What are exams for?

You may not like them, you may not enjoy them, but have you ever stopped and asked the question – what are exams actually for? Because until you answer that question, you can’t argue that they do or don’t work. If you want to claim that exams are a bad way to achieve some goal and should be changed, you have to first decide that goal they are supposed to be achieving in the first place.

The first ‘exams’ were really competitions to decide who should gain a prestigious job – the ancient Chinese Imperial court used various tests of ‘noble arts’ to choose from between many bright eager young men who wanted to become civil servants. They were introduced as a fairer system than the earlier system of patronage – who you and your family knew. This is the first purpose of exams - a fairer way of choosing people, which is still used in job application.

In mediaeval universities, students who had completed a course of study would be ‘examined’ by a formal interview (like the modern day via voca or oral exam). The purpose of these examinations was to demonstrate expertise – to show that a person had reached a standard. This is the second purpose of exams – demonstration of expertise, which is still used in for example, the driving test.

In the twentieth century, examinations became more and more commonly used. The introduction of IQ testing and 11-plus selection produced a concept borrowed from industrial quality testing – a statistical prediction approach. The idea here is to take a sample of a person’s performance, and use it to predict how they will perform in the future. This presupposes that people’s behaviour at one time predicts their behaviour in future – if you are intellectually bright at the age of 10, you are more likely to be bright at 15, 35 and 50. So this is the third purpose of exams – prediction.

Finally, why do teachers sometimes tell their students ‘There’s be a test on this’, or why do some (more dedicated!) students actually do the tests at the end of book chapters? It’s because it helps to provide a motivator for study. That’s why Weight Watchers groups have weekly weigh-ins, to provide feedback and motivation. So this is the final purpose of exams – as a teaching tool.

So now if you want to moan about exams being rubbish (and there is lots to moan about – exams are by no means perfect!), at least you can ask what exams are supposed to do, and then test whether or not they actually do what they’re supposed to do. Yes, let’s examine the exams!