Over the years, examinations have been the only process to access knowledge of whether someone is intelligent from nursery to university. We are expected to study, memorize information, and then sit for exams, and that will be used to assess your knowledge or intelligence. I keep telling people that exams don’t really tell how intelligent someone is.
To be honest, this week’s prompt is complicated because I can’t say yes or no.
There are some certain things exams can measure, such as knowing if the child understands the topic, if they can be able to solve problems, and if they can solve a particular problem. Where I always have a problem is some people see exam results as a complete measure for intelligence. Someone can be intelligent and perform poorly in an examination. There are some people that, once the exam period is over, will be sick. There are some that become nervous immediately when they see the exam papers; they may end up struggling to remember what they have studied or memorized. There are some that are so good at memorizing that they can memorize a whole text and will perform, but then when that particular person is called up to apply the thing he or she memorized in real life, the person can’t.
I have to find out that examination should not be the only measure to test if someone is intelligent; there is more to life. Let's take, for instance, some who study economics. He may be able to understand what economics is all about, cash flow, and inflation and define many strategies for how to control cash flow and correctly answer questions about the economy in an examination. But when they are placed in the labor market, we will discover that such a person cannot survive because there are certain skills that can’t be tested on papers.
I never said that exams are useless; knowledge is very important, and having a good foundation of knowledge is so important. Where I have a problem now, the system believes that the only way to show evidence that someone understands something is by writing exams. To be honest, I can memorize a whole text to write an examination and pass, but I didn't understand anything. All I am after is to pass that exam.
We keep running away from this real life that looks very different from exam questions; there is no exam without a clearly defined question, and there is always an expected answer. When it comes to real life, our problem is not defined. The limited resources and unexpected challenges. You need to find out what the real problem is for us to be able to figure out the problem.
There are some things we should consider. Exams teach us discipline for you to prepare for exams; it requires time management, and it requires commitment. Test scores are used for measurement.
The question should be, how intelligent is this person based on their exam scores? Or what should that person actually do with what they have learned?
Education should not only teach us how to pass exams; it should have us understand the world and make decisions and work with others.
This is my entry on the weekly prompt #hivelearners topic exams and test.
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