ABSTRACT
OBJECTIONS TO EXAMS If I asked you to summarize your objections to exams, I imagine you would arrive at a list that approximates this one.
1. Exams put an excessive premium on speed. 2. That accent on speed encourages glibness. 3. Slow writers are thus at a double disadvantage. They are not able to put down as much as they would
like or need to, and they are unable to spare any time for preparatory thinking. 4. The formality of the occasion is artificial and damaging. To work in serried ranks is unnatural, and
unnatural work by definition cannot be representative of either the student or true quality. 5. To test a year’s work-or maybe two or three years’—via a handful of three-hour papers is ludicrous.
