In the dialogue of our infamous professor, I. R. Rao, examination is the bane of education. He agrees it is an evil, but also agrees it is necessary!! So he doesnt ever abstain from taking tests, on the contrary takes surprise ones! :(
But apart from that, seriously, what do exams signify exactly? We learn something, we write in exams, and get marks accordingly. But how much of that knowledge or information do we actually retain a few days or even hours after the exam? Isnt most of it rote learning? Is it actually helpful to a student? I personally feel practicals are a much better way of learning than taking exams. On trying to do a practical experiment, if the theory is not known, then it needs to be known properly before the experiment can be attempted, and the concepts become much clearer after the completion of the experiment. And as something is applied, the concepts truly become knowledge, they dont stay just as topics learnt to be forgotten. Isnt a practical work much more important than a marks in a subject? Does a marks really carry information about who knows the subject better? Most of the times, preparation for exams entails mugging up lots of information, that will be freely available in actual life. So the grading is based on something which is totally unnecessary. What is the meaning of such a grading system? Knowledge is when information can be applied to a practical problem to solve it. But how many exams truly test that? And is it possible to test it?
If this is a wrong way for evaluation, then what is the right way? Is it possible to check everyone's knowledge by making them apply it practically? If it can somehow be made feasible, maybe it will actually be the evaluation of a person's ability, better than now. And also in that way, lots of other things along with the knowledge will be tested, the way in which the person approaches a problem, his creativity in combining the known knowledge with the uniqueness of every individual. Along with that the dedication and perseverance of the individual will also be known. Isnt this form of exam much better than the one followed at present and cant this somehow be implemented, if not on a very large scale, at least on a small scale?
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