Should graduates be issued an exit exam? Why or why not?

Should graduates be issued an exit exam? Why or why not?

• I am doing a research paper and have been tossing around the question of post-assessment. Those of you who have attended school beyond high school, I am interested in your opinions, please tell me your level of education, current job, and brief reason why we should or should not issue pre-graduation assessment tests. Engineers, Doctors, and Lawyers are all issued tests that authorize them to work in their respective fields; how is this any different? Thanks in advance! Zozz

• Answer:

  Hello, As you know but others may not, I'm a third year graduate student in mathematics. There is something to be said about standard examinations, and that is that one can do very well on them yet not know the subject very well at all. If one wanted to they could simply study for the examinations without ever attending class at all. Students already do for tests like the GRE, MCAT, LSAT and such. Each of these tests has textbooks written by Princeton and Barons on the test and sample exams readily available. I doubt that a single test can ever really measure a student's knowledge in a subject area, and that's my problem with tests in general. You can just study for them and after the test date just drop anything that was in the test. Should a standard test be the only requirement or the only metric for student qualification? I don't think so. Will I have to decide which analogy best matches the one given, or which of the following sets of numbers in not a Pythagorean triple in less than 2 minutes? No. In practice, I have the internet and other resources as well as other people to work with to decide the answer. I am also able to back up my answer with evidence and make a well informed decision. I think this is much better than getting down to two answers and deciding between which of the two is "more correct" so I can get credit for the question in order to pass. Where does this, test my reasoning? What test measures my ability to work hard, work well with other people and to actually sit down and make sure I'm happy with all my answers and conclusions before I hand them in? No such tests exist. In general your grades in school and your performance in class determine how well you consistently perform and test on these abilities which I think are far more important. I believe that test have a place, PART of an entire process to qualify someone to practice in an area. I have liked what my school as done. In order to qualify for my PhD I had to take 4 topic areas. In each of these topic areas consisted of 2 – 3 courses. If we didn't get an A- average in a subject area we had to take a qualifying examination over those 2 - 3 courses (or sometimes topics which the teacher skipped but the test writer thought were important). I think this is a really good practice. Indeed many schools require you to take GRE subject tests in your area or some sort of entrance exam into the school. However the requirements for entrance or passing are normally not explicit, my guess is that this is because they want to look at you compared to other applicants but don't want a something in stone. This allows the flexibility to accept or pass you without the headaches of read tape. Again I tend to like this practice as opposed to you must get this score on this test to be considered for admittance. So after reading what I have wrote I suppose I like entrance and exit exams in moderation. I hope this helps you out.