7

Do you think students need to be tested? How do you feel about tests and exams?
What are the cons and pros of modern exams? What are your top tips to beat exam
stress? Discuss with a partner.

Activity 3. The Why Factor. Exams (listening, answering the questions, discussion)
Activity 4. How to beat Examination Stress (read the article and the comments,
follow the steps advised and add some of your own strategies)

Do you sweat as the date of your examinations approaches? Is the lack of

calmness causing you to under-perform? Here is some advice to tide over
those anxious moments!

That means it's off to a good start, but still has room to grow into a more helpful
resource. Until the article reaches its full potential, it will be hidden from search
results. Can you help it flourish? If you think the article offers complete and
accurate instructions, feel free to remove this tag.

Steps

1) Start studying well before the exam. Make sure your schedule provides for
sufficient revision time. As any good test-taker will tell you, the revisions
are more important than the first time study.
2) Focus on understanding the concepts rather than mugging. Use mnemonics
if rote learning is the only way out.
3) Think about the time after the exam. Visualize the happiness on your face
when the stressful period is over. This works very well.
4) Keep reminding yourself that your hard work will not go to waste.
5) If you are afraid of tough questions, it helps to know that most questions are
of average difficulty and designed to be answered correctly by most
examinees.
6) Designate a "study buddy", a classmate who is an expert in a subject you
have trouble in, that you can come to with questions.
7) Get plenty of sleep. It's way more stressful to memorize lots of information
or comprehend complicated concepts on less than 6 hours sleep.
8) Eat healthy food, since it's often easier to function on nutritious food than
junk. While sugar might be a quick source of energy, sugar lows happen
pretty fast and the let-down can often be severe.
 9) Exercise. Physical exercise like running, jogging or skipping for 15-20
minutes everyday will make you feel stress free and mentally fit.
10) While taking notes, use as many diagrams, graphs, figures and
illustrations as possible. This helps to make several revisions at the last
moment!
11) Ask a senior or more knowledgeable person to prepare sample tests
for you. If practice tests are available online or in the market, go for them.
Many questions are similar to or verbatim from practice material.
12) On the day of the exam, feel happy! Think positive and keep cool! Good luck!

Activity 4. (moodle) The Pros and Cons of Exams

1. Before reading an article check whether you know the meaning of the following
words:
pernicious, marvel, exert, pious, knack, aptitude, vicious, embark, induce, duress.

2. While reading, complete these tasks:

a) List all the arguments the writer puts forward to defend his thesis about the
harmful effects of examinations. Which of them is the most persuasive?
all the arguments the writer puts forward to defend his thesis about the
harmful effects of examinations. Which of them is the most persuasive?
b) Can you think of any argument(s) that contrast(s) with the writer’s view? Is
there any reasonable alternative? Can examinations be seen as the single effective
means of consolidating the student’s knowledge of the subject, which he/she has
gained through lectures, discussions, and a great deal of independent study?

c) Can any inferences be drawn about the writer’s idea of a good education and
how it can be attained?

Examinations Exert a Pernicious Influence on Education

We might marvel at the progress made in every field of study, but the methods of
testing a man's knowledge and ability remains as primitive as ever they were. It
really is extraordinary that after all these years' revolution, educationists have still
failed to devise anything more efficient and reliable than examinations. Despite the
entire pious claim that examinations test what you know, it is common knowledge
that they often do the exact opposite. They may be a good means of testing
memory, or the knack of working rapidly under extreme pressure, but they can tell
you nothing about a man's true ability and aptitude.

As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none, since they are the keys for
many things. They are the mark of success or failure in our society. Your whole
future may be decided in one fateful day. It doesn't matter that you weren't feeling
very well, or that your mother died. Little things like that don't count: the exam
goes on. No one can give of his best when he is in mortal terror, or after a sleepless
night, yet this is precisely what the examination system expects him to do. The
moment a child begins study, he enters a world of vicious competition where
success and failure are clearly defined and measured. Can we wonder at the
increasing number of ‘drop-outs': young people who are written off as utter failures
before they have even embarked on a career? Can we be surprised at the suicide
rate among students?

A good education should, among other things, train you to think for yourself. The
examination system does anything but that. What has to be learnt is rigidly laid
down by a syllabus, so the student is encouraged to memorize. Examinations do
not motivate a student to read widely, but to restrict his reading; they do not enable
student to seek more knowledge, but induce cramming (to study rapidly under
pressure for an examination). They lower the standards of teaching, for they
deprive the teacher of all freedom. Teachers themselves are often judged by
examination results and instead of teaching their subjects, they are reduced to
training their students in exam techniques which they despise. Therefore, in order
to get high score, some students started to use spy-camera for cheating on
examination. The most successful candidates are not always the best educated;
they are the best trained in the technique of working under duress.

The results on which so much depends are often nothing more than a subjective
assessment by some anonymous examiner. Examiners are only human. They also
make mistakes when they get tired and hungry. Yet they have to mark stacks of
hastily scrawled scripts in a limited amount of time. They work under the same
sort of pressure as the candidates. And their word is magnificent. After a judge's
decision you have the right of appeal, but not after an examiner's. There must
surely be many simpler and more effective ways to assess a person's true abilities.
Is it cynical to suggest that examinations are merely a profitable business for the
institutions that run them? This is what it boils down to in the last analysis.
3. Read a student’s commentary on “Examinations Exert a Pernicious Influence on
Education” and point out its strengths and weaknesses. Then compare the
commentary with your essays and suggest your amendments.

Commentary: “Examinations Exert a Pernicious Influence on Education”

Nowadays we observe the unprecedented progress almost in every field of study,

but strange as it may seem, the methods of assessing a person’s knowledge remain
as primitive as ever they were. Traditionally, examinations were designed to test
what you know. But practice has proved the exact opposite – they rather seem to
be a good means of testing your memory and your knack of working under
extreme pressure.

If we are asked to recall our most stressful experience during the years of studies,
the first idea that is sure to come to our mind is the examination, because as
anxiety-makers exams are second to none: they mark success or failure in our
society; your whole future may be decided in one fateful day; they are not human –
such “little” things as a sleepless night before the exams, or feeling unwell, or the
death of your relative do not count.

School life turns into a vicious competition where marks determine and measure
success or failure. And a child has only two ways: either to compete with the
others, sometimes taking almost a sadistic delight in proving that some fellows are
inferior to him/her, or to become a “drop-out”, if s/he can’t keep up with the rest of
the class.

Another sad thing about the examination system is that it lowers standards of
teaching. Exams deprive both students and teachers of freedom: students are
restricted to learning what has to be learnt according to the syllabus; teachers, on
their part, train students in exam techniques instead of teaching the subject.

So, we may conclude that examinations perform such harmful functions as:
causing anxiety, marking success or failure, inducing cramming, and lowering
teaching standards. Unfortunately, they fail to perform their primary function – to
test a student’s true aptitude. Therefore, some simpler and more effective method
of assessment should be devised.
Taken from A Way From Analytical Reading To Analytical Writing by Beskrovna
L.N.

4. After reading and analysing both an article and a commentary, try to summarise
main ideas by figuring out advantages and disadvantages of modern exams. The
following exercise may help you. You may also add your own ideas.

Complete the following phrases.

The Pros of Exams

1. Tests are the most ef.................... way of as................. student knowledge

2. They help develop a number of skills, for example, a kn.......... of working

ra................ under pr..............., time-m................... skills, they can also
re................... memory

3. Tests and exams give a clear go............ / obj................. to work to...............

4. Exams help bring work under co.................

5. They help identify and ad............ student weaknesses early

5. They motivate/sp.......... students to revise and check progress

The Cons of Exams

1. Tests and exams induce su............./sh..................... learning

2. They place too much emphasis on knowledge im..................... and

reg................../

shen, [05.03.21 09:11]

ro............. learning and rec................. rather than cri..................... thinking
3. They make teachers teach …....... the te............ and take time away from
au................. teaching

4. Tests and exams induce cra.............. /sw................

5. They leave students feeling fru................. and str.............. ….....

6. Tests ignore the factors that may aff............ students' performance on the
ac......... day

7. They are often treated as the only ind................. of success and failure

Activity 5.

Lecture 11.

Do the Following Tasks

1. Transcribe the following words. Do you remember how they are used in the
lecture?

camaraderie, disciplined, study period, retention, test format, anxiety, endurance

2. Listen out for the words/phrasal verbs that have the following meaning. Use
them in your sentences.

1. (AmEngl, infl) to do very well in an examination, a piece of written work etc.

2. a belief in the moral value and importance of work

3. to spend time or use energy working or practising sth

4. (AmEngl) to look at sb/sth to see what they are like

5. (infl) to immediately start dealing with the most important part of sth

3. Answer the following questions:

1. How do tests/exams make you feel?

2. What do tests measure?

3. What stages do we go through when we take tests?

4. What should students do in the days before the test?

5. What study strategies and study techniques help you take tests with confidence?

6. What tips come in handy on the actual day of the test?

7. How should students plan their time during essays?

8. Can you complete Albert Einstein's quote: “Not everything that counts can be
measured and ….........”? What do you make of it?

Activity 6. Testing Times

Testing Times

1a. Reading. Multiple Matching

It’s that season of the year again: Exam Time. Read how four authors reflect on
their own experiences of a ritual that everyone fears and no one forgets.

For questions 1-16, answer by choosing from the list of writers (A-D) on the right
below. Some of the choices may be required more than once.

Which writer or writers…

talks about school exams? 1. … 2. …

describes an oral exam? 3. …4. … 5. …

found they minded more about an exam than

they thought they would? 6. …

often realized how little they knew? 7. …

talks about how they prepared for an exam? 8. … 9. …

looks back on an exam with pleasure? 10. …

mentions the value of exams? 11. …

revised for the wrong questions? 12. …

suggests that it’s important to begin

revising early? 13. …

mentions a strong feeling of fellowship with

other students? 14. …

says that creative thought was discouraged

at school? 15. … 16. …

A Rose Tremain

Exams come early. Always earlier than you’d expected. The knack is to see them
from a long way off.

At boarding school, I and a small group of friends tried to steal a march on them by
giving up three hours of sleep each night, setting our alarm clocks and creeping
down to our revision books at four in the morning, sustained by oranges saved
from breakfast the day before.

It would be dark at first and awesomely1 quiet in the old school room, and we felt
like burglars. Into our heads, as dawn came into the silent study, was crammed the
information we needed. We learnt it all off-pat because this was how we’d been
taught it. In those days, at a girls’ boarding school, nobody did much thinking.
Information was given out, taken down, memorised and recycled.

But we all passed. We flew through Biology, History, Eng. Lit., Geography,
French, Latin. What no one but us had witnessed was those early summer dawns
where three hours of extra work had lain hidden. And all that remained of us, when
the rest of the school began its day, was the astringent smell of oranges able to
tighten up the skin.

B Tim Willocks

In order to qualify as doctors, we had to take something over 50 examinations in

six years, the failure in any one of which prevented us from progressing to the
next. Exams walked at our side, day and night. Oral exams, multiple choice exams,
essay exams, practicals, research projects and more. Under these conditions there
was an unspoken sense of an elite superiority, compared to other university
students attending five lectures and one tutorial a week (less than we had each
day). Or perhaps that was just me. I don’t usually take it upon myself to speak for
others, but in this case, the sense of shared struggle and discovery that I remember
is so strong that I feel justified in taking the liberty. We all of us, I believe, were
repeatedly humbled by our ignorance and by the scale of the endeavour before us.

But of all the exams I took, the type that provoked the greatest tension was the viva
voce – the so-called “orals”. One entered a large – usually dimly-lit – room in
which anything from three to six bored demi-gods sat in judgement behind a broad
table and fired questions.

While I often hated the exams, I never resented them. I always acknowledged the
fact that I would never have made the enormous effort necessary without being
cajoled, threatened and bullied into the task by the seemingly endless series of
trials that they set us.

C A. S. Byatt

Every year I dream that I am in an exam hall and cannot start to write until I have
found the right size of paper from a heap like a mountain. Exams haunt our
nightmares as sabre-toothed tigers haunted our ancestors.

But an exam is one of my best memories. I took the Cambridge Entrance exams in
1953, the only girl in my school, sitting in my headmistress’s study. I was
summoned to interview at Cambridge and I was walking away when the secretary
called me back – I was wanted for an oral examination for a scholarship. I
remember lecturing the assembled dons, standing at a blackboard, and finding they
were interested. Those exams were the first time I had really felt anyone was
interested in what I was interested in, and in what I thought about. At school you
had to hide what you were really thinking about, not speak of the music you were
listening to or the poetry you were reading.

D Patrick Gale

I assumed the postcard from Oxford contained my degree result. A second would
have been nice but I was quite prepared for a third. I didn’t greatly care. Novelists
had no need of degrees. Only it wasn’t the result. It was a summons to present
myself for a ‘viva voce’ examination the following week.

In one fell swoop3 my fragile adult life collapsed. Try as I might to shrug it off as a
pointless ritual, I found myself caring deeply. I had kept my exam papers as a grim
momento and now felt compelled to begin revising all over again. Assuming
myself a borderline third, I concentrated on the questions I had answered poorly.

The exam was nightmarish, conducted with the solemnity of a job interview. Some
six examiners faced me in a horseshoe formation. I was empty-handed. They had
glasses of water and, I saw to my horror, photocopies of my scrawled exam papers.
Thinking to put me at my ease, their leader explained that they had called me
because several of my essays had been very good and if I could just expand on
them sufficiently to raise them to excellence, I would win a first. They were giving
no thought to the subjects over which I had just sweated a week’s worth of blood.
Oh no.

It was a disaster, of course. The subjects I had shone in were now dim in my
memory, where I was fluent on paper, I was a stammering dullard1 in the flesh,
and the panel awarded me the second3 I would have been happy with all along.

– From Focus on Advanced English, CAE, by Sue O’Connell

1b. Answer these questions:

1. Are all the students’ accounts of their experiences favourable or
unfavourable?

2. How did they feel about having to take exams? Nervous,

overanxious,uncertain, resentful, terrified, gratified, proud?

3. Do they, any of them, tend to exaggerate the terror of being examined, ordo
they seem to take a sober, realistic view of the experience?

4. Which of the reports impressed you as the most encouraging?

2. Vocabulary
a) Find the following words and phrases in the first two sections of the text and
think about the likely meaning. Then choose a suitable explanation from those on
the right (a-f).

1. the knack a. persuaded by praise

2. steal a march b. so that it can be repeated without thinking

3. off-pat c. secretly gain an advantage

4. taking the liberty d. persuaded by fear

5. cajoled e. trick/secret of success

6. bullied f. doing sth without asking permission

b) Now say what you think the following expressions from Section D mean.

1. in one fell swoop

2. shrug it off

3. scrawled

4. in the flesh

c) Look at these examples from the text, and answer the questions.

1. We flew through Biology, History, English Literature (Section A)

Did they find the exams easy or difficult? What results did they get?

2. (The examiners) fired questions. (Section B)

How did they ask questions?

3. The papers I had shone in … (Section D)

How did he do on those papers?

3. Speaking. Further discussion

Consider the views on exams expressed in the following short text extracts. Which
opinion do you agree with most/least?

A “[Exams] leave you brain-washed and stupid. I have learned many facts but not
thought (no need).”

Diary entry written by 15!year!old Helen Simpson

B “The thing about exams is that they do give you a clear goal to work towards.
And there’s a problem-solving element to some of the questions, which quite
appeals to me too. It’s a bit like doing crossword puzzles. The best thing is
checking the answers and finding out how you’ve done.”

An exam candidate

C “Exams are a necessary evil, I suppose. They can be nightmarish to prepare for
and there’s always going to be an element of luck on the day. All the same, I don’t
think anyone’s come up with a really viable alternative yet.”

An examiner
D “Exams encourage cheating. I think it’s much fairer to have a system of
continuous assessment, where you have to submit regular coursework.”

A teacher

E “Coursework allows the student to freely express a thought or idea and also
benefits those students who have ability but do not like examination conditions.”

Peter Jones, a volunteer school helper