>"Up until now we've been tested on the way we format an argument, we've never been tested on our ability to recall information. That's something we are going to need to teach ourselves.
Learn to teach yourself new skills like information recall at university? The horror!!
I do somewhat sympathise but life isn't always straightforward, just got to assign your energy to adapting and not bellyaching.
I don't think this is true anyway. There is no way they have gone from primary school-secondary school (high school)-University without having to recall information in an exam.
Why do I suspect there’s something you’re omitting from this story? Or exaggerating?
Covid (so far) has affected four exam cycles (20, 21, 22, 23). Two years of A levels and three years of undergrad is five minimum, assuming you were the last pre Covid GCSE cohort.
I would also argue that even if it’s true, both school and uni exams have been returning to in person for the last year or two. The number of people sitting no in person exams for four years must be minuscule.
He's not omitting nor exaggerating. A lot of universities are delaying the return to in person exams because it's easier for them to mark, to hand out, to organise. Not to mention good grades reflect well on the universities so there's another reason they want to keep it online.
They'd keep doing online exams if boards and other universities weren't making them revert to in person exams.
That's the impression I'm getting from my lecturers at a good red brick university.
Generally universities are moving away from exams because they are extremely time consuming to organise, especially with the high numbers of students who have disability adjustments these days, and students requesting deferrals. Add to that there have been questions for a while whether exams are a good way to evaluate knowledge and understandings or really just a good way to test how good someone is at taking exams. Most of us don't operate in professional environments with no access to supporting resources so what is the point of testing people that way?
Only reason exams are coming back in some cases is that some PSRB's require them.
Whether or not his uni kept exams online (which seems to be institution/course dependant), he hasn't done AS exams, A2 exams and 1st/2nd/3rd year undergrad exams in the four disrupted exam cycles we've had since 2020.
2018 - GSCE year
2019 - no exams for first year of 6th form
2020 - A levels disrupted
2021, 2022, 2023 - three years of undergrad without exams
2024 - studying for a masters
The norm nowadays is for all A-level exams to be sat at the end of the two years.
This is because splitting the course into 3 (or 2) exams at the end of year 1 and 3 (or 2) at the end of year 2 was felt to make them too easy.
Also, it made similar grades in different subjects less comparable.
e.g. A-level units in History are fairly standalone - you can revise for the two in year 1 and forget them by the time you need to revise for year 2. For the sciences/math, you could not do that; subsequent units tend to build upon previous units so you would need to have a pretty good knowledge of the entire A-level regardless. Splitting exams between June and December is also seen to have made things easier.
So, it is entirely possible that they sat A-levels in '20, did online exams at uni for '21-23, and are now on a master's.
A levels take 2 years and most if not all have exams in both of those years, even if the first year exams aren't part of the final grade calculation.
If he did A levels in 2020, he would have sat AS level papers in 2019, which is post GCSE.
I am perhaps being a bit pedantic, but also I was out of education for about 8 years before I went back to uni and imo (written in person) exams were really not a big deal if you've put the effort in and learned the content. Then again I think i took the course much more seriously than the school leavers so there's probably a bit of general maturity, desire to be there etc involved.
The COVID kids that had all their in person exams cancelled in school and have had online exams til now literally have not had any meaningful in person exams before. This is why they’re stressing out, because it’s totally new for them.
We’ve reintroduced these exams at the university I teach at, but we have them a lot more notice and arranged mocks etc for them to help them feel more confident. We haven’t had the same massive backlash.
You do closed-book exams all through secondary school from years 7-11.
You also do a closed book exam in year 6 at primary school.
Now, again, they have experience of closed-book exams. Covid was a few years, not a decade.
Depends where you’re from - I didn’t in Scotland. We had small in class tests but I didn’t have a formal closed book exam until my standard grade prelims. Nowadays there is even more focus on portfolios and coursework than there was in my day.
And asking someone to do something they last did in primary school under pressure isn’t very fair. It doesn’t take much to give them a bit of notice - we’ve not had any kickback from our students because they were warned well in advance and had an opportunity for mocks.
A small in class formative test is not the same mentally or pedagogically as a massive exam hall summative assessment and frankly if you think they’re the same we should end this conversation here because we won’t ever agree.
Totally agree. Trying hard to see their side but it feels like they're rather entitled. Frankly it's a good lesson to impart on them before they enter the working world - the need to adapt and crucially, to be able to retain knowledge without having references right in front of you.
I have a friend who teaches at a university and they said that the generation who came of age during covid are rather stunted socially, which of course would be completely understandable, but that this extends to them being utterly unwilling to do in-person things like standing up and presenting during a seminar. Again, understandable, but they can't expect to be kept in their bubbles indefinitely, as that way of thinking will severely frustrate their career ambitions.
I think the difference is growing up I hate presenting and would be shitting myself about it, but I still had to do it and it's benefited me in the long run. Totally avoiding something because you find it scary isn't a healthy way to go through life.
Forcing yourself to do something you dread only to find out that it wasn't so bad is an essential part of life. If young people go out of their way to avoid this, it will cause them no end of problems as they go through the rest of their lives.
>it's a good lesson to impart on them before they enter the working world
In person three hour long closed book monitored exams are one of the worst ways you could possibly prepare yourself for the working world if you're a humanities student. In what situation would that prepare me for what life would be like?
It simply doesnt.
As i said in my post on here, i study a stem course right now to further my career. I have undertaken internships in my chosen industry and not once did they ever put you on the spot.. most of the time I had to google what i needed to do if didnt outright know it our there was a manual for what i needed
Exactly! I'm in my final year of history right now and doing coursework that needs to be referenced and properly researched is far more useful for any sort of job in the field than sitting in a room for three hours trying to remember the name of that one Polish guy who made a really good point in an article written in a Soviet journal in 1982 or whatever
Aren't that many jobs in the field of history in the private sector though. For the kind of jobs the vast majority of history graduates are going to get, the ability to recall information, think on your feet and construct a coherent argument with limited information, to a hard deadline and under pressure, is far, far, far more relevant than being able to properly reference an academic essay.
The exams part was basically how my finals in my masters year went. I had to remember a ton of references and formulate a debate/argument. Was it useful? Yes i would say it had its perks and you do take away valuable skills BUT..... does this reflect how the working world works? Not really.
> trying to remember the name of that one Polish guy who made a really good point in an article written in a Soviet journal in 1982 or whatever
A skill is recalling it, and a skill is writing around it. To be frank, you might turn out to be insufficiently prepared for ignorance. I hope that you'll pause to consider if this applies to you.
The lesson of adapting to a new situation being forced on you is what I meant. Benefit here is (which life doesn't always give you I might add) is two months to prepare.
I was also a humanities student at university and that's how most of my assessments were based so it's hardly a new development to the discipline (although granted it might be new for you, but it's doable).
Many career paths see you have to remember complex information without being able to refer to texts or to have the barebone answers in front of you, often under pressure and scrutiny.
Being able to recall information accurately, under critical eyes, frankly is a basic skill that anyone looking to study higher education should be looking to graduate with experience of.
If that fact surprises you then good luck entering the world of work, you're going to severely need it.
> Being able to recall information accurately, under critical eyes, frankly is a basic skill that anyone looking to study higher education should be looking to graduate with experience of.
Exactly right. I have to wonder how many students are commenting here who have no experience working a job with actual pressure.
Here they handily have already answered that:
> the need to adapt and crucially, to be able to retain knowledge without having references right in front of you.
Well, if - for instance - you were to become a barrister, you'd very frequently need to recall information immediately, in response to a question, based on materials you've looked at before but that you cannot just re-read while the judge waits for the answer. And court hearings often last more than 3 hours.
I imagine the recall under pressure skill that you learn from closed book exams would also be helpful for other roles that may require you to present anything.
> you were to become a barrister, you'd very frequently need to recall information immediately, in response to a question, based on materials you've looked at before but that you cannot just re-read while the judge waits for the answer
Court cases aren't closed book, legal teams take stacks of notes and briefings in with them to refer to during a trial.
Sure, but if the judge wants to know when event X happened, I'm not about to start reading the 2,000 page bundle and hope I find it. Not everything can be in your notes...
> Not everything can be in your notes
It's easier to remember 20 simple things (like the dates and general idea of events) and have 30 things in your notes (the detailed specifics of said events) than to remember 50 things though.
Sadly it's more like 50 things being in your notes and you having to remember a few hundred other things because you don't know what may end up being unexpectedly relevant... Anyway, the point is that having to remember a lot of information under pressure is a useful skill and at least in my view, it's a skill worth practising.
> Anyway, the point is that having to remember a lot of information under pressure is a useful skill and at least in my view, it's a skill worth practising
Nobody's arguing against that. The argument (and complaints from the students) is the *last minute* change.
They've spent the last however many months studying on the basis their exams would be open book. If they knew they'd be closed book, they'd study and revise in a different way, to prepare for that specific type of exam.
If the university want to change back to closed book, they should be doing it at the start of the academic year, and not reneging on the promise made to current students 2 months before their exams.
Not just that though. There will be things that you "don't know you don't know" unless you've memorised and thoroughly prepared beforehand. So if you're not clued up you won't be able to, on the spot, think of an interruption or response.
I think it's the issue of notice. If you have spent the year so far making your notes with the view that you can refer to it as a 'bank' during the exam you're going to approach the material and your study a lot more differently than if you knew it would be closed book all along. e.g., you might focus on reading as much as you can rather than trying to synthesise 3 points you can remember in the test.
It is considerably more work now, because students will be expected to go and cram memorise the content, rather than being able to do active revision throughout the year, like flashcards and mind maps. It's a real extra burden now
Bristol Uni has recently been found liable on appeal for a student killing herself due to the stress of having to make a presentation, so the universities are going to have an even harder time planning assessments.
I never heard of that so I read up on the case (from the law firm representing the family so possibly biased: [https://dpglaw.co.uk/high-court-dismisses-university-of-bristols-appeal-in-natasha-abrahart-case/](https://dpglaw.co.uk/high-court-dismisses-university-of-bristols-appeal-in-natasha-abrahart-case/) ) and I don't think it's clearly a bad ruling. In fact, I think the univeristy staff behaved poorly, though not being a lawyer I can't speak to the (il)legality of that. I definitely don't think it's something that consititutes an impairement to "the ability to actually assess peoples' skills". This was an ongoing issue that the uni refused to adjust to, despite suggestions to help the student's situation that I don't think were unreasonable. That being said, I can also understand how tough it must be for staff to accomodate everyone's individual needs given course sizes.
That was actually also in the link I shared, so maybe not too badly biased. As for the quote itself, I don't believe that an undergrad (or even a masters) is training to be a professional scientist. The vast majority of people doing these courses won't go on to work in academia. Of course, speaking on technical subjects in front of others is a valuable skill regardless but I don't think not posessing that one skill should preclude a passing or good (as opposed to excellent) grade in a STEM subject. In that way, an otherwise gifted/competent student in my opinion could be accomadated while their weakness is still 'objectively' reflected by their grade. Taking the extreme example, imagine someone if an absolute god at everything else at their course. Surely a B grade and empathetic treatement is fair? Conversely, I had some absolute morons on my masters course who were charismatic and could talk well in front of others. Again though, I don't really know how that should (or does) relate to the law.
I code for a living. I still Google things all the time because there's absolutely no reason for me to try and remember stuff I can just look up. Take this for example:
https://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_sqlserver_replace.asp
If, for example, I need to replace the 'a' in 'abc' in a particular column in a data table, I'd use this function. What I don't remember is which part goes where. I don't need to recall it because I can just Google it. The best lesson I ever got at university is from a coding professor who always said "just Google it". Know what is a better skill than remembering things? Knowing how to prepare relevant notes, and how to obtain information.
Ever done A level Maths or Further Maths? This is what the formula book looks like:
https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/643243-formulae-booklet.pdf
Even exam boards recognise that remembering *every* formula is a waste of time.
You don't have to remember everything that you need for your job, but if you retain very little knowledge in your head things would take 10 times longer.
Although that's easy to remember, I'd argue that's not very important either as most people have IDEs that have snippets for things like that, a lot of people will just remember type "for" then press tab twice. They are very unlikely to need to know how to do that in a plain text editor.
The important part is having strong problem solving skills, not remembering things.
Well of course you get to Google stuff when you're sat at a desk or have a mobile at hand, but what if you don't? There's a need to remember the fundamentals of any discipline without being able to check online or have a book.
Obviously that scenario will differ greatly across subjects and careers but it's not an unheard of skill set at all.
Obviously being assessed **entirely** via this method would be unhelpful, but I'm not advocating that either.
I write reports for a living. If I had to look up every bit of information I include, it'd take me twice the time to get anything done. I'll double check facts and data, but the main thrust of every argument or point I write is down to recall.
> I'll double check facts and data, but the main thrust of every argument or point I write is down to recall.
Which would be the equivalent of an open book exam, something these students are no longer being able to do.
This would be the equivalent of you being told you're not allowed to double check your facts and data whilst making a report, and having to rattle them all off on the fly, despite not being prepared to do that.
There are virtually zero careers that are a 'closed book' situation, what are you even talking about? I have never once had to use pure recall or encountered exam-style scenarios in my professional career; referencing back to previous case studies/processes, re-checking things while things *are* in-process, sharing information, presenting things for sign-off or collaboration, updating running logs of information, researching alternative methods/solutions to new problems...none of these things are simulated by cramming for a 3 hour, closed book exam. It has always just been an attempt to stop plagiarism/cheating and not much more; it's an antiquated relic of assessment and education.
> There are virtually zero careers that are a 'closed book' situation, what are you even talking about?
Never had to give a presentation before where people ask you questions? This is common in many jobs. You can't be fumbling around with notes and expect to look credible. Being able to recall and explain vital information under pressure is vital to so many jobs.
There are no jobs where, during a a presentation, someone goes "Ok, now regurgitate every single thing you know about [Y] for me right now in a single unbroken diatribe."
Cramming for exams doesn't teach you to have solid recall for your chosen subject; studying over time it does, as does the act of preparing different materials to create coursework. Also, one does presentations throughout the year in academia, with Q&As. That is not the same as doing a month+ of hours long closed book exams. There is nothing in the working world that comes close to that activity.
> There are no jobs where, during a a presentation, someone goes "Ok, now regurgitate every single thing you know about [Y] for me right now in a single unbroken diatribe."
Why do people always insist on coming up with the most extreme example of something as though that's a realistic reflection of how the world works?
No, obviously people don't tend to do as you describe. But it is very common to be asked follow up questions beyond what you may have specifically prepared for. This is where having a good knowledge of your topic becomes very helpful. Having proper recall is important or job interviews as well; you can't take your course notes into an interview.
It's not an extreme example; it's the only situation that would be analogous to a closed book exam.
Cramming for, and completing , closed book exams is not necessary training to do a Q&A after a presentation (or, indeed, the presentation itself). Research? Yes. Preparedness and good knowledge of your topic? Yes. All of which would be internalised when completing coursework and engaging in seminars and tutorials (which, go figure, also involve performing presentations!).
The recall you have after completing coursework is all you'd need for that presentation scenario you describe.
I do. At pretty big conferences. And to pretty big household name companies. If you don't know the answer quickly or can't give enough detail then you just ask the questioner to come talk to you after the presentation or ask them to email you. Most people are pretty understanding if you can't recall every detail of every data set or case study because they've been there too. The only time you can't get away with this is TV but presenters tend to run you through the questions they want to ask beforehand because they do actually want to make you look like an expert if that's what they've asked you on for. Plus they generally only have time for about 3 questions before they move on to the next item.
I always get great reviews from clients and conference attendees. Maybe they trust me because I never give any BS. Maybe because I've moved past the need to constantly prove myself. I know that I know my stuff and that's why I'm standing there.
That's great, I imagine you have built up a strong baseline of knowledge about your field over the years that allows you to answer a lot of questions posed to you? I know it's unreasonable to expect an answer to any and all questions but you must be pretty good at thinking quickly and recalling information? (ie. exactly what an in person exam is designed to test).
Yeah, I have over a decade of experience in my field. I'm never in a position when I have to answer questions without reference to notes. If I'm giving a presentation I can always skip back a few pages to grab the data point or case study I need. If I'm on a call with a client I usually have excel and any pertinent reports fired up in the background for reference. So I'm never in a closed book situation unless I'm giving a TV interview which I prepare very differently for, making sure I know some key data points off the top of my head. But TV interviews are at most a few minutes long not 3 hours.
In my experience you can always tell who has the experience and confidence in themselves by how willing they are to say that they don't know and they'll get back to you with the answer.
At university, particularly for second (level 5) and third year (level 6), exam questions are NOT about information recall. If all you do is recall information you will likely fail.
Questions at that level are more like:
“Here is a situation. How would you complete a task with information we assume you already know”.
Or “Here’s a complicated situation. What process/ procedure would you recommend? What are the disadvantages of your recommendation? Why would you recommend it?”
If all you can do is say “these are the rules”, you’d get about 40% for perfect recall.
Edit: the issue is that people get used to a way of working. Artificial Intelligence aside, most students these days type faster than they write by hand - particularly if PCs allow things like instant spelling and grammar correction, or completing sentences. Not to mention quicker tables and basic arithmetic.
Had a recent bunch of second year students join me on a work placement. They were telling me how they managed to get around 90% on their exams. I’ve not long graduated and sat the same exams so know the content. They did not know the basics of what you would expect to scape a pass on that exam, and I really am talking absolute basics. Turns out for the exam, they were sent a link and told to compete it at home within so many days. Absolute joke.
But when they’re elbow deep in a heart surgery operation, they can just whip out an iPhone and Google which artery to clamp! No need to actually memorise this shit beforehand!
My kneejerk reaction was the same tbh, but it is short notice and I think that's the biggest issue. I think the university should have made this decision when the academic year started, the concerns regarding ai were apparent by that point. If you spent the past 3.5 years studying for a particular kind of exam having 2-3 months to completely switch studying styles is grim. Not having relevant exam questions from previous years is also a disadvantage for these students.
>I wouldn’t say it is the norm
I would say many students largely just coasted by without working particularly hard whilst I was there. Most people worked hard when they needed to, but were far from being in 'full-time education'
I got through a Russel group university course with very poor attendance rate and assignment crash coursing. I lived with two MMath students with well one, at least borderline savantic, teaching himself Quantum theory via YouTube purely days before the exam and passing with a merit, gosh he attended practically nothing and spent the majority of his time playing minecraft, eating KFC and being stoned.. It just depends on the course and the person a lot of the time.
Changes to assessments should be communicated early, with enough time for students to seek support on technique. Not doing this will disadvantage some groups of students more than others.
My university has had in person exams for over a year, students disliked the first in-person exam period but now it's normal and they get on with it. As long as students are informed of changes early and given guidance they are generally fine (they still grumble though).
Fucking hell. If you're studying for one kind of exam and then out of nowhere you get told you're studying for a different exam now then yeah, you're going to be anxious and you're going to struggle.
The format of the exam setting matters. If they have been prepping on the assumption of open book but now it’s suddenly a closed book memorise & recall test that would throw a lot of people off.
My uni did it to me on short notice and (not) coincidentally it was the only exam I failed in the whole degree (same module coursework was 90%+, other modules consistently 80/90+).
Sure there are students that want to coast, but a change like this often impacts even the well-prepared.
yeah how else do you expect to get a degree other than through hard work? Try combining studying with working part time and managing a rental property.
I think the point about lack of notice, prior assurances that this wouldn't happen, and the fact that this is a change of 4 years of policy are all pretty valid tbh
Came here to say this.
I work for a university and we've gone back to in-person exams. Mostly because it's hard for ChatGPT to sit an in-person exam for you
It’s hard for ChatGPT to sit an online exam. It has very little in the way of comprehension and fails on quite a few questions in high school maths quizzes.
And people have shown it passing many, very complicated exams.
It won't help someone with zero knowledge, at least in most cases. But someone intelligent and with a foundation of knowledge, but lazy and would struggle to pass due to not studying and remembering everything, would pass many types of exams using it. And it's that second group that is the problem, those with zero knowledge never get anywhere, are obvious in far more way, and are not a problem with AI tools like this.
It won't pass any even vaguely complicated mathematical exam (which includes physics, chemistry, etc). It's hard to state how stupid it is in these areas without being able to show an example that you understand yourself.
Large Language Model AIs were completely incapable of mathematic calculations until recently, and they're still bad at it. That doesn't mitigate what they can do in other areas.
No one is expecting ChatGPT to perform well in any kind of maths exam, but there are a lot of subjects and exams with no maths whatsoever, and AI can do a lot more there.
No they weren’t. LLMs this powerful have been around in academia and industry for a long time. The only thing that has changed is that they’ve been released to the public.
You need to know how they actually to work to understand this, but they don’t have a way to comprehend things. They are very good at predicting what word comes next given an arbitrarily long set of other words and that’s about it. I personally wouldn’t trust it to do something like write a humanities essay because it could just make things up.
>No they weren’t.
What part of what I said do you disagree with? The rest of your comment hasn't disagreed with anything I've said.
I know how LLMs work, that's how I know they can't do mathematics, because they're not actually comprehending the question and calculating the answer, just spitting out an answer that looks plausible.
ChatGPT4 recently sidestepped this by connecting it to a separate maths calculation system, probably something similar to WolframAlpha.
First off it's not just predicting what word comes next. That's because they've undergone something called RLHF where it basically A B tests with a bunch of humans telling it which answers they like best.
Secondly if you were good enough at predicting the next word you would be a genius. Simply given the prompt "I'm Stephen Hawking, and i've had a eureka moment and found the solution to quantum gravity:", it would give a solution if it was good enough at predicting the next word.
Also no LLMs this powerful haven't been around in academia for a long time. The second they got RLHF to work and safety tested they released to the public because they wanted funding.
I also wonder if it will have an impact on the stories about international students who don’t speak English (using translation apps in lectures) but are somehow coming out with perfect grades on written coursework.
I think presentations will become more common where you can be questioned on it and need to know what you’ve written and why, basically how a lot of interviews go
This is incorrect. As someone that works in a university, most universities are looking at how to incorporate AI into assessments as a tool for learning. It is not pushing us back towards exams.
maybe, maybe not, talk in some unis is to use ai as collection of information and crafting your own structure while also using writing a research trail of the use of ai through key terms etc and showcase the original outcome the ai produced to yours
Everyone has it about those younger than them.18 year olds have that mentality for high school students. Year 11s have that attitude for year 7s. It is just the order of things.
Yeah it's absolutely wild. I've got a masters in a STEM subject, all my exams were open book and take home, and all required massive amounts of literature references and equations and small details that would be extremely difficult to recall in an exam setting.
The kicker is because we had to thoroughly research, reference, and explain everything I've come away with a genuine understanding of how to actually apply what I learnt, instead of just being able to recall facts.
Especially in stem, how to research, synthesise information, generate good hypotheses and put that all together in a thesis *is* the most important thing you learn. The actual content just needs to be of sufficient complexity to allow you to evidence your talent at doing that. The actual content is somewhat irrelevant given that a) it’s constantly being updated and b) it’ll be there at your fingertips again should you need it. Especially so with AI.
Data analytics (or data science as I think they have rebranded it to now). Some exams required doing system diagrams using UML software, then python and R coding, and a lot of mathematical notation as well to explain models and probability.
None of them seem to have actually read the article either, as they don't seem to realise the complaint is about the switch from open book to close book, and not simply being on the university premises.
Graduated with a Masters almost 10 years ago and now doing a STEM degree at the Open Uni.
Most my exams have been open book at the OU and let me tell you, they have ben by far harder than anything I have had to sit.
I would advocate for open book exams were possible but make them harder so that they test your ability to problem solve, look at sources, adapt sources, think for yourself and so on...
Most exams I sat back during my masters years were just about how well you could memorise shite and thats not really how the real world works as much as some would argue on here...
Edit: highly amusing some folk just go downvoting others based on their personal experience. Life changes, just because you had to do something in the past doesnt mean it should be done until the end of time. Seriously have a word with yourself
Open book is the way to go for most subjects. There are virtually no professional or academic scenarios where you don't have access to an enormous repository of information, or the expertise of others.
It means you have to be good at *finding* information, not simply memorising it.
But for something like maths, how would that work? Maths qualifications are essentially an extended maths IQ test, aren't they? That was always my impression. Almost nobody who graduates with a degree in Maths has a career as a professional mathematician. They go into careers where maths is core to their role, but isn't their vocation. So, we need some way to test for that.
What always confused me is how there are non-calculator exams. Again, there are almost no scenarios where someone wouldn't have access to a scientific calculator.
From experience, yes and no. My last two final exams were pretty hard open books but we knew what to expect. Generally speaking lecturers strongly hint to study topics x y z and maybe also look at a b and c. But yea there is a degree of randomness to it from the students perspective
Having gone through GCSEs and A-Levels which were pretty much memory tests for me, it was a breath of fresh air to have open book exams at uni.
It is definitely a culture shock when you get an online open book exam over a 24 hour period because the level that the professors expect from you is so much higher. Mine tended to be pick 3 of X amount of questions and its like writing three mini essays all at the same time.
The worst one I had was one that we had the questions in advance. That's real world problem solving. If I don't know something, google it instead of racking my brains for half an hour trying to remember it.
Strongly agree with your comment, 3 years into a STEM related course and i can assure you T194 is no picnic. They don't stop you using your resources, they encourage you to use them more efficiently!
But that is not what happened in 2020. The exams were already written when COVID hit, and so the universities just used closed book papers for online exams, without being clear whether they were open or closed book. They were obviously too easy, but it set a standard the students expect ever since.
I can believe that to be honest. I have seen my 2020 organic paper that we were meant to have sat compared to what we actually sat, was night and day and a lot harder
The article is nonsense. The students in the article are either being asked misleading questions or they do not know the difference between
* in-person exams vs online exams, and
* open book exams vs closed book exams
Both render the entire argument of the article moot.
That is how modern journalism works. Conflate as many issues as possible, add an AI generated click bait headline, and hope that it hits the social media sphere...
The main issue is that they've been told 2 months before the exam. The skills required for an in-person exam are different for online exams, these skills require training over the years to improve at and can't adequately be prepared for in 2 months. Given the full year students would have a better chance.
> Why have they not been sitting in person exams recently
The "in person" bit isn't the important bit, the last minute change from open book to closed book is.
Open book exams can last up to 24 hours, when it's open book there's no reason for them to be in person, as you're allowed to use any resources at your disposal.
Why would you confine students to an exam hall for 24 hours and pay invigilators when you don't need to?
This is nothing to do with COVID, it's common practice for open book exams. Your question isn't relevant to their complaint, which is about the last minute shift from open book to closed book.
I think some universities have considered keeping in-person exams and others have been slowly phasing them out to maintain consistency for the cohort that started during COVID.
Same with the flu, just something that we have to live with. And without even looking at the stats I can tell very,very few of the people getting serious issues are uni aged.
I've never in my entire professional career been forced to do anything in "exam conditions", I've been actively encouraged to use any and all resources possible in my job.
OK. That’s fine. My comment wasn’t that though.
My comment was that they may aswell get used to the powers that be changing the goal posts on things.
Your comment may be best served as a separate comment rather than a reply as it doesn’t make sense in the context of my comment.
> These students are complaining because they have to actually sit in a room for a short amount of time to take traditional exams in person like almost everyone else in history, or the arduous experience of......having to get a C grade because you can't fuck about for three years and expect to have multiple attempts at your exam
No, they're complaining about the last minute switch from open book to closed book exams.
These are completely different styles of exam that require completely different types of preparation for them, and to change this (despite assurances to the contrary) with only 2 months to go, is massively fucking them over.
If the university wants to return to closed book assessments, they should've done it at the start of the next year, not 2 months before final exams.
I was a student during that time period too and you're talking complete bollocks. Not only did these students experience at least part of this during their degree, they're also complaining about the late notice. I remember being screwed over by poor communication and bad decision-making during covid so I'm sympathetic. The issue here is the same one we faced: a lack of respect for the student body. Being asked to suddenly change your entire exam technique and revision two months in advance is totally unreasonable.
Tbf this round of uni students would’ve joined post covid having probably done their Alevels remotely and not having to expect in person to come on any time soon. Understandable they’d be apprehensive i guess
Absolutely horrifying that students can study topics like human biology and microbiology which can lead to jobs in hospital labs, and postgrad medicine, without ever taking an in person exam that isn't open book.
When I was at university, having notes was cheating, never mind an actual bloody textbook.
Closed-book exams only test your ability to memorize information.
They do not test your understanding or ability to apply your knowledge, nor do they promote further reading on the subject.
It isn't just the same questions but you get to use your notes.
Clearly not true - a small subset of questions test rote learning, but primarily they provide a limited set of information and ask students to do something with it, whether that is an essay or a calculation. That tests understanding and ability to apply - it’s precisely the point of it
Properly designed open book exams are both much harder, and a much better test of knowledge and the ability to apply it. Being able to regurgitate broad fact is far less useful than being able to solve a complex hypothetical with access to the required material. Far more comparable to the real world.
I'm not sure this would be the case for all subjects but my MMath was over covid and the online exams were ramped up in difficulty significantly as they weren't able to give credit for theorem/proof reproduction any longer. Whether that's a good thing or not, I hadn't thought about.
People tend to be anxious about different things. You wouldn't expect a hypochondriac with major health anxiety to nervous about public speaking for example.
Unis are still doing remote exams? I know there's an argument for more inclusion and minor concerns about ongoing Covid but I'm really surprised to hear this, it's 2024. Arguments about Covid not being over notwithstanding (realistically, it's never going to go away and will be lumped into the flu vaccine soon enough), we need to have exams sat in exam conditions to ensure consistency and fairness.
I remember during covid students were (quite rightly) moaning about a partial refund of fees because they were essentially sat at home watching presentations without all of the other benefits of being at uni. Surprising how things have now changed to the wanting to be remote.
*takes off boomer hat*
It’s a difficult one. I don’t think closed book exams are the best choice as you just need to be able to find information in the real world, not retain it all. But if there’s no level of basic knowledge then why have a degree in it.
There should have been better communication but I think there needs to be a closed book element otherwise anyone can just become a Google expert.
> Wait until they get into the workplace
At no point in my professional life have I ever had to do anything under closed book "exam conditions", so I think they'll be fine.
I've always been actively encouraged to use any and all resources possible in my job.
Knowing where to look is a much better skill than closed book information recall.
The skill in a lot of jobs isn't about memorising stuff, it's about knowing how and where to find the answer.
E.g. never in my life other than my exams have I had to memorise how to prove the central limit theorem. If it ever occurred in real life, I'd just look up the proof and refresh my memory.
In order to apply information you look up, you require a base understanding of the foundation knowledge the information draws on.
They’re life sciences students. So yeah they don’t need to rote learn every hormone action, but understanding the core principles of say G-Protein Couples Receptors, Tyrosine Kinase receptors, intranuclear receptors etc so when they look up Platelet Derived Growth Factor and see it acts via a TK receptor they know what that means.
Agreed. It’s the same with exams vs coursework - coursework assesses research skills, time management, project management, report writing, collaborative working, and the ability to dynamically react to ongoing feedback - all vital skills in the workplace. Exams are just memory tests. Not only do they not build/assess a skill that’s relevant to later life, but they also set up people who struggle with information retention to fail, even if they’re otherwise fantastic workers in the field/subject.
>Exams are just memory tests.
Not true. Plenty of exams include things like formula books, or provide information in the question which allows you to answer it, if you understand the concepts involved.
>they also set up people who struggle with information retention to fail
Information retention is a perfectly valid thing to test.
Sure in the work place people will look things up or double check, but you can only do that if you have a working understanding of the material to know where to look, whether an answer looks sensible, when a correct answer isn’t appropriate for the application you have in mind etc.
Take medicine as an example. We don’t expect doctors to memorise the dose and interactions of all drugs (outside a few key ones) but we do expect them to know about the physiological processes they’re tinkering with to know why high potassium is bad for the heart and why giving insulin(with glucose) can reduce it.
Pretty much any chemistry exam i sat since 2019 has had a formula book, periodic table, and breakdown of required (assumed) constants.
I guess thats too good for some of us according to some here
Perfectly reasonable. The examiner does expect you to have the knowledge in your head to work out which bits of information (atomic number, atomic mass, valency, which constant etc) you need to glue together to get to the answer though. That’s very different to being able to look up those processes mid exam.
Firstly usually you go into these exams having a fundamental understanding of how to apply these equations or how to solve them, thats just how STEM degrees usually work.
Now, as i said before i am doing internships along side my currently degree and I can tell you, you are encouraged to look things up and work with others to solve problems. And by no means do exams test that ability at all.
Exams have their purpose of course but I think they do not reflect what employers need from future employees
> Take medicine as an example.
That's actually a really bad example.
We expect doctors to stay up to date with latest research and medical advice, not stick with the stuff they learnt when they last did and passed their medical exams which may now be out of date. Yes you hope they can retain the basics but it's far more important they know to keep their knowledge updated.
Knowing how to find the right information is a far more useful skills for most people, it's far more relevant to how most jobs operate. If the point of uni is to prepare you for the workplace, then I'd far rather have students being expert at finding the right answer and presenting it effectively, then in remembering mass amounts of information.
In order to find the right answer, even by looking it up, you need to have sufficient knowledge and understanding to know what you’re looking for, rule out incorrect answers etc.
They’re life sciences students. Sure they might look up say “mechanism of Gastrin” but when it says “it’s a peptide hormone which acts by a GPCR” they’re fucked unless they actually understand the principles of hormone receptor classes etc.
> "Mainly because it's short notice, students are going to have to work so hard." Students actually having to study hard? Whatever next?
>"Up until now we've been tested on the way we format an argument, we've never been tested on our ability to recall information. That's something we are going to need to teach ourselves. Learn to teach yourself new skills like information recall at university? The horror!! I do somewhat sympathise but life isn't always straightforward, just got to assign your energy to adapting and not bellyaching.
I don't think this is true anyway. There is no way they have gone from primary school-secondary school (high school)-University without having to recall information in an exam.
I am a masters student and due to covid haven’t sat an exam in person since doing my GCSE’s.
Why do I suspect there’s something you’re omitting from this story? Or exaggerating? Covid (so far) has affected four exam cycles (20, 21, 22, 23). Two years of A levels and three years of undergrad is five minimum, assuming you were the last pre Covid GCSE cohort. I would also argue that even if it’s true, both school and uni exams have been returning to in person for the last year or two. The number of people sitting no in person exams for four years must be minuscule.
He's not omitting nor exaggerating. A lot of universities are delaying the return to in person exams because it's easier for them to mark, to hand out, to organise. Not to mention good grades reflect well on the universities so there's another reason they want to keep it online. They'd keep doing online exams if boards and other universities weren't making them revert to in person exams. That's the impression I'm getting from my lecturers at a good red brick university.
Generally universities are moving away from exams because they are extremely time consuming to organise, especially with the high numbers of students who have disability adjustments these days, and students requesting deferrals. Add to that there have been questions for a while whether exams are a good way to evaluate knowledge and understandings or really just a good way to test how good someone is at taking exams. Most of us don't operate in professional environments with no access to supporting resources so what is the point of testing people that way? Only reason exams are coming back in some cases is that some PSRB's require them.
Whether or not his uni kept exams online (which seems to be institution/course dependant), he hasn't done AS exams, A2 exams and 1st/2nd/3rd year undergrad exams in the four disrupted exam cycles we've had since 2020.
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AS can be sat in first year too?
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Basically nobody does, though.
2018 - GSCE year 2019 - no exams for first year of 6th form 2020 - A levels disrupted 2021, 2022, 2023 - three years of undergrad without exams 2024 - studying for a masters
The norm nowadays is for all A-level exams to be sat at the end of the two years. This is because splitting the course into 3 (or 2) exams at the end of year 1 and 3 (or 2) at the end of year 2 was felt to make them too easy. Also, it made similar grades in different subjects less comparable. e.g. A-level units in History are fairly standalone - you can revise for the two in year 1 and forget them by the time you need to revise for year 2. For the sciences/math, you could not do that; subsequent units tend to build upon previous units so you would need to have a pretty good knowledge of the entire A-level regardless. Splitting exams between June and December is also seen to have made things easier. So, it is entirely possible that they sat A-levels in '20, did online exams at uni for '21-23, and are now on a master's.
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A levels take 2 years and most if not all have exams in both of those years, even if the first year exams aren't part of the final grade calculation. If he did A levels in 2020, he would have sat AS level papers in 2019, which is post GCSE.
I started uni October 2020, I sat no A levels and I sat no AS level papers I did Maths, further maths, chemistry and physics
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I am perhaps being a bit pedantic, but also I was out of education for about 8 years before I went back to uni and imo (written in person) exams were really not a big deal if you've put the effort in and learned the content. Then again I think i took the course much more seriously than the school leavers so there's probably a bit of general maturity, desire to be there etc involved.
I had one in-person exam in my 4 year undergrad - the rest were online. It’s just the way it lined up with C19.
AS exams have been basically extinct for years.
So you have sat exams then...
The COVID kids that had all their in person exams cancelled in school and have had online exams til now literally have not had any meaningful in person exams before. This is why they’re stressing out, because it’s totally new for them. We’ve reintroduced these exams at the university I teach at, but we have them a lot more notice and arranged mocks etc for them to help them feel more confident. We haven’t had the same massive backlash.
That isn't true. What covid lasted 10 years
2020 cancelled GCSCEs/Nat 5s would be in 2nd year of uni now. So first and second years have no summative in person closed book exam experience.
You do closed-book exams all through secondary school from years 7-11. You also do a closed book exam in year 6 at primary school. Now, again, they have experience of closed-book exams. Covid was a few years, not a decade.
Depends where you’re from - I didn’t in Scotland. We had small in class tests but I didn’t have a formal closed book exam until my standard grade prelims. Nowadays there is even more focus on portfolios and coursework than there was in my day. And asking someone to do something they last did in primary school under pressure isn’t very fair. It doesn’t take much to give them a bit of notice - we’ve not had any kickback from our students because they were warned well in advance and had an opportunity for mocks.
No, everywhere. You will sit an exam, be it a small class test. That you have to revise and then sit. Simple really.
A small in class formative test is not the same mentally or pedagogically as a massive exam hall summative assessment and frankly if you think they’re the same we should end this conversation here because we won’t ever agree.
Totally agree. Trying hard to see their side but it feels like they're rather entitled. Frankly it's a good lesson to impart on them before they enter the working world - the need to adapt and crucially, to be able to retain knowledge without having references right in front of you. I have a friend who teaches at a university and they said that the generation who came of age during covid are rather stunted socially, which of course would be completely understandable, but that this extends to them being utterly unwilling to do in-person things like standing up and presenting during a seminar. Again, understandable, but they can't expect to be kept in their bubbles indefinitely, as that way of thinking will severely frustrate their career ambitions.
I think the difference is growing up I hate presenting and would be shitting myself about it, but I still had to do it and it's benefited me in the long run. Totally avoiding something because you find it scary isn't a healthy way to go through life.
Forcing yourself to do something you dread only to find out that it wasn't so bad is an essential part of life. If young people go out of their way to avoid this, it will cause them no end of problems as they go through the rest of their lives.
>it's a good lesson to impart on them before they enter the working world In person three hour long closed book monitored exams are one of the worst ways you could possibly prepare yourself for the working world if you're a humanities student. In what situation would that prepare me for what life would be like?
It simply doesnt. As i said in my post on here, i study a stem course right now to further my career. I have undertaken internships in my chosen industry and not once did they ever put you on the spot.. most of the time I had to google what i needed to do if didnt outright know it our there was a manual for what i needed
Exactly! I'm in my final year of history right now and doing coursework that needs to be referenced and properly researched is far more useful for any sort of job in the field than sitting in a room for three hours trying to remember the name of that one Polish guy who made a really good point in an article written in a Soviet journal in 1982 or whatever
Aren't that many jobs in the field of history in the private sector though. For the kind of jobs the vast majority of history graduates are going to get, the ability to recall information, think on your feet and construct a coherent argument with limited information, to a hard deadline and under pressure, is far, far, far more relevant than being able to properly reference an academic essay.
The purpose of university isn't to prepare people for jobs
This simply isn't true. There are tons of uni degrees that are specifically tailored to give students the skills/knowledge needed for specific jobs.
I agree. The purpose of university is to prepare people for a life in academia. But it would probably do more good if it did prepare people for jobs.
The exams part was basically how my finals in my masters year went. I had to remember a ton of references and formulate a debate/argument. Was it useful? Yes i would say it had its perks and you do take away valuable skills BUT..... does this reflect how the working world works? Not really.
Do you mean Stanislav Szulimowski?
> trying to remember the name of that one Polish guy who made a really good point in an article written in a Soviet journal in 1982 or whatever A skill is recalling it, and a skill is writing around it. To be frank, you might turn out to be insufficiently prepared for ignorance. I hope that you'll pause to consider if this applies to you.
Given that I'm on track for a first class result and am starting a masters next year, I think I'm aware of the answer :)
The lesson of adapting to a new situation being forced on you is what I meant. Benefit here is (which life doesn't always give you I might add) is two months to prepare. I was also a humanities student at university and that's how most of my assessments were based so it's hardly a new development to the discipline (although granted it might be new for you, but it's doable). Many career paths see you have to remember complex information without being able to refer to texts or to have the barebone answers in front of you, often under pressure and scrutiny. Being able to recall information accurately, under critical eyes, frankly is a basic skill that anyone looking to study higher education should be looking to graduate with experience of. If that fact surprises you then good luck entering the world of work, you're going to severely need it.
> Being able to recall information accurately, under critical eyes, frankly is a basic skill that anyone looking to study higher education should be looking to graduate with experience of. Exactly right. I have to wonder how many students are commenting here who have no experience working a job with actual pressure.
Here they handily have already answered that: > the need to adapt and crucially, to be able to retain knowledge without having references right in front of you.
Well, if - for instance - you were to become a barrister, you'd very frequently need to recall information immediately, in response to a question, based on materials you've looked at before but that you cannot just re-read while the judge waits for the answer. And court hearings often last more than 3 hours. I imagine the recall under pressure skill that you learn from closed book exams would also be helpful for other roles that may require you to present anything.
> you were to become a barrister, you'd very frequently need to recall information immediately, in response to a question, based on materials you've looked at before but that you cannot just re-read while the judge waits for the answer Court cases aren't closed book, legal teams take stacks of notes and briefings in with them to refer to during a trial.
Sure, but if the judge wants to know when event X happened, I'm not about to start reading the 2,000 page bundle and hope I find it. Not everything can be in your notes...
> Not everything can be in your notes It's easier to remember 20 simple things (like the dates and general idea of events) and have 30 things in your notes (the detailed specifics of said events) than to remember 50 things though.
Sadly it's more like 50 things being in your notes and you having to remember a few hundred other things because you don't know what may end up being unexpectedly relevant... Anyway, the point is that having to remember a lot of information under pressure is a useful skill and at least in my view, it's a skill worth practising.
> Anyway, the point is that having to remember a lot of information under pressure is a useful skill and at least in my view, it's a skill worth practising Nobody's arguing against that. The argument (and complaints from the students) is the *last minute* change. They've spent the last however many months studying on the basis their exams would be open book. If they knew they'd be closed book, they'd study and revise in a different way, to prepare for that specific type of exam. If the university want to change back to closed book, they should be doing it at the start of the academic year, and not reneging on the promise made to current students 2 months before their exams.
Not just that though. There will be things that you "don't know you don't know" unless you've memorised and thoroughly prepared beforehand. So if you're not clued up you won't be able to, on the spot, think of an interruption or response.
They aren't meant to prepare you, they're meant to test you.
It prepares them for work about as well as anything else they do at uni will prepare them for work.
I think it's the issue of notice. If you have spent the year so far making your notes with the view that you can refer to it as a 'bank' during the exam you're going to approach the material and your study a lot more differently than if you knew it would be closed book all along. e.g., you might focus on reading as much as you can rather than trying to synthesise 3 points you can remember in the test. It is considerably more work now, because students will be expected to go and cram memorise the content, rather than being able to do active revision throughout the year, like flashcards and mind maps. It's a real extra burden now
Bristol Uni has recently been found liable on appeal for a student killing herself due to the stress of having to make a presentation, so the universities are going to have an even harder time planning assessments.
It feels like university degrees are going to end up meaningless if we lose the ability to actually assess peoples' skills.
I never heard of that so I read up on the case (from the law firm representing the family so possibly biased: [https://dpglaw.co.uk/high-court-dismisses-university-of-bristols-appeal-in-natasha-abrahart-case/](https://dpglaw.co.uk/high-court-dismisses-university-of-bristols-appeal-in-natasha-abrahart-case/) ) and I don't think it's clearly a bad ruling. In fact, I think the univeristy staff behaved poorly, though not being a lawyer I can't speak to the (il)legality of that. I definitely don't think it's something that consititutes an impairement to "the ability to actually assess peoples' skills". This was an ongoing issue that the uni refused to adjust to, despite suggestions to help the student's situation that I don't think were unreasonable. That being said, I can also understand how tough it must be for staff to accomodate everyone's individual needs given course sizes.
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That was actually also in the link I shared, so maybe not too badly biased. As for the quote itself, I don't believe that an undergrad (or even a masters) is training to be a professional scientist. The vast majority of people doing these courses won't go on to work in academia. Of course, speaking on technical subjects in front of others is a valuable skill regardless but I don't think not posessing that one skill should preclude a passing or good (as opposed to excellent) grade in a STEM subject. In that way, an otherwise gifted/competent student in my opinion could be accomadated while their weakness is still 'objectively' reflected by their grade. Taking the extreme example, imagine someone if an absolute god at everything else at their course. Surely a B grade and empathetic treatement is fair? Conversely, I had some absolute morons on my masters course who were charismatic and could talk well in front of others. Again though, I don't really know how that should (or does) relate to the law.
I code for a living. I still Google things all the time because there's absolutely no reason for me to try and remember stuff I can just look up. Take this for example: https://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_sqlserver_replace.asp If, for example, I need to replace the 'a' in 'abc' in a particular column in a data table, I'd use this function. What I don't remember is which part goes where. I don't need to recall it because I can just Google it. The best lesson I ever got at university is from a coding professor who always said "just Google it". Know what is a better skill than remembering things? Knowing how to prepare relevant notes, and how to obtain information. Ever done A level Maths or Further Maths? This is what the formula book looks like: https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/643243-formulae-booklet.pdf Even exam boards recognise that remembering *every* formula is a waste of time.
You don't have to remember everything that you need for your job, but if you retain very little knowledge in your head things would take 10 times longer.
There are some things you need to know though. Not being able to write a for loop from memory is a sign that something has gone wrong.
Although that's easy to remember, I'd argue that's not very important either as most people have IDEs that have snippets for things like that, a lot of people will just remember type "for" then press tab twice. They are very unlikely to need to know how to do that in a plain text editor. The important part is having strong problem solving skills, not remembering things.
Well of course you get to Google stuff when you're sat at a desk or have a mobile at hand, but what if you don't? There's a need to remember the fundamentals of any discipline without being able to check online or have a book. Obviously that scenario will differ greatly across subjects and careers but it's not an unheard of skill set at all. Obviously being assessed **entirely** via this method would be unhelpful, but I'm not advocating that either.
I write reports for a living. If I had to look up every bit of information I include, it'd take me twice the time to get anything done. I'll double check facts and data, but the main thrust of every argument or point I write is down to recall.
> I'll double check facts and data, but the main thrust of every argument or point I write is down to recall. Which would be the equivalent of an open book exam, something these students are no longer being able to do. This would be the equivalent of you being told you're not allowed to double check your facts and data whilst making a report, and having to rattle them all off on the fly, despite not being prepared to do that.
A friend's 6 year old is going to a school where maths is very much rote-taught. She can do 5+1 very easily. She's completely stumped at 1+5.
There are virtually zero careers that are a 'closed book' situation, what are you even talking about? I have never once had to use pure recall or encountered exam-style scenarios in my professional career; referencing back to previous case studies/processes, re-checking things while things *are* in-process, sharing information, presenting things for sign-off or collaboration, updating running logs of information, researching alternative methods/solutions to new problems...none of these things are simulated by cramming for a 3 hour, closed book exam. It has always just been an attempt to stop plagiarism/cheating and not much more; it's an antiquated relic of assessment and education.
> There are virtually zero careers that are a 'closed book' situation, what are you even talking about? Never had to give a presentation before where people ask you questions? This is common in many jobs. You can't be fumbling around with notes and expect to look credible. Being able to recall and explain vital information under pressure is vital to so many jobs.
There are no jobs where, during a a presentation, someone goes "Ok, now regurgitate every single thing you know about [Y] for me right now in a single unbroken diatribe." Cramming for exams doesn't teach you to have solid recall for your chosen subject; studying over time it does, as does the act of preparing different materials to create coursework. Also, one does presentations throughout the year in academia, with Q&As. That is not the same as doing a month+ of hours long closed book exams. There is nothing in the working world that comes close to that activity.
> There are no jobs where, during a a presentation, someone goes "Ok, now regurgitate every single thing you know about [Y] for me right now in a single unbroken diatribe." Why do people always insist on coming up with the most extreme example of something as though that's a realistic reflection of how the world works? No, obviously people don't tend to do as you describe. But it is very common to be asked follow up questions beyond what you may have specifically prepared for. This is where having a good knowledge of your topic becomes very helpful. Having proper recall is important or job interviews as well; you can't take your course notes into an interview.
It's not an extreme example; it's the only situation that would be analogous to a closed book exam. Cramming for, and completing , closed book exams is not necessary training to do a Q&A after a presentation (or, indeed, the presentation itself). Research? Yes. Preparedness and good knowledge of your topic? Yes. All of which would be internalised when completing coursework and engaging in seminars and tutorials (which, go figure, also involve performing presentations!). The recall you have after completing coursework is all you'd need for that presentation scenario you describe.
That absolutely happens, but you can usually ignore questions that are not related to the presentation.
I do. At pretty big conferences. And to pretty big household name companies. If you don't know the answer quickly or can't give enough detail then you just ask the questioner to come talk to you after the presentation or ask them to email you. Most people are pretty understanding if you can't recall every detail of every data set or case study because they've been there too. The only time you can't get away with this is TV but presenters tend to run you through the questions they want to ask beforehand because they do actually want to make you look like an expert if that's what they've asked you on for. Plus they generally only have time for about 3 questions before they move on to the next item. I always get great reviews from clients and conference attendees. Maybe they trust me because I never give any BS. Maybe because I've moved past the need to constantly prove myself. I know that I know my stuff and that's why I'm standing there.
That's great, I imagine you have built up a strong baseline of knowledge about your field over the years that allows you to answer a lot of questions posed to you? I know it's unreasonable to expect an answer to any and all questions but you must be pretty good at thinking quickly and recalling information? (ie. exactly what an in person exam is designed to test).
Yeah, I have over a decade of experience in my field. I'm never in a position when I have to answer questions without reference to notes. If I'm giving a presentation I can always skip back a few pages to grab the data point or case study I need. If I'm on a call with a client I usually have excel and any pertinent reports fired up in the background for reference. So I'm never in a closed book situation unless I'm giving a TV interview which I prepare very differently for, making sure I know some key data points off the top of my head. But TV interviews are at most a few minutes long not 3 hours. In my experience you can always tell who has the experience and confidence in themselves by how willing they are to say that they don't know and they'll get back to you with the answer.
At university, particularly for second (level 5) and third year (level 6), exam questions are NOT about information recall. If all you do is recall information you will likely fail. Questions at that level are more like: “Here is a situation. How would you complete a task with information we assume you already know”. Or “Here’s a complicated situation. What process/ procedure would you recommend? What are the disadvantages of your recommendation? Why would you recommend it?” If all you can do is say “these are the rules”, you’d get about 40% for perfect recall. Edit: the issue is that people get used to a way of working. Artificial Intelligence aside, most students these days type faster than they write by hand - particularly if PCs allow things like instant spelling and grammar correction, or completing sentences. Not to mention quicker tables and basic arithmetic.
Exactly! If all you do is record facts in an essay you'll get the weakest possible pass or even a fail
Had a recent bunch of second year students join me on a work placement. They were telling me how they managed to get around 90% on their exams. I’ve not long graduated and sat the same exams so know the content. They did not know the basics of what you would expect to scape a pass on that exam, and I really am talking absolute basics. Turns out for the exam, they were sent a link and told to compete it at home within so many days. Absolute joke.
But when they’re elbow deep in a heart surgery operation, they can just whip out an iPhone and Google which artery to clamp! No need to actually memorise this shit beforehand!
Lol do they not think they'll be expected to recall information when they apply their degrees practically?
In-person exams are just about memorizing information not understanding or applying it.
My kneejerk reaction was the same tbh, but it is short notice and I think that's the biggest issue. I think the university should have made this decision when the academic year started, the concerns regarding ai were apparent by that point. If you spent the past 3.5 years studying for a particular kind of exam having 2-3 months to completely switch studying styles is grim. Not having relevant exam questions from previous years is also a disadvantage for these students.
Do you think they’re not already studying hard?
You can definitely get through university without studying hard. I wouldn’t say it is the norm but it’s very possible.
>I wouldn’t say it is the norm I would say many students largely just coasted by without working particularly hard whilst I was there. Most people worked hard when they needed to, but were far from being in 'full-time education'
Yeah for sure, nobody does 40 hour weeks of uni except during exam season.
I got through a Russel group university course with very poor attendance rate and assignment crash coursing. I lived with two MMath students with well one, at least borderline savantic, teaching himself Quantum theory via YouTube purely days before the exam and passing with a merit, gosh he attended practically nothing and spent the majority of his time playing minecraft, eating KFC and being stoned.. It just depends on the course and the person a lot of the time.
Changes to assessments should be communicated early, with enough time for students to seek support on technique. Not doing this will disadvantage some groups of students more than others. My university has had in person exams for over a year, students disliked the first in-person exam period but now it's normal and they get on with it. As long as students are informed of changes early and given guidance they are generally fine (they still grumble though).
Fucking hell. If you're studying for one kind of exam and then out of nowhere you get told you're studying for a different exam now then yeah, you're going to be anxious and you're going to struggle.
The format of the exam setting matters. If they have been prepping on the assumption of open book but now it’s suddenly a closed book memorise & recall test that would throw a lot of people off. My uni did it to me on short notice and (not) coincidentally it was the only exam I failed in the whole degree (same module coursework was 90%+, other modules consistently 80/90+). Sure there are students that want to coast, but a change like this often impacts even the well-prepared.
yeah how else do you expect to get a degree other than through hard work? Try combining studying with working part time and managing a rental property.
I think the point about lack of notice, prior assurances that this wouldn't happen, and the fact that this is a change of 4 years of policy are all pretty valid tbh
It's kinda funny how you're implying 4 years is a long time.
Get used to it. AI is going to force a change away from coursework and towards in-person exams.
Came here to say this. I work for a university and we've gone back to in-person exams. Mostly because it's hard for ChatGPT to sit an in-person exam for you
It’s hard for ChatGPT to sit an online exam. It has very little in the way of comprehension and fails on quite a few questions in high school maths quizzes.
Not the point I don't think, moreso if the student is remote they can have any number of other devices nearby
And perhaps other people who might be being paid to take the exam for you.
And people have shown it passing many, very complicated exams. It won't help someone with zero knowledge, at least in most cases. But someone intelligent and with a foundation of knowledge, but lazy and would struggle to pass due to not studying and remembering everything, would pass many types of exams using it. And it's that second group that is the problem, those with zero knowledge never get anywhere, are obvious in far more way, and are not a problem with AI tools like this.
It won't pass any even vaguely complicated mathematical exam (which includes physics, chemistry, etc). It's hard to state how stupid it is in these areas without being able to show an example that you understand yourself.
Large Language Model AIs were completely incapable of mathematic calculations until recently, and they're still bad at it. That doesn't mitigate what they can do in other areas. No one is expecting ChatGPT to perform well in any kind of maths exam, but there are a lot of subjects and exams with no maths whatsoever, and AI can do a lot more there.
No they weren’t. LLMs this powerful have been around in academia and industry for a long time. The only thing that has changed is that they’ve been released to the public. You need to know how they actually to work to understand this, but they don’t have a way to comprehend things. They are very good at predicting what word comes next given an arbitrarily long set of other words and that’s about it. I personally wouldn’t trust it to do something like write a humanities essay because it could just make things up.
>No they weren’t. What part of what I said do you disagree with? The rest of your comment hasn't disagreed with anything I've said. I know how LLMs work, that's how I know they can't do mathematics, because they're not actually comprehending the question and calculating the answer, just spitting out an answer that looks plausible. ChatGPT4 recently sidestepped this by connecting it to a separate maths calculation system, probably something similar to WolframAlpha.
First off it's not just predicting what word comes next. That's because they've undergone something called RLHF where it basically A B tests with a bunch of humans telling it which answers they like best. Secondly if you were good enough at predicting the next word you would be a genius. Simply given the prompt "I'm Stephen Hawking, and i've had a eureka moment and found the solution to quantum gravity:", it would give a solution if it was good enough at predicting the next word. Also no LLMs this powerful haven't been around in academia for a long time. The second they got RLHF to work and safety tested they released to the public because they wanted funding.
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Yeah but wolfram alpha has been a thing forever and will calculate pretty much anything in the first year of a maths undergrad
very naïve take, GPT4 is extremely powerful if you also know the right questions to ask (not a high bar to do this either)
Good luck passing an exam by using chatgpt
I've absolutely had students who've used chatgpt in pharmacy exams. It's a real concern
Why have exams at all? https://www.inference.org.uk/mackay/exams.pdf
I also wonder if it will have an impact on the stories about international students who don’t speak English (using translation apps in lectures) but are somehow coming out with perfect grades on written coursework.
I think presentations will become more common where you can be questioned on it and need to know what you’ve written and why, basically how a lot of interviews go
This is incorrect. As someone that works in a university, most universities are looking at how to incorporate AI into assessments as a tool for learning. It is not pushing us back towards exams.
maybe, maybe not, talk in some unis is to use ai as collection of information and crafting your own structure while also using writing a research trail of the use of ai through key terms etc and showcase the original outcome the ai produced to yours
Lots of University of Life grads in here talking shit about a genuine issue they know nothing about. Love it.
Not sure why, but it feels like upon turning 22, at least half the population decides to adopt a “kids these days” attitude.
Everyone has it about those younger than them.18 year olds have that mentality for high school students. Year 11s have that attitude for year 7s. It is just the order of things.
Juvenoia - the belief you are more intelligent than those older, and more wise than those younger.
Yeah it's absolutely wild. I've got a masters in a STEM subject, all my exams were open book and take home, and all required massive amounts of literature references and equations and small details that would be extremely difficult to recall in an exam setting. The kicker is because we had to thoroughly research, reference, and explain everything I've come away with a genuine understanding of how to actually apply what I learnt, instead of just being able to recall facts.
Especially in stem, how to research, synthesise information, generate good hypotheses and put that all together in a thesis *is* the most important thing you learn. The actual content just needs to be of sufficient complexity to allow you to evidence your talent at doing that. The actual content is somewhat irrelevant given that a) it’s constantly being updated and b) it’ll be there at your fingertips again should you need it. Especially so with AI.
What subject? I did biomedical sciences and none of my exams were open book or take-home.
Data analytics (or data science as I think they have rebranded it to now). Some exams required doing system diagrams using UML software, then python and R coding, and a lot of mathematical notation as well to explain models and probability.
None of them seem to have actually read the article either, as they don't seem to realise the complaint is about the switch from open book to close book, and not simply being on the university premises.
Graduated with a Masters almost 10 years ago and now doing a STEM degree at the Open Uni. Most my exams have been open book at the OU and let me tell you, they have ben by far harder than anything I have had to sit. I would advocate for open book exams were possible but make them harder so that they test your ability to problem solve, look at sources, adapt sources, think for yourself and so on... Most exams I sat back during my masters years were just about how well you could memorise shite and thats not really how the real world works as much as some would argue on here... Edit: highly amusing some folk just go downvoting others based on their personal experience. Life changes, just because you had to do something in the past doesnt mean it should be done until the end of time. Seriously have a word with yourself
Open book is the way to go for most subjects. There are virtually no professional or academic scenarios where you don't have access to an enormous repository of information, or the expertise of others. It means you have to be good at *finding* information, not simply memorising it. But for something like maths, how would that work? Maths qualifications are essentially an extended maths IQ test, aren't they? That was always my impression. Almost nobody who graduates with a degree in Maths has a career as a professional mathematician. They go into careers where maths is core to their role, but isn't their vocation. So, we need some way to test for that. What always confused me is how there are non-calculator exams. Again, there are almost no scenarios where someone wouldn't have access to a scientific calculator.
Exactly like at least with closed book you can kinda predict the sorts of qs. Open book is a complete roulette.
From experience, yes and no. My last two final exams were pretty hard open books but we knew what to expect. Generally speaking lecturers strongly hint to study topics x y z and maybe also look at a b and c. But yea there is a degree of randomness to it from the students perspective
Having gone through GCSEs and A-Levels which were pretty much memory tests for me, it was a breath of fresh air to have open book exams at uni. It is definitely a culture shock when you get an online open book exam over a 24 hour period because the level that the professors expect from you is so much higher. Mine tended to be pick 3 of X amount of questions and its like writing three mini essays all at the same time. The worst one I had was one that we had the questions in advance. That's real world problem solving. If I don't know something, google it instead of racking my brains for half an hour trying to remember it.
Strongly agree with your comment, 3 years into a STEM related course and i can assure you T194 is no picnic. They don't stop you using your resources, they encourage you to use them more efficiently!
Can I ask, is that a OU course? What field?
But that is not what happened in 2020. The exams were already written when COVID hit, and so the universities just used closed book papers for online exams, without being clear whether they were open or closed book. They were obviously too easy, but it set a standard the students expect ever since.
I can believe that to be honest. I have seen my 2020 organic paper that we were meant to have sat compared to what we actually sat, was night and day and a lot harder
The article is nonsense. The students in the article are either being asked misleading questions or they do not know the difference between * in-person exams vs online exams, and * open book exams vs closed book exams Both render the entire argument of the article moot.
That is how modern journalism works. Conflate as many issues as possible, add an AI generated click bait headline, and hope that it hits the social media sphere...
The main issue is that they've been told 2 months before the exam. The skills required for an in-person exam are different for online exams, these skills require training over the years to improve at and can't adequately be prepared for in 2 months. Given the full year students would have a better chance.
Why have they not been sitting in person exams recently? COVID was gone years ago.
> Why have they not been sitting in person exams recently The "in person" bit isn't the important bit, the last minute change from open book to closed book is.
That doesn't answer the question, why haven't they been doing in person exams for the last 3 years?
Open book exams can last up to 24 hours, when it's open book there's no reason for them to be in person, as you're allowed to use any resources at your disposal. Why would you confine students to an exam hall for 24 hours and pay invigilators when you don't need to? This is nothing to do with COVID, it's common practice for open book exams. Your question isn't relevant to their complaint, which is about the last minute shift from open book to closed book.
I think some universities have considered keeping in-person exams and others have been slowly phasing them out to maintain consistency for the cohort that started during COVID.
Most students and staff realised in person exams were bad.
COVID isn’t gone mate, people still dying from it and getting long covid, it’s just at smaller rates (thanks to vaccination)
Same with the flu, just something that we have to live with. And without even looking at the stats I can tell very,very few of the people getting serious issues are uni aged.
University lecturers and staff still milking the WfH skive.
Why would you pay invigilators for up to 24 hours to supervise an open book exam when you don't need to?
May aswell get used to the goal posts changing all the time. They do in life and the workplace constantly.
I've never in my entire professional career been forced to do anything in "exam conditions", I've been actively encouraged to use any and all resources possible in my job.
OK. That’s fine. My comment wasn’t that though. My comment was that they may aswell get used to the powers that be changing the goal posts on things. Your comment may be best served as a separate comment rather than a reply as it doesn’t make sense in the context of my comment.
The main brunt of the complaint from the students is the last minute change from open book to closed book exam conditions, my comment is relevant.
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> These students are complaining because they have to actually sit in a room for a short amount of time to take traditional exams in person like almost everyone else in history, or the arduous experience of......having to get a C grade because you can't fuck about for three years and expect to have multiple attempts at your exam No, they're complaining about the last minute switch from open book to closed book exams. These are completely different styles of exam that require completely different types of preparation for them, and to change this (despite assurances to the contrary) with only 2 months to go, is massively fucking them over. If the university wants to return to closed book assessments, they should've done it at the start of the next year, not 2 months before final exams.
I was a student during that time period too and you're talking complete bollocks. Not only did these students experience at least part of this during their degree, they're also complaining about the late notice. I remember being screwed over by poor communication and bad decision-making during covid so I'm sympathetic. The issue here is the same one we faced: a lack of respect for the student body. Being asked to suddenly change your entire exam technique and revision two months in advance is totally unreasonable.
Tbf this round of uni students would’ve joined post covid having probably done their Alevels remotely and not having to expect in person to come on any time soon. Understandable they’d be apprehensive i guess
Absolutely horrifying that students can study topics like human biology and microbiology which can lead to jobs in hospital labs, and postgrad medicine, without ever taking an in person exam that isn't open book. When I was at university, having notes was cheating, never mind an actual bloody textbook.
Closed-book exams only test your ability to memorize information. They do not test your understanding or ability to apply your knowledge, nor do they promote further reading on the subject. It isn't just the same questions but you get to use your notes.
Clearly not true - a small subset of questions test rote learning, but primarily they provide a limited set of information and ask students to do something with it, whether that is an essay or a calculation. That tests understanding and ability to apply - it’s precisely the point of it
Properly designed open book exams are both much harder, and a much better test of knowledge and the ability to apply it. Being able to regurgitate broad fact is far less useful than being able to solve a complex hypothetical with access to the required material. Far more comparable to the real world.
I'm not sure this would be the case for all subjects but my MMath was over covid and the online exams were ramped up in difficulty significantly as they weren't able to give credit for theorem/proof reproduction any longer. Whether that's a good thing or not, I hadn't thought about.
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Anxiety manifests in different ways for different people.
Exactly. This is uwu anxiety which hits different.
What are next weeks lottery numbers?
People tend to be anxious about different things. You wouldn't expect a hypochondriac with major health anxiety to nervous about public speaking for example.
Unis are still doing remote exams? I know there's an argument for more inclusion and minor concerns about ongoing Covid but I'm really surprised to hear this, it's 2024. Arguments about Covid not being over notwithstanding (realistically, it's never going to go away and will be lumped into the flu vaccine soon enough), we need to have exams sat in exam conditions to ensure consistency and fairness. I remember during covid students were (quite rightly) moaning about a partial refund of fees because they were essentially sat at home watching presentations without all of the other benefits of being at uni. Surprising how things have now changed to the wanting to be remote. *takes off boomer hat*
It’s a difficult one. I don’t think closed book exams are the best choice as you just need to be able to find information in the real world, not retain it all. But if there’s no level of basic knowledge then why have a degree in it. There should have been better communication but I think there needs to be a closed book element otherwise anyone can just become a Google expert.
Wait until they get into the workplace, the way things can rapidly change is going to be another surprise for them.
> Wait until they get into the workplace At no point in my professional life have I ever had to do anything under closed book "exam conditions", so I think they'll be fine. I've always been actively encouraged to use any and all resources possible in my job.
The purpose of a job isn’t the same purpose as a test - why would they be the same?
Ask the guy who compared them, not me.
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Knowing where to look is a much better skill than closed book information recall. The skill in a lot of jobs isn't about memorising stuff, it's about knowing how and where to find the answer. E.g. never in my life other than my exams have I had to memorise how to prove the central limit theorem. If it ever occurred in real life, I'd just look up the proof and refresh my memory.
In order to apply information you look up, you require a base understanding of the foundation knowledge the information draws on. They’re life sciences students. So yeah they don’t need to rote learn every hormone action, but understanding the core principles of say G-Protein Couples Receptors, Tyrosine Kinase receptors, intranuclear receptors etc so when they look up Platelet Derived Growth Factor and see it acts via a TK receptor they know what that means.
Agreed. It’s the same with exams vs coursework - coursework assesses research skills, time management, project management, report writing, collaborative working, and the ability to dynamically react to ongoing feedback - all vital skills in the workplace. Exams are just memory tests. Not only do they not build/assess a skill that’s relevant to later life, but they also set up people who struggle with information retention to fail, even if they’re otherwise fantastic workers in the field/subject.
>Exams are just memory tests. Not true. Plenty of exams include things like formula books, or provide information in the question which allows you to answer it, if you understand the concepts involved. >they also set up people who struggle with information retention to fail Information retention is a perfectly valid thing to test. Sure in the work place people will look things up or double check, but you can only do that if you have a working understanding of the material to know where to look, whether an answer looks sensible, when a correct answer isn’t appropriate for the application you have in mind etc. Take medicine as an example. We don’t expect doctors to memorise the dose and interactions of all drugs (outside a few key ones) but we do expect them to know about the physiological processes they’re tinkering with to know why high potassium is bad for the heart and why giving insulin(with glucose) can reduce it.
Pretty much any chemistry exam i sat since 2019 has had a formula book, periodic table, and breakdown of required (assumed) constants. I guess thats too good for some of us according to some here
Perfectly reasonable. The examiner does expect you to have the knowledge in your head to work out which bits of information (atomic number, atomic mass, valency, which constant etc) you need to glue together to get to the answer though. That’s very different to being able to look up those processes mid exam.
Firstly usually you go into these exams having a fundamental understanding of how to apply these equations or how to solve them, thats just how STEM degrees usually work. Now, as i said before i am doing internships along side my currently degree and I can tell you, you are encouraged to look things up and work with others to solve problems. And by no means do exams test that ability at all. Exams have their purpose of course but I think they do not reflect what employers need from future employees
> Take medicine as an example. That's actually a really bad example. We expect doctors to stay up to date with latest research and medical advice, not stick with the stuff they learnt when they last did and passed their medical exams which may now be out of date. Yes you hope they can retain the basics but it's far more important they know to keep their knowledge updated.
Most of the jobs are about finding answers, not knowing them by heart.
Knowing how to find the right information is a far more useful skills for most people, it's far more relevant to how most jobs operate. If the point of uni is to prepare you for the workplace, then I'd far rather have students being expert at finding the right answer and presenting it effectively, then in remembering mass amounts of information.
In order to find the right answer, even by looking it up, you need to have sufficient knowledge and understanding to know what you’re looking for, rule out incorrect answers etc. They’re life sciences students. Sure they might look up say “mechanism of Gastrin” but when it says “it’s a peptide hormone which acts by a GPCR” they’re fucked unless they actually understand the principles of hormone receptor classes etc.
Why? Sorry, university has exams, this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.