Final Exams - Are They Really Necessary?
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How Important are Final Exams?
While there is no plan to eliminate final exams, I can't help but wonder how much students gain from writing such exams and I plan to explore this issue further...
For example, if students don't attend classes for long durations of time and can receive passing grades as easily as students who've attended classes regularly, one may wonder where the level of fairness comes in. One may wonder whether it would be more beneficial to have most of the final mark/grade of a course based on the assignments and quizzes performed in class throughout the year instead.
In situations where students miss a lot of classes and perform well on final exams, it's obvious that they have crammed for their final exams or figured out a way to cheat so it doesn't truly measure their level of knowledge.
What, then, is the real purpose in writing final exams?
Contents at a Glance
The Benefits of Final Exams
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Final exams serve a variety of purposes for students and teachers, allowing each group to benefit in one way or another.
Knowledge Retention...
Students know final exams will be written for many of their courses.
This provides a challenge for dedicated students. They know that their knowledge of the material they are learning will be tested at some point. To make life easier, they remain faithful to their studies so they won't need to cram later; they will only need to review their materials.
Dedicated students find great achievement in doing well on a final exam. They know it is one step toward future success.
Education Encompasses A Lot
Education occurs in stages...one small step at a time
To promote students who have forgotten most of the knowledge learned - whether because of poor attendance or poor knowledge retention - would cause setbacks during the following school year/s for fellow students and teachers.
Essentially, while those students may go on to become successful in life in their own individual ways, from an educational standpoint they wouldn't be equipped with the necessary facts and skills required to succeed in the classroom.
Dedication and Commitment
Essential components of achieiving a good education
While there are students who work toward education goals, hoping to attain careers in scientific, medical and legal professions - to name a few - there are those who wish to get by on the shirt tails of others. Instead of working hard themselves, they get others to complete their homework assignments and do their best to cheat on tests taken in the classroom.
Catching the Cheaters
Cheaters do a disservice to themselves - and so do those who help others cheat!
However, when I attended school, at least sixty percent of the final exam consisted of questions requiring answers in the form of essays. This is not much of a problem for students who know what they are learning, but for those who are trying to take the easy way out - pretending to know their studies when they are really cheating - it is not as easy to receive acceptable grades.
If it wasn't for final exams, teachers may never catch on to those who get good grades through cheating.
Cheaters in College/University
If cheaters go uncaught, it's likely that colleges and universities could be filled with students who are not worthy to be there, from an academic stand point.
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Exceptions to every rule
Of course, there are honest students who do well during classroom assignments and tests but get nervous when writing final exams, causing their minds to go blank, which causes much anxiety to set in.
In these cases, the final exam didn't accurately measure the level of knowledge the students possessed because the exam had no way of determining stress factors present at the time it was written.
Benefits for Teachers
In addition, great teachers use exam results to improve their own work. When they see areas of an exam which most students do poorly on, they reconstruct the area to make it more understandable for students the following year.
Reviewing Information
For diligent students, final exams are basically reviewing information which has been learned
over a period of time.
Students who have been highly motivated achievers in the classroom generally do well at exam time, unless a stressful situation has developed in their lives which causes a temporary setback.
However, students who complete their work sporadically will struggle during exam time because of poor study habits, though in this there is also the exception to the rule.
Becoming Coherent in Thought Processes
A requirement for every day life
Regardless of whether final exams truly measure the level of knowledge students possess, students do benefit in important areas when preparing for final exams.
- 1Students learn to organize their thoughts or think more coherently when completing exams, especially when the exams revolve around essay-type questions, as opposed to multiple choice and true or false questions.
- 2When highly motivated students are required to write an essay, they will get the points organized in their minds before putting pen to paper. They don't want to have a jumbled mess of words which makes their reader confused and frustrated.
- 3While many students benefit from memorization skills, others try to make sense of what they are learning so they understand the subjects before them. This way, if they forget the exact text in their notebooks, it won't matter because they understand the principles involved and can have confidence in completing their exams successfully. They won't have to worry because the completion of an exam question hinges on remembering one simple word.
Post-Secondary Education and Final Exams
Final exams are especially important in a post-secondary education setting. Students are studying to apply their knowledge to careers they've chosen, but some students are more dedicated than others.
After graduation, when transcripts are received by potential employers, students with the highest grades will usually be interviewed initially because, on the surface, it appears they know their subject better than others with lower grades.
What Would It Be Like If There Was No Way To Determine Levels of Education?
Living life could be a scarier experience...
This may sound like an excerpt from your worst nightmare but, indulge me for a few moments and imagine how you would feel if you lived in such a world as this:
- 1Hospitals are filled with doctors and nurses who don't fully understand the aspects of their jobs. Sick people become sicker and germs spread rapidly.
- 2Operating rooms are occupied by surgeons who don't have the required knowledge to perform procedures safely.
- 3Teachers don't have the level of education some of their highly motivated students possess.
- 4Police officers and investigators can't seem to solve a crime; lawyers and judges are not sufficient at handling the repercussions of people committing crimes.
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5Business corporations continually go bankrupt because people don't know how to run successful operations.
Department and grocery stores continue to foreclose because owners don't have the funding to keep the businesses in operation. - 6Buildings, roads, and bridges collapse because they weren't designed and constructed safely.
- 7The list goes on...
Evaluating Education Levels is Important
It's necessary in sustaining life
Without such a system in place, how can people be held accountable for their actions, or lack thereof, on a job when they haven't been proven worthy of their grades in school?
What Do You Think?
Are final exams necessary?
Yes
LeslieMirror says:
It's a great stress, but I still think that it is the most appropriate desicion
blackspanielgallery says:
Finals check long term retention, which is important. As for cheaters, they are present. I know, I catch them by using different tests and have their answers match the wrong key! They can be caught on tests as easily as on finals. Now for fairness, groups allow weak students to benefit from strong students. This is an unfairness. Bringing students through on the merit of others is unfair.
Dave says:
Yes- provided the exam tests the skills and knowledge the course actually demanded of the student, and is weighted to affect only the grade only on the portions of the curriculum it can actually examine. For example, there is no way for a written exam to test a student's verbal presentation skills, but it can test for recall of knowledge, reasoning abilities (critical thinking) and writing skills. Tests also provide a student for opportunities to function under stress.
ajgodinho says:
I think they are because there are many benefits to having it, one major one being discipline, but I think exams should be more practical than they currently are.
BarbRad says:
It depends upon the educational setting. I don't think it should determine the largest share of the grade on the pre-college level, nor most of the grade even on the college level. Their biggest value is helping a student bring together all her has learned over the period the exam covers and gives the teachers a chance to access what the student has learned. OTOH, with readily available cell phones and laptops, I think it's much easier for students to cheat. Some students don't do well under pressure, and some might be half sick or have PMS the day of the exam but have to show up and take it when they are not as physically well or mentally alert as usual.
No
sangpo (sam) says:
no exam are stresslike a chicken on egg
Chris says:
For the most part...are just stressors.....there should be a more holistic approach to learning not based on cramming all the knowlege learned into a final paper, where nerves play a big factor in screwing it up. This can cancel out all previous well done work in the subject.
David says:
If teachers cannot evaluate a student over 16 weeks of a semester, then having a final exam will not do the trick. If teachers are interested in passing knowledge onto students, I would think that having quizzes, tests, and other evaluative methods over the course of the semester would suffice. Final exams are "real old school" and have no place in 21st century education. It is a wasted week and I know first hand that finals are not an indicator of knowledge, but who has the best memory. In addition, if you are hung up on finals, make them long and open book. Nobody practices their career from memory.
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Final Exams Guestbook
Did this lens make you think about something you've always taken for granted? If so, I would love to hear your comments.
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megb
Apr 3, 2012 @ 5:28 pm | delete
- I think you took a very interesting standpoint on final exams however I felt your opinion on students who miss a lot of school was not necessarily true. This past year I missed school for a community service trip and when I was very sick. I however took a great deal of time working on catching up on my work and did not cheat to regain my good grades. I still agree with your opinion about other grades being more important than finals, just not your reasoning.
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jimmyworldstar
Dec 13, 2011 @ 12:35 pm | delete
- Depending on the subject, finals can be worth it (such as if it's a project). I feel like it makes a lot more sense to have minireviews and tests during the entire period of a course that constantly makes students study the new and old material is a lot more sensible than a final exam at the end that encompasses material that hasn't been looked over since the beginning of the semester.
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ajgodinho Aug 11, 2011 @ 12:44 am | delete
- I believe exams are necessary and useful, however, they need to be more practical and should encompass various aspects some of which you've discussed in this well-written lens...great topic...**Blessed by a Squid-Angel**
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BarbRad Feb 10, 2011 @ 12:29 am | delete
- If final exams are given, they ought to be given to all. I had a favorite teacher in high school except for two things. She trusted her students and read a book during tests instead of monitoring the students many of whom cheated on the routine vocabulary tests. (This was Latin.) I didn't cheat. The students who consistently had A's on the smaller tests they cheated on were exempt from taking the final exam. I felt this was quite unfair. I think if a student who is ordinarily a consistently good student does not do as well on the final, he or she should have an opportunity to have a supplemental oral exam covering what he or she was weak in to see if the material really was learned but the test for some reason was off or the student was having a bad day. My husband was very good in the lab and orally, and sometimes had the concepts down better than his professors, but he didn't test well.
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jptanabe
Jan 22, 2011 @ 4:44 pm | delete
- I just found this lens - great discussion of a tough topic! Assessment is always difficult, and sometimes I think final exams are just a waste of time and unnecessarily stressful. But of course you can't just do away with them! Great job, made me think. Blessed.
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lravidlearner Jan 13, 2011 @ 3:44 pm | delete
- I'm with you. Final exams are stressful - evaluations should be done throughout the grading period and culminate in a project that shows what the student has learned. Excellent lens. Blessed by a SquidAngel :)
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AndyPo
May 6, 2010 @ 9:38 am | delete
- Very interesting and thought provoking. I suspect it depends partly on the subject. I read physics at university and most of the final mark was from the final exams, which were very stressful and the rest from lab work, written up over a two year period. With physics, I suspect exams are a necessary evil, but maybe they don't all need to be done at the end of the course.
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Zion
Dec 30, 2008 @ 12:04 pm | delete
- Wow! Your lens is fantastic! I really like it so I gave you 5*. Keep up the god work!..
Please try to stop by my Top 3 Home Based Businesses lens. I would really much appreciate if you could rate mine too!
Thank you so much!
Zion
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Kelsey-Budden-16
Nov 24, 2008 @ 7:29 pm | delete
- Said it up there mama!
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by Norma_Budden
It wasn't until 2009 when I began to wonder about the importance of final exams. On one level, they seemed fine enough but, on others, it seemed they... more »
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