Examining exams essay of 1500 words
Answers
Explanation:
At some time in your undergraduate career, you’re going to have to write an essay exam. This thought can inspire a fair amount of fear: we struggle enough with essays when they aren’t timed events based on unknown questions. The goal of this handout is to give you some easy and effective strategies that will help you take control of the situation and do your best.
Why do instructors give essay exams?
Essay exams are a useful tool for finding out if you can sort through a large body of information, figure out what is important, and explain why it is important. Essay exams challenge you to come up with key course ideas and put them in your own words and to use the interpretive or analytical skills you’ve practiced in the course.
Instructors want to see whether:
You understand concepts that provide the basis for the course
You can use those concepts to interpret specific materials
You can make connections, see relationships, draw comparisons and contrasts
You can synthesize diverse information in support of an original assertion
You can justify your own evaluations based on appropriate criteria
You can argue your own opinions with convincing evidence
You can think critically and analytically about a subject
What essay questions require
Exam questions can reach pretty far into the course materials, so you cannot hope to do well on them if you do not keep up with the readings and assignments from the beginning of the course. The most successful essay exam takers are prepared for anything reasonable, and they probably have some intelligent guesses about the content of the exam before they take it. How can you be a prepared exam taker? Try some of the following suggestions during the semester:
Do the reading as the syllabus dictates; keeping up with the reading while the related concepts are being discussed in class saves you double the effort later.
Go to lectures (and put away your phone, the newspaper, and that crossword puzzle!).
Take careful notes that you’ll understand months later. If this is not your strong suit or the conventions for a particular discipline are different from what you are used to, ask your TA or the Learning Center for advice.
Participate in your discussion sections; this will help you absorb the material better so you don’t have to study as hard.
Organize small study groups with classmates to explore and review course materials throughout the semester. Others will catch things you might miss even when paying attention. This is not cheating. As long as what you write on the essay is your own work, formulating ideas and sharing notes is okay. In fact, it is a big part of the learning process.
As an exam approaches, find out what you can about the form it will take. This will help you forecast the questions that will be on the exam, and prepare for them.
These suggestions will save you lots of time and misery later. Remember that you can’t cram weeks of information into a single day or night of study. So why put yourself in that position?
Now let’s focus on studying for the exam. You’ll notice the following suggestions are all based on organizing your study materials into manageable chunks of related material. If you have a plan of attack, you’ll feel more confident and your answers will be more clear. Here are some tips:
Don’t just memorize aimlessly; clarify the important issues of the course and use these issues to focus your understanding of specific facts and particular readings.
Try to organize and prioritize the information into a thematic pattern. Look at what you’ve studied and find a way to put things into related groups. Find the fundamental ideas that have been emphasized throughout the course and organize your notes into broad categories. Think about how different categories relate to each other.
Answer:
Essay: Examining Exams
An examination can defined as a test or an assessment to measure the knowledge, life skill, aptitude, physical fitness, or ability in some other field. It is usually a set of questions used to find out a student's knowledge or lessons learned. In education an examination is a test to show the knowledge and ability of a student. A student who takes an examination is a candidate. The person who decides how well the student has performed is the examiner. An examination may be a written test, an on-screen test or a practical test.
An examination is meant to assess the knowledge gained by students in prescribed subjects. An examination creates a purpose in students to learn and prepare their studies sincerely. It imparts a sense of competitiveness, hard work and dedication in the life of students. Over the years the educational and examination systems keep changing. The syllabus and the methods of teaching are never constant.
This brings us to the question of how far are these systems and methods effective in ascertaining the proficiency of a student. Can an examination reveal the real qualities of students? Can it fathom the intelligence of students when in fact they are talented in different subjects, even those subjects not taught in schools and colleges?
The proverb "morning shows the day" is not applicable to most students in real life situations. A mediocre student may perform well in a competitive examination by preparing some selective topics, whereas a meritorious student may not be able to perform better comparatively. Human history has many great minds who did poorly in schools and colleges.
Examinations compel students to study and prepare for those topics in which they are not interested. Great minds cannot be tested by the prevailing examination system. The whole system is more or less defective. There is no scope in dealing differently with the fast learners and the slow learners. Fast and slow learners are not the same as those who are learning impaired. The syllabus must not be too vast because it puts unnecessary pressure not only on teachers and students but also on parents. Frequent change of syllabus with the change of government and ruling the political party must be avoided. Educational system must be free from bureaucratic and political interference.
To let examinations decide the success or failure of students in their career and life is not justifiable. The present system of examination encourages the habit of cramming and even memorising lessons without knowing what it is all about. Examinations create worry and mental stress. The desperation encourages copying. Examinations, however cannot be avoided altogether. But some educational reforms can help minimise the flaws and shortcomings. The final result should be on the basis of several examinations conducted by various examiners. The question papers should be designed so as to test the overall aspect of a student. By this the dread of examination can be brought down up to a certain extent. The system of examinations should be over-hauled by intellectuals and experienced educationists. Examinations should be a time to look forward to, not something that can turn out to be a traumatic experience.