I was asked to rate my satisfaction of aspects of the M.Eng program I’m taking, so took the opportunity to rant about the insanity of exams:
“As a professional, I find that Exam based courses are very artificial, and not terribly meaningful. As an undergrad I did not question this practice, but had forgotten about those days. It was a rather rude shock to see this dark ages practise still in use for graduate studies.
Nowhere in a professional context does it make sense to try to memorize enough content that you can barf out half-ass material sufficient to pass examination questions, or attempt to gain maximum marks in a minimum amount of time. Professional work needs to be complete and accurate. Mistakes cause millions of dollars, and get people fired.
It makes no sense to take any examination, and not be given the opportunity to see the marked exam content. One ought to have the chance to review that material, correcting all deficiencies in one’s understanding. If mistakes are made in a professional context, there is a feedback cycle, where root causes are addressed. This is completely missing from the brain dead process of final exams.
Thankfully, not all the graduate courses I took still used the childish approach of grading based on examinations, but enough did that it was annoying. The aim should not be to produce a mark, but to produce full understanding of the subject material, and demonstrate the ability to apply that material.”