The other day, I was talking to a friend. She in Denmark, I in Hong Kong. She was in the middle of the storm, exams, and my forecast said the storm was approaching. Obviously, we discussed the exam situation, similarities and differences, and, ultimately, how exams are always—despite the Danish saying, “Exams are the diligent student’s fest”—a time of stress, struggle, and strain.
At one point in our conversation, she describes a particular scene from her biotechnology exam. She was unsure of a question, so she looked it up in her book. I said, “Hold on a minute, your what?”
But I heard right. You read right.
In Denmark, one can bring textbooks, notes, and supporting documents to the exam hall, given they have been used during classes. This may seem like cheating, like an easy way to sit exams. As if years of learning can be dismissed by mere papers. But on the contrary, the learning is supported by an exam situation mirroring real-life circumstances. Memorising a curriculum just to spit it all out on a paper later to forget the learned content is not an accurate imitation of how one might pursue a career. Instead, one is permitted resources to find a solution, much like one would do in an office, in a laboratory, in a meeting.
But what is better? Knowing that you must learn everything by heart with the risk of forgetting the retained curriculum or knowing that aid is allowed and thus neglecting to remember comprehensively?
I have been on both sides of the exam table—one where my hand cramped from writing page up and page down and one where my eyes were dry from looking at the computer screen for hours. Or rather, one where the paper relied on my pouring out of my remembered knowledge and one where the computer was hungry for the knowledge I could produce using my notes.
Undeniably, exam situations are not pleasant nor a manifestation of authentic life circumstances. Instead, they are an investigation into the knowledge we have acquired, the knowledge with which we can enter the next stage in our career. The knowledge is the means by which we can advance, develop, perform. But if we have only stored the knowledge in our short-term memory, in the back of our minds, where it is easily accessible come exam time, and once it has left through our pens, it is not so retrievable any longer, is it then of any use in our next step? Call me biased, but I do see the advantage of learning and writing exams with notes, with books, with aid. Because that’s how we do it in real life.
No one is sitting in an office, in a lab, in the field, only relying on their memory of knowledge gained through education. No, we all need help, advice, and guidelines. When working, we will resort to resources that will make the path forward clearer—we have to rely on the help and guidance of other people, works, and ideas.
Exams—the culmination of years of school—should prepare us for what comes next: Work life. But if we never learn how to treat a piece of work realistically but merely focus on learning to recite the textbook by heart, how will we know what to do when the first assignment lands on our desk? How will we be able to tell when help is needed and when our own creativity should pave the way?
Exams—however standardised and not wholly appropriate in our modern context of academia and careers—are a necessary instrument to judge academic performance and potential. Still, perhaps we should reevaluate the structure of the dreaded evaluations. Perhaps the sweaty palms behind the exam desk should be replaced by steady hands and minds whose job is to solve a task like grown-ups do in real life.
Perhaps exams should represent how we will encounter the coming chapter of our lives. To prepare us, to perfect us, to present to us what life outside the system of education is.
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