Impromptu Test; The tricky tool used to keep students on their toes.

There is good theoretical and practical reasons for making people sit for an exam after studying a particular course of study. This is because it appears that someone can sit through a course for a whole 3 months and still not get the gist of what the course is about. Also, many people wouldn't take their academics seriously if there was no sort of examination at the end of each course of study.

For the sake of these variables and a bunch of others, it would only be fair for students to be examined momentarily and graded based on their performance in their examination. However, there is always a question that needs to be asked right about examinations;

Do you believe that examination is a true test of knowledge?

I look forward to getting your thoughts about that. Share that in the comment section. Meanwhile, I will be sharing my experience with impromptu exams/tests and what it felt like to be in that situation.

For someone that has already spent 14 years in the academic world, I have a whole lot of experience with impromptu tests and I recognize the essence of those sorts of tests. It is usually unplanned and unprepared for, so there are some teachers and lecturers who recognize it as a genuine way to know those that are truly paying attention to what's going on in classes.

Very often, students prefer to be pre-informed about a test so they can be more prepared for it. However, we all know that there will always come a day in which a particular lecturer will decide to wow us with an impromptu test. Haha. I hate to admit it, but they have all sorts of tricks for doing that. And it works all the time.

In my Uni, making 75% attendance is a prerequisite for any student to be able to sit for the Exam in any course. Some courses were more interesting than others so, people enjoyed being in those classes. For the ones that are 'boring', some students prefer to miss those classes and ask their friends to help them with attendance.

One particular lecturer we met in my penultimate year got to discover after the first 3 weeks that the number of names on the attendance sheet is usually more than the actual number of people that attends his class. I'm sure so many other lectures notice such about the attendance to their class, but no one took it as seriously as this particular lecturer. He wasn't ready to have any of that. So, he decided to be using impromptu tests to know those that truly attend his classes.

There are days when he will walk into the lecture hall and the first thing he will do is to hold an impromptu test before starting the lecture. On such days, anyone that comes late to the class would be in the same predicament as someone that didn't come at all. Both parties will be marked as absentees.

Many didn't fancy the style adopted by this lecturer, but nobody wants to be in the bad book of any Lecturer. Not in Nigeria. They will mess you up. Haha.

After doing this for a couple of classes, everyone started taking his lectures seriously because you don't know the trick he will come up with in each lecture. As you can see, he used impromptu tests as a tool to do something that can be considered positive.

However, I've also come across lecturers who use impromptu tests as a diabolical tool to do 'the unspeakable' to students. It's like a bait which they use to trap students and this usually has a walloping effect on some students.

As far as I can tell, Impromptu tests have its up and down in academic settings. But, a good way to walk around it is to always try to learn as much as possible whenever an opportunity presents itself.

Thanks For Not Missing Any Full-stop Or Comma
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