Examinations dont support lifelong learning

Editor - I have just sat my end of year exam in public health: Id like to share a few pearls of wisdom which go some way to explaining the behaviour of that species “the examiner.” The exam, worth 100% of the assessment for this module, consisted of 40 true or false questions (1 mark each) and six long answer questions (10 marks each). I am not concerned with the structure and format but with the marking strategy.

I found out how the exams are marked from the departments official website. For the true or false component, it is assumed that you will have guessed half the questions: the mark is calculated by immediately subtracting 20 from the number of correct answers. The remainder is then doubled to give the score for this section. If you had done your revision and only slipped up on the couple of obligatory “unanswerable” teasers and got 38 out of 40, you would be credited for only 36 of them.

The long answer section also has its injustices. The official mark scheme lists 10 aspects that should be included; this ensures equal marking of candidates and eases examiners workloads. If you write relevant and correct information, however, that isnt on the mark scheme, you receive no credit for it.

What are the consequences of this structure? It strikes me that you dont need to bother revising for the true or false section, as they assume half of your answers are guesses anyway, and, more telling, active further reading and research beyond the information presented in lectures is positively discouraged. Admittedly, not all students do, but for those of us who do, where is the recognition?

We are constantly reminded that our undergraduate studies are merely the start of a lifetime of further self directed learning, a skill that many older doctors admit finding difficult to adjust to. Yet in formal assessments—which we all take as the essential “means to an end”—we are shaped as clones, simply regurgitating the words of lecturers.

Of course, there should be a framework marking scheme, but is the suppression of further learning and insight too great a price to pay just to facilitate the mass marking of scripts?