Examinations

Much of the advice that applies to essay and dissertationwriting also applies to exams. It’s a good idea to reador re-read Chapter 7 on writing assignments alongside this one.

What is the point of exams? Many people dread them and even good examinees doubt whether they are the best way to test the student’s skills, knowledge and understanding. It may comfort you to know that lecturers have asked themselves this question and much less weight is placed on exams now than used to be the case. The way in which work is assessed and, in particular, the balance between exams and continuous assessment varies from institution to institution. This may well be a factor that influences your choice. It may be possible to find a place that will enable you to achieve a history degree without taking any exams at all. Nevertheless, timed exercises still play an important part in most university schemes of assessment and the purpose

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Although it may come as a surprise to some of you, there is a very good case to be made for exams. The examination system was originally devised in the interests of fairness: in the nineteenth century exams replaced patronage and purchases as the means of selecting candidates for the Civil Service and officers for the Army. In consequence, the senior civil servants who ran the Indian Empire in the second half of Queen Victoria’s reign included the sons of gamekeepers, butchers and bakers, tailors and shoemakers, upholsterers and undertakers. Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol, who owed his academic career to his success as an examinee – his father was a printer – regarded exams as a character test. Advocating competitive entry to the Indian Civil Service he wrote:

For the moral character of candidates, I should trust partly to the examination itself. University experience abundantly shows that in more than nineteen cases out of twenty, men of attainments are also men of character. The perseverance and selfdiscipline necessary for the acquirement of any considerable amount of knowledge are a great security that a young man has not led a dissolute life.