An examination is a formal written, spoken or practical test, especially at school or college, to see how much students know about a subject. Examinations are less formally referred to as exams. Some people say that examinations are not a true test of knowledge, while others say that it is the only true test of knowledge. People belonging to the former group argue that students who score highest in an exam may not necessarily be the ones who understood the subject best but may be those who memorize best and therefore able to pour back everything that was taught, even in the teachers' very words. Those belonging to the latter group, on the other hand, believe that there can be no better way of evaluating students understanding or knowledge of a subject unless an examination is administered especially if there is need to determine which student is best or worst.
The issue of whether exams are a true test of knowledge is quite debatable and there may be some merit to both sides of the debate.However, it is not my intention to deal with that argument in this article. Rather, I would like to discuss the different factors that affect students' performance in examinations, beginning with the students' preparation for exams and ending with the grading exam scripts.
Preparation of Examinations
Preparation is the most important part of succeeding in an exam but unfortunately many students do not prepare for exams. Many think that preparation for exams means staying awake night after night, in the few days before the exam, stuffing information into a tired brain. These students do not realize that preparation for exams begin from the first day of lectures and sometimes even before that. How?
The human brain is like a computer with memory chips, folders, files and so on. When information is put in a computer system with the intention of retrieving that information at a future time, it is usually saved in a file or folder. Then, when the time comes to retrieve the information, the appropriated file or folder is simply called up and the information is there. The only question at that time world is whether you remember the name of the file. Most people who use computers know how to get around this problem. They simply make sure that they use a name for the file which best connects with the information in the file. That is why most computer users do not save their documents as David 1, David 2 or David 3 etc… for example, instead, they use key words relating to particular contents as file names.
Thus the information being placed in the computer system is properly organized. Why then is it that even students who are whiz kids on the computer do not know how to organize the information fed into their brains?
Let us go back to the earlier assertion that preparation for and exam should begin on or before the first day of lectures and not days after the end of lectures. At the beginning of a course, usually on the first day of lecture, it is customary for the lecturer to do a run-down of the course content or provide a course outline. This tells the student the topics that are to be covered in the course. The lecturer may go further to explain the actual objectives of the various topics. All the information provided on the first day should enable the student to open the folder and files in the brain.
At the primary and secondary levels, teachers are usually required to write detailed lesson plans in which the lessons are stated clearly. For example, in writing a lesson plan, a teacher may write as follows:
Lesson 1: the cell
Objectives: to define a cell; to describe different types of cells; to describe the typical features of each type of cell.
You can see that the lesson plan explains exactly what is to be taught in that course and at the end of the lesson it is expected that the student should be able to define a cell, describe different types of cells and describe the typical features of each type of cell. It is these objectives, which the student is expected to learn that will be tested in an exam.
At the tertiary level, lecturers are usually not required to write lesson plans, but whether or not, every lecturer has a plan, otherwise he cannot make sense in the class. Most times, the objectives can be found in the course outline. Good serious students are usually able to find them and by the end of the first day of lectures, they already know what to expect from the course and so organize their brain files accordingly. Subsequently, as information is provided later on in the course, their brains are able to process the information, filling facts appropriately. It therefore becomes easy at exam time to retrieve information already saved in the brain because the brain is able to make proper connections with key terms and open the appropriate files.
Bad students, on the other hand do not try to understand the focus of the lesson or course and so never know what they are expected to learn from the course. Instead, they concentrate on copying notes which their brains cannot properly organize and link and at the end of the day, they are the one asking the lecturer for areas of concentration, never realizing that the areas of concentration were already given on the first day.
It is essential for the student to understand the focus and objectives of the course right from the beginning because information given in lecturers address particular objectives of the course. It is only when the objectives can be properly organized, both in the notes and in the brain. My experience is that many students fail at this very important task; they do not make the effort to understand the focus on the course, they do not organize their notes and some are so bad that they may go from one course to another using the same notebook, thus mixing up information.
A student who is able to organize his/her information has gone a long way towards preparing for the exam. The rest of the preparation then involves adequate and frequent revision of the course contents. In revision, the student can try to test his own understanding of the objectives by setting mock questions for himself having understood the objectives. This method works best in study groups where different individuals in the group can try to set questions on particular objectives. The members of the group then discuss and find answers to the questions.
It is also important to emphasize that revisions should be an on-going exercise throughout the duration of the course and should never be reserved till the time of exams.
The exam proper
During the exam itself, there are various factors which could also affect the student's final result.
Instruction: Every exam is guided by a set of instruction. A student taking an exam is supposed to read the instructions carefully before beginning the exam. Many students fail to do this and often disadvantage themselves right from the beginning. For example, if the lecturer wants to test the students on a particular important aspect of the course, he may decide to make that question compulsory and so the instructions may read: 'Answer question (1) and any other four question’. That means that there are a total of five questions each carrying a weighting of 20 marks. A student who does not read the instructions may omit question (1) because he does not know it well and answer five other questions. In this situation the student has already lost 20 marks and would now have to fight for 80 marks only, because in making question (1) compulsory, it is understood that 20 marks of the total 100 marks will be contributed by question (1) and the lecturer must implemented that instruction. To give another example, the exam may be in a course which has been taught three different lecturers and in the exam, the lecturer may decide to put the questions into sections, one section with two questions for each lecturer. The instruction may read: 'Answer four questions only, taking at least one question from each section’. I am very familiar with this pattern and it has been my experience that students often do not obey the instructions. Some students disregard one section entirely and answer from the other sections. In such a situation, the student has again disadvantaged himself.
Instructions are very critical to an examination and students must be diligent about reading and adhering to given instructions because the lecturer who gave the instructions in the first place often will not go against his own instruction.
Time allowed: Every exam has a specified duration (2 Hours, 2 hours, 30 minutes, 3 hours etc). This is total time allowed for students to take the exam. Usually, in setting the duration of the exam, the lecturer estimates how long it should take a student to supply the required answers to each question, with the student working in a relaxed and organized fashion. Then a few extra minutes are added which should allow the student time to go over his work and make corrections or additions if necessary. For example, if a lecturer expects students taking the exam to answer a total of five questions and he estimates that it should take a student twenty-five minutes to answer each question, it means he must allow at least two hours and five minutes for the exam. So, allowing for the extra time, the lecturer would usually set the time allowed to be 2 hours 30 minutes. This allow enough time for the student to spend twenty-five minutes on each question and still have enough time to go back and do a thorough review of what he has answered. If, however, the student decides to spend forty minutes on a question, he runs the risk of running out of time before he has finished answering all the questions.
Students should therefore always be conscious of the time and not spend longer time than necessary on one question.
Answering the questions: in any exam and for any individual student, some questions would always appear simpler that others. Sometimes students jump into questions before thinking about them thoroughly and before looking at other questions. This is not good practice. It is students like this who will often begin to answer a question, get stuck halfway an d then cancel the question, making their answer scripts untidy. It is better for the student to read through all the questions, think about the answers, even jot down a few points for each question and then decide which questions he knows more about. The student should answer the questions which he knows best and if he has though about all questions before start, he would not need to mess up his answer scrip vacillating from question to question. Furthermore, it is advisable for the student to begin with the questions he knows best. The advantages of this are multifold. Answering a question he knows well allows the student to relax, boosts his confidence and helps him save time because he can usually get through the question under the estimated time required.
Marking and grading
Marking and grading are not really student-controlled factors, but are rather lecturer-controlled factors. However, students some time unknowingly influence how their scripts are graded. It is these student influences that I wish to talk about; since the lecturer factors are straightforward (clearly prepared marking schemes are usually used). Some contributing student factors which influence grading of scripts are:
Bad handwriting: students do not realize this, but handwriting or penmanship influences the person reading the script and therefore influences marking. Some students have terrible penmanship. It is difficult to read what they have written. Sometimes, this conveys unseriousness on the part of the student. The script appears carelessly written and biases the lecturer grading the script. The lecturer has a tendency to be less lenient in evaluating that script and even when the answers are there, because of the bad penmanship the person reading may not find them. This implies particularly to essay-type exams.
Clarity of thought and expression: The examiner cannot read the student's thoughts or make assumptions about what the student is trying to say. Therefore the student is required to clearly convey his meaning and his thoughts. Some students are very careless with their writing. They may leave thoughts unfinished or even say the opposite of what they actually mean. Students should always review what they have written to be sure that it conveys the meaning they wish to convey.
Neatness and adherence to instruction: Neatness, just as in the case of penmanship, can bias the lecturer making the scrip either positively or negatively. Then the issue of adherence to instructions has already been handled above.
Poor grammar: Poor grammar influences expression and meaning and therefore heavily influences the marks. Poor grammar can make a student say what not his intention to say is or not say what it is his intention to say.
Recording and publishing
Recording and publishing are less contributing factors to students' performance in exams because these are usually guided by the institutions rules and regulations and are often adhered to strictly. However, individuals involved (students, lecturers and even office staff) may complicate matters when mistakes are made including wrong addition of marks, wrong spelling of names, and wrong entry of registration numbers and wrong entry of grades.
Conclusion
Since exam are still the most popular way of evaluating students' knowledge, students should not take any part of exams lightly, starting from preparation for the exams to supplying the information needed to properly process their grades. This is even more critical when you consider that a student's future may depend on his performance in school exams.
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