First off, let me start by saying I am still in full time education, and I do take exams on a regular basis, in fact I just finished an exam about an hour and a half ago. As a Computer Science student our exams seem to take a unique structure compared to other degrees which require essay-style answers, but nonetheless some points can apply to all types of exam papers, note I refer to exam papers, not things like driving examination (though theory tests in the UK are a joke, I got 100% and read the highway code on the car journey to the test centre). I would also like to point out that I tend to do quite well in exams for my degree so it isn’t because I’m a complete moron and I’m using this rant as an excuse.

So my main issue with exams, especially as a computer science student, is it isn’t a test of your knowledge of a subject, coursework does that quite adequately, its a test of your memory. Sure, if you do something day in day out you’re going to remember it off the top of your head, and you will understand it better, but if you do it maybe once over a 3 month period and then quizzed on every minor detail of it what are the chances of you realistically remembering all the information taught to you once over a 3 month period? I’m guessing pretty slim and your answer will be quoted from memory of a text book you’ve read during the build up to the exam which is covered up as “revision” – if you need to “revise” for your job in the real world you’re going to be terrible at your job, simple. You get good at things by doing them, not by memorising answers to sample questions.

One thing our department tries to do to counter this is by making multiple choice exams, you’re given pieces of code to look at and have to answer what the expected output will be, what errors are present, what code is more efficient and what not – this offers a much better approach as you show that you understand something by answering correctly, albeit some people may get lucky with their answers, but that is then weighed down by the quality of coursework (provided that person didn’t cheat on their coursework, but if they did they really aren’t competition in the job industry anyway so who honestly cares?).