yet another pointless blog…

right. for a change, im not gonna rant about the stupid education system, the exams or my life. for once, im going to admit that exams (yes, and cramming and memorizing if it comes to that) does serve quite a huge purpose.

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and the number 1 arguement against exams probably goes somewhere along these lines, “Look, by 2 weeks after the exams, ill probably forget all the facts that i learnt. so whats the whole point?!”

ahh.. but exams are not just about memorizing facts and regurgigating memorized facts…(tho it might seem like it esp if youre a poor embattled gonna-sit-for-the-public-exams student). thats actually not even the major part of it (well, so yeah, it is for the guy-looking-at-uni-application forms la.. but more about that later.)

the most important part of it(to the student) is –> cultivating attitudes and habits and work ethics that are going to be indispensible later on in life. its not about being able to rattle off the periodic table, or knowing how to calculate the latent heat capacity of water, or knowing the factors that lead to the formation of Malaysia. it doenst matter, really, that after the exams all is forgotton.

because what will not change, is the fact that Student X (net addict, never studied one whit until exam season…) actually managed to sit down and concentrate on studying for at least 2 hours. every day. and realizing that its not impossible, and that when push comes to shove, it can be done again.

and you never actually totally forget everything. look, if someone asked me to recall offhand something from form 3 geography… i probably wont be able to. but… the most basic/vital/interesting facts are stored somewhere in my brain and even if they’re not, i know where and what kinda of resources to look them up.

more on the “that are going to be indispensible later on in life” —> one skill, every student learns (basically because it is forced upon em) is stress management. be it the actually-sitting-the-exam kinda stress, or the longer but slightly less panicked exams-are-so-soon-and-i-havent-studied, or the oh my goodness my parents are gonna kill me if i dont do well stress.. it all has to be managed by the student. and its best to learn this skill now, instead of in the future when youre working (boss : ive been monitoring ur performance lately. employee : what?!? uve been spying on me? -paranoia sets in- i never even want to work here again. i actually never really liked it but hearing u spy on me is the last straw…)

attitudes and habits and work ethics…. paraphrased from a book, a interviewer saying : we look at the grades, not only as an indication of intelligence, but also as a measure of how well the candidate can manage working consistently for a protracted lenght of time

in other words, high grades are an indication of 1) commitment (to being able to commit to studying something even tho its tedious and irrelevent), 2) proper work ethics (i mentiond this earlier.. to be able to sit down and study), 3) willingness to listen to authority (accepting that the only way to score is to follow the answer schemes.) … all of these which will be infinitely valueable to anyone wishing to futhur their careers.

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so exams do serve a purpose after all.

however… dont be surprised if on the very next entry… i start ranting about exams again.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 15th, 2005 at 8:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.