Open book examination:
Advantages
Should exams be memory-based?

When it comes examinations different institutions follow different methods, and one such method is open book examination. But some are against it and they say examinations need to memory- based. I am on the opinion that open book exam has its own merits, and all need to evaluate a student all possible ways. 50 words

First of all, let me look at the advantages of open book exam. This method allows students access to books at the time of examination. The primary advantage is that it requires the student to understand the question in such a way that he is able to find out answer to it referring to a book or many books in the given time. This is really a hard test, and it makes a student a vast reader, time manager and a problem solver, to mention a few. Secondly, it encourages self study because the institution may be giving them only basic guidelines as to cover the areas of a particular subject or paper. The student is required to study because he has access to books at the time of the exam. Thirdly, the examiners have the freedom to raise any question in the exam, and the students can expect to face them too. These are some of the advantages. 110

Coming to should exams be memory-based, I would argue that it need not be only memory based. The reasons are that memorizing does not work in today’s performance requirements, and those who are able to memories huge amount of information are book worms, and their world is limited to small areas of study. And education as we all know need to give a student varying opportunities to put him or her to test. Testing the memory is one of them, not all. Further more, if students are required to be tested for other skills like time managing, problems solving, reasoning and multi-tasting in academic ambience and in exam conditions, it offers them myriad opportunities to identify their strengths, and weaknesses if any. So it is right to say examinations need to be much more than testing one’s ability to memorize information. 100

The pointers make me conclude that all examinations, including open book examinations, have their own merits and demerits. However, restricting exams as some exercise that tests a student’s memorizing skill is not a good idea. Rather exams need to evaluate a student in as many ways as there are skills and potentials. 45 words

Jaypees. 11.10 am. 9/6/ 09