better way of measuring people's ability? I can't think of one at the moment...
Agreed
Exams also test how you deal with pressure, important both in Law and my own profession.
princeperch said:
it was unfortunate she had a snail in her bottle of drink - but I never understood why she wanted to pour her drink over the ice cream..perhaps its a scottish thing...
..probably worried about the smoke from the carbolic smokeball factory (released by a flick knife in the window apparently)
2 Smokin Barrels said:
Don't forget the snail in the bottle.
Hope this helps.
I'm at Essex
I'm not looking at Equity until after tort and company as I'll have 9 days to prepare. Company should be fairly straightforward so I'm covering economic loss at the minute. Hopefully should pull four 2.1s out of the bag Gassing Station | The Pie & Piston Archive | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff