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Exam room essays are a great way to measure knowledge, and difficult to cheat on. You have to know the domain thoroughly in order to be ready to write an essay
by cturner 14y ago
Exam room essays are a great way to measure knowledge, and difficult to cheat on. You have to know the domain thoroughly in order to be ready to write an essay response. Being able to write this demonstrates integrated understanding of the concepts. And probably breadth of knowledge. The easy solution for universities is give people take-home work during the semester and return it marked, but have 100% of the course score determined by a sit-down exam at the end of the period.
- stevesearer 14y agoYou're correct. I taught high school history for several years and used in-class essay responses as the primary testing method. Essays allowed me to understand what students actually know and how their overall knowledge on a topic has developed. Multiple choice-style questions (or any memorization-style question) do test knowledge, but I regularly found that many of the students who could easily memorize facts had a hard time explaining them in a coherent essay describing how the events were interconnected. And students who might get a C on memorization tests often had a better grasp of the period as a whole. Unfortunately, most teachers don't want to take the time to read essay responses because shoving scantron tests through a machine is much easier and less time consuming.
- jaredhansen 14y agoCorrect. Which is why most law schools do exactly that.