Do you think there should be time limits for exams?

[Emphacy]

NO NO NO.
Well, yes. There should be time limits or you could be there all day, but the current time limits on examinations are just too short and should be increased by atleast a half.

I had a mathematics exam in Semester 1. I was 90% sure I was going to get 90% on that exam since I practiced all questions and aced them all.
Come to the exam, it was only 1 hour and I'm pretty slow when it comes to maths but atleast I get it right.
12 questions, 4th question in and the time was half gone. Because I was rushing so much , not checking answers let alone what I'd written my only guess was I was making stupid mistakes due to going too fast.

I don't think exams are a measure of your intelligence but more of a measure of how much you remember on the day and how quickly you can do it.

 

[estebanrey]

That's not the point you made at all. Stress isn't healthy. Why should one person who knows the subject just as well as the next be punished because they panicked a bit for a single hour?

Stress isn't healthy but it's a part of life and protecting kids from it only makes the shock bigger when they do have to go out in the real world and they'll be less likely to deal with it well.

I would suspect that the exam boards would say they do allow enough reasonable time for any given exam to be done. I get the feeling from the OP that he isn't saying only the quickest few percent of people ever get the exam done, he is saying we should make exceptions for the few people who are bit slower than the majority.

If you feel exams are too short in general, that is another topic.

 

[RomanNose]

NO NO NO.
Well, yes. There should be time limits or you could be there all day, but the current time limits on examinations are just too short and should be increased by atleast a half.

I had a mathematics exam in Semester 1. I was 90% sure I was going to get 90% on that exam since I practiced all questions and aced them all.
Come to the exam, it was only 1 hour and I'm pretty slow when it comes to maths but atleast I get it right.
12 questions, 4th question in and the time was half gone. Because I was rushing so much , not checking answers let alone what I'd written my only guess was I was making stupid mistakes due to going too fast.

I don't think exams are a measure of your intelligence but more of a measure of how much you remember on the day and how quickly you can do it.

It's interesting with maths, If I had no time limits then I would derive all of the identities on the spot when needed as it would be so much easier for me to do it from the basic rules.
It's probably better for an employer who understands the concepts behind things than ones who just rote learn everything.

Stress isn't healthy but it's a part of life and protecting kids from it only makes the shock bigger when they do have to go out in the real world and they'll be less likely to deal with it well.

I would suspect that the exam boards would say they do allow enough reasonable time for any given exam to be done. I get the feeling from the OP that he isn't saying only the quickest few percent of people ever get the exam done, he is saying we should make exceptions for the few people who are bit slower than the majority.

If you feel exams are too short in general, that is another topic.

They are unnecessarily stressful at the moment though, they will still be stressful regardless what you do though.
A lot of people don't understand how to answer a question, get stressed out and then become slower meaning they don't finish the paper.

 

[Reaper 392]

the one exam i could really do with a time limit increase in is anything maths based. i'm prone to make silly mistakes, like putting a minus sign where it was a plus the line before, or mixing up a T with a Tau (τ).

this want too much of a problem in GCSEs where a question would take no longer than 5 minutes really, but when you're looking at a single question that takes half an hour to solve, you're completely screwed. yes you get some method marks, but you lose out on lots of the marks because the mistake almost always makes you veer off to the wrong answer

 

[estebanrey]

It's interesting with maths, If I had no time limits then I would derive all of the identities on the spot when needed as it would be so much easier for me to do it from the basic rules.

I agree and was going to make the same point. It is not true that every exam question that requires a definitive answer (like maths) is a case of "you know it or you don't", some answers you can work out given time and logical thought.

So if the exam is testing whether you know something or not, you should be able to give the answer instantly. If you want to test how someone thinks that is another matter.

 

[Nitefly]

I guess the downside of exams is the luck element that can be involved - in one exam (from a 20 lecture series) the entire paper was based on one lecture, the only one I didn't look at, what horrendous bad luck!

I have never played that lottery again. Of course, if you has studied everything equally then there is no luck but there are severe diminishing returns.

 

[TheCenturion]

A bit of talk going on about this, some of my exams are really tight and it would make me so much more relaxed if I had 3 hours to do the exam instead of 1.5.
The idea is that it means slow writers don't get penalized and it reduces exam stress. Yes it's going to make exams easier but they shouldn't be a race in the first place.

I write at a reasonable pace and I find that I have plenty more than enough time to complete exams. I think that the timings are extremely generous for maths and science, but I found it a bit tight for essay subjects like History and English at GCSE.

Plus if you are really slow at writing can't you get 25% extra time?

 

[RomanNose]

I agree and was going to make the same point. It is not true that every exam question that requires a definitive answer (like maths) is a case of "you know it or you don't", some answers you can work out given time and logical thought.

So if the exam is testing whether you know something or not, you should be able to give the answer instantly. If you want to test how someone thinks that is another matter.

I don't think it particularly matters how a student gets an answer too much though, just if he actually gets it. It's probably harder to derive them than learn them though and I think the exam should really cater for whatever people do to get the answer.

I write at a reasonable pace and I find that I have plenty more than enough time to complete exams. I think that the timings are extremely generous for maths and science, but I found it a bit tight for essay subjects like History and English at GCSE.

Plus if you are really slow at writing can't you get 25% extra time?

I am not that slow, maybe 10% slower than most and I have had tests in the past and I am not eligible. Most of the time it doesn't effect me but I really don't see why we have to do exams in timed conditions when it would be much less stressful for students to take their time.

 

[One More Solo]

Being able to do things within a time limit is a useful skill, so you might as well learn it early in life (and I write extremely slowly for the record, but it never prevented me from achieving good marks).

 

[Killerkebab]

No. I've thought about this, but the end result is probably going to be something along the lines of:
- If the lecturer/teacher/examiner knows that you'll be given however much time you want to complete the exam, they'll just ask you more stuff.

I'd much rather revise my modules knowing that I'll be asked 90 minutes' worth of maths, rather than revise my module knowing I could be asked literally anything that has come up in the past three months. The end result will definitely not be a reduction in stress.

 

[Glaucus]

What do people do in exams? Either you know it or you don't. Only exception is creative type exams English/art. The no leaving and later no leaving in first half hour bugged the hell out of me.

 

[vincent1989]

if you can't get enough of your thoughts down on paper to warrant an A in 1.5 hours and you're a perfectly capable human being then the problem lies not with the time given or your speed of writing, it relies simply with the delivery of it.

 

[Strife212]

Most of my University exams have far too much time imo. Either you know something or you don't, any extra time is useless. If I sat there all day I wouldn't have gained any more marks in Theoretical Computing.

 

[RomanNose]

The time limits are fine. There's enough time for people to write answers which are good enough to achieve a good grade.
.

Some subjects have a very wide band of how long it takes to complete the subject while others don't, in an English exam you are really writing continuously so just a 10% difference will have a large effect.
Imo what really matters is quality of content, what could be done is have exams designed for 2/3 of the allocated time, where you are allowed to leave after 2/3 and you can carry on until the end of the allocated time.
It would reduce stress massively imo, yes the majority of people finish in the time that you are given but it would be so much easier on the students.

Most of my University exams have far too much time imo. Either you know something or you don't, any extra time is useless. If I sat there all day I wouldn't have gained any more marks in Theoretical Computing.

That's how it should be, pretty much every English exam I have sat, I continued writing till the end.

 

[Si105]

I like the time limits. It helps me lay out how I'm going to answer the questions. And the time limits are usually overly generous anyway.

 

[kilohawk]

I posted at the start, but can be bothered to quote my quotes

People are bringing the real world into this, but that isn't a valid point, when in the same day at work do you need (GCSE's as extreme example) to know Biology and Physics?
Or DesignTech and History? Same day exams

At uni, I have a 2 hour exam, in which Two modules are assessed (Thermo and Statics+Dynamics) They're both full modules in themselves. And the questions do not involve both to be used at the same time. SO anything can come up, and i have to then remember anything to do with that subject, that could take time.
Back to the 'Real World', you have unlimited resources at your disposal to help you through the task, I don't.

 

[RomanNose]

It's just the easiest way of testing lots of people. In an ideal world, they'd just have everyone write big dissertations on everything, and/or have vivas with the academics... but that's not practical, so we go with exams.

It doesn't mean it can't be improved. As I suggested, just because you don't have a time limit it doesn't mean you can't have a word limit. Which is far better as it allows everyone to play at the same level as it takes time out of the equation.

 

[TheCenturion]

I am not that slow, maybe 10% slower than most and I have had tests in the past and I am not eligible. Most of the time it doesn't effect me but I really don't see why we have to do exams in timed conditions when it would be much less stressful for students to take their time.

It's the practicality of being able to organise a system whereby a student has unlimited time. As I've said, I think that the timings allow students to take their time anyway. I've never had an exam where I've not had time to go back and check my answers.

It's not just testing your understanding, it's testing whether you know the subject well enough such that you can confidently answer a question without having to think about it for hours.

 

[semi-pro waster]

It doesn't mean it can't be improved. As I suggested, just because you don't have a time limit it doesn't mean you can't have a word limit. Which is far better as it allows everyone to play at the same level as it takes time out of the equation.

So you've substituted one arbitrary limit for another. Why does a word limit equal fairness when a time limit does not? Is it fairer because you think it would suit you better or fairer because it's somehow a better measure?

My apologies to Winston Churchill for the paraphrase but "exams are the worst type of measurement except for all those others that have been tried from time to time". I think in many ways exams are daft and many don't really test what they're supposed to be letting you demonstrate proficiency in but there's got to be some way of measuring and they do that up to a point - of all my gripes with exams the time limit is one of the lesser ones normally.

 

[RomanNose]

So you've substituted one arbitrary limit for another. Why does a word limit equal fairness when a time limit does not? Is it fairer because you think it would suit you better or fairer because it's somehow a better measure?

My apologies to Winston Churchill for the paraphrase but "exams are the worst type of measurement except for all those others that have been tried from time to time". I think in many ways exams are daft and many don't really test what they're supposed to be letting you demonstrate proficiency in but there's got to be some way of measuring and they do that up to a point - of all my gripes with exams the time limit is one of the lesser ones normally.

No because people write at different speeds and think at different speeds, not usually much you can do about it.