THE STAKES were high: 85 minutes, six and a half weeks of material, 50 percent of the course grade. But I was calm. I had understood all the problem sets, and studied the night before. No sweat, I thought, as the midterms were handed out.
As I worked through the econ test, I was confronted with questions we had never done before. Uh-oh. I thought about it. He was asking us to synthesize concepts. Fair enough. I assimilated as fast as I could, and jotted down the answer.
I checked my watch. Double uh-oh. Panic set in as I realized I was not going to finish. Simple problems became hard problems as I rushed. Time's up, I heard. The last page of my exam was blank. I had a feeling I had vaporized my GPA with a single blow.
As I left, I wondered what the point of such an exam was. Exams should test whether or not you have learned the material presented in class. Not how fast you can work.
Two days later, I found out my GPA had not been affected by my unfinished exam. The class average was a 47 percent.
Scores so low call into question what the exam was actually testing. It is unlikely the average student had only understood 47 percent of the material presented. Other factors must have contributed to such a low distribution.
This semester, a chemistry professor, upon handing back a test that had averaged 59.5 percent, announced, "This is a good exam because it is very easy to tell where the grade boundaries lie."
The purpose of this institution should not be to ensure a distribution of grades. Grade distributions have nothing to do with how good a test is.
The purpose of attending an academic institution is to learn. Tests are supposed to be aimed at that purpose. A good test will show a student where he or she lacks a solid grip on the material, so the student can return to their books and relearn the missed information.
A good test will also be a comprehensive indicator of whether or not the student has accumulated the knowledge presented in class.
Tests where the average student is able to answer approximately half the questions correctly are not only gauging a student's knowledge. Tests designed to fail students are only able to do so to the degree that they make the test cover unfamiliar material, or impose unreasonable time limits.
These tests assess how fast a student can work, or knowledge derived from outside the course's curriculum. Neither of these factors should be relevant.
Time becomes an issue when instructors ask students to synthesize new material on the exam. Combining concepts on an exam is fine, as long as professors allow the necessary time to complete such a task.
Different students synthesize material at different rates. So if a professor asks a student to synthesize material during an exam, he or she has to allow enough time for everyone to finish. A student who knows the information well enough to synthesize it should be allowed to demonstrate his capabilities.
The point of learning is not how fast you can do it. The point is: Did you learn it? If two students come into an exam knowing the same amount of material, they should receive the same grade. A slower student should not receive a lower grade solely because he cannot work as fast.
The second factor, testing knowledge derived from other places, becomes an issue when the instructors ask questions concerning material never covered in class.
Students whose parents happen to be chemists or who read chemistry articles in their spare time, and coincidently know this material that was not covered in class, skew the curve. Students who only knew the information that was presented in class therefore end up with lower grades.
No test can assess each student's knowledge perfectly. Some factors, such as a student's test-taking ability, the influence of stress, and careless errors, could only be avoided through one-on-one interviews with a professor. Sadly, a University in which professors personally track the learning of each student is an unrealistic ideal.
It is not unrealistic, however, to eliminate the use of tests that aim to fail. Professors should be more concerned with the ability of their exam to properly assess a student's knowledge, and less concerned with the statistical distribution of the grades.
(Kelly Sarabyn is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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