The impact of exams

“Exams”. It’s the dreaded word which all of us have hated at some point of time or another. Exams are an inescapable part of our lives. Exams have a huge impact on our student lives – perhaps the biggest of all. Why is that so?

From the moment we step into kindergarten school to the moment we finally get our degree from college, exams are always there to haunt us. Our entire education system is oriented towards getting as many marks in the exams as possible. We have specialized guide books and “question banks” to help us in our way towards scoring maximum marks. In the process of all this, are we letting exams have an unduly huge impact on us that the basic purpose of education is being lost?

Education in school is meant to make us better people and have an elementary level of knowledge about everything that would serve as a foundation for our higher studies. It is also meant to have a basic awareness of the world around us and teach us life skills. But then every three months come the exams! Everyone is focussed on mugging up the stuff in the textbook and puking it on the exam paper. The one who is capable of memorizing the most gets the highest marks! All the fundamental motives of education are gone for a toss.

And then come the competitive exams, the ones that hold the key to our future. According to common sense, it is absolutely preposterous to let one short span of three hours – and around 300 multiple choice questions – hold the reins of our destiny for the rest of our lives. So many careers are built and broken simply on the basis of one’s performance in those three crucial hours. This is one system that definitely needs to change and the capabilities of a student need to be holistically assessed instead of letting a single exam have such a huge impact upon us. Every year, dozens of bright minds are lost to suicide and depression as a result of the impact of these exams.

And then comes college. Being in medical school, I had expected at least the exams here to be more tuned towards real-life situations and the knowledge that doctors are going to directly apply when they deal with patients. While it is certainly true that studying for the exams do ultimately lead to gaining more knowledge and expertise on the subject, and students who score more in the exams are more likely to become better doctors, there is still a lot of scope for improvement. Irrelevant factors such as expected questions, coloured diagrams, better handwriting, memorizing definitions verbatim have an impact on scoring more in the exams. There is still a long way to go towards orienting the education system in India to have more of a positive impact upon students and reducing the negative impact it makes in the present scenario.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.