Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Exam Special

What are you? –Some one asked.
I retorted- I am a question. An answerless question! If you want to know me, don’t ask questions. Just come to me and love.
How can one assess a person- his talents, his individuality, his knowledge, his skills, his demeanours, his wisdom, and a lot more things other than this- just by asking some questions?

Think of it, in the case of examinations. The class tests, the internal exams, the public exams, the entrance exams and many more! Think about them. You are being asked questions, direct or indirect, twisted or simple, with or without choices in brackets to select, objective or subjective in type.

Do these exams really assess what the real talent of the person is? If a person is- suppose, I am giving an example, just think- an athlete, how can you know what he can do, with a couple of questions in objective, subjective or any type? Oh, beaver get me a bridge!!!

I don’t know, whether any other method is adopted in any other part of the globe, other than this. Such a moron I am. Any way, in this part of the earth, it is like this- Examinations.

Reader let me ask you something. How do you assess a person on your daily life? By talking to that person or by mingling with that person, and like that. Yes?

Now here is another question. Can’t this be adopted to replace the exams? Can’t we deconstruct the whole concept of the ‘2-3 hour back breaking’ exams? After all, it’s all about getting a better understanding of a person. And not just his or her memory power only or patience only, which is the only process happening with the ordinary examinations.

Ok. I admit, that the process of education can’t be completed without examining what the student has studied. I am not talking about an ersatz for the exams. I am criticizing the way in which examinations are generally conducted. That should be replaced by something more interesting, more inspiring and more creative.

Once in an internal examination, I tried a new way of dealing with the questions. Actually, I just wanted to ease the fatigue of my muscles because of the long hours of sitting and writing on a rather uncomfortable table and chair, in the exam silence. What I did is that I wrote the answers in a very informal way. That is in the form of an informal chat. I wanted to make a difference in the usual -the-author-said-that-way of answering.

The teacher, advised me on my inquiry of her opinion, after the evaluation, on my performance. The advise was that, I should not approach such a way for the public exams, because the people who evaluate your (that is- my) papers would be old professors and they won’t like so much of experimentation. I remember what she said, even now. She said- Be in the middle. Take neither a pure traditional style nor an extremely revolutionary style. But be in the middle. It would be safe for me- she said- be in the middle.

I admire her advice. But I didn’t know whether I had reacted to her advice or if reacted, how would have that been. O beaver get me a bridge!!!

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